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These days it seems like everyone is doing the beta thing these days. What was once once a moniker for still-in-development projects that were near completion just needing a few kinks removed has become a catch all phrase for new software and web development with projects rarely leaving beta (hell, I use Gmail as my main email even though it’s still beta).

Even the great Microsoft is not immune to the siren call of the public beta. They’ve just opened up Office Live up to the public (without a wait-list). Rather than web versions of Word and Excel (which is kind of what ‘Office Live’ implies to me), the service is a website creation tool. I heard about it first on dealmac which does a good job of describing it:

[The] Office Live Beta… offers domain name registration with web space for free. Included in the package is a domain name of your choice, 30MB of storage space, 10GB monthly bandwidth limit, five email accounts, design tools, and web traffic reports. Once the beta program closes, it will remain free.

This all sounds too good to be true so I had to check it out. Could Microsoft really be offering such a valuable package for free? A CNET Preview offered some insight:

Microsoft hopes to snag a large share of the market of small businesses still looking to develop a Web presence and manage operations via the Internet. Plus, its logo (linking to Office Live details, of course) will appear on your Web pages. Plans for keyword ads and online shopping are in the works.

It still seems a bit too good though. For example, couldn’t an knowledgeable user (i.e. me) use the free service to get domain registration then simply transfer the domain to another host or modify the name servers to point at another own website? It turns out that there isn’t a simple yes or no answer to that question.

First of all, it seems that besides an advertising vehicle, Microsoft is also using this as a software leverage weapon because they require IE 5.5 with SP4 to use it at all as well as Office 2000 or later for some features.

So, could a knowledgeable user on a PC (i.e. me on a friend’s computer or running Boot Camp) use this service to freely register domain names and then transfer them to another host?

Strangely, I wasn’t able to find much information on transferring domains out of the service once you had registered them there. One would think this would be an important concern, especially if your small business suddenly got popular and you needed things like SSL & database support that aren’t offered as part of Office Live. There doesn’t appear to be any information about this on the FAQ and other information on the official site, nor was it mentioned in any of the previews or other reviews I read. Eventually, several pages deep in a Google Search I found this blog entry which documents one user’s attempt to unsubscribe from the service. While it can hardly be taken as the official word on the question of transferring domains out of the service, it appears from the posted emails that Microsoft will force emigrating users to cancel their accounts as well as waiting 60 days to change registrars. There doesn’t appear to be any mention of simply changing domain name servers (essentially pointing visitors to the domain at a different web host), which, it seems to me, would be preferable to changing registrars).

So after all that, it would seem the answer to my question about if I could use this as a free domain registration would be a qualified no. Unless you’re willing to wait out the sixty days, which doesn’t seem worthwhile considering how cheap it is to actually register a domain name now. Furthermore, you might incur additional fees trying to transfer the domain to another registrar, which kind of ruins the ‘free-ness’ of the offer.

Also, if the 60 day bit is accurate and they don’t allow changing of the domain name servers, then this is a truly evil way that MS plans on locking in small business owners into their service. A nominal fee to change name servers (and prevent freeloaders like me from abusing the services) would be fair, but a 60 day wait is just unacceptable, especially to a growing small business. So please take this as a word of caution: don’t register any domain name that you care about actually using with Office Live.