Office Professional 2007 What does 'SharePoint in

Microsoft started shipping, beginning November 17, the ultimate version of its Exchange On the net and SharePoint Internet Microsoft-hosted companies. Are these goods complete variations of Microsoft’s enterprise software running in “in the cloud”? The short answer: No.
Microsoft’s growing family of On line companies are a key component of the company’s Software + Solutions strategy. Microsoft has said that it plans to make available all of its enterprise software items as hosted solutions. The last version of Communications Server On the net (the Microsoft-hosted Office Communication Server) is due out in 2009, officials said today, as are hosted variations of Microsoft’s security infrastructure and management solutions. (My guess is this means Forefront On the internet and System Center Over the internet.)
Customers of all sizes — from largest enterprises to single-person shops — can buy these hosted solutions from Microsoft and about 1,500 partners who’ve signed up to resell them. Microsoft says it already has sold 500,Office 2007 Enterprise,000 seats of Exchange Online,Windows 7 Pro, which customers are deploying starting today.
These new Microsoft On the web companies currently run on servers in Microsoft’s datacenters. They do not (yet) run on top of Microsoft’s Azure cloud operating system platform; Microsoft hasn’t provided a timetable as to when they will and how/if this will have any impact on these services, in terms of performance, reliability or availability.
Microsoft officials are touting customers’ ability to run these hosted solutions on their own companies in their own datacenters,Office Professional Plus 2010, but so far haven’t said when this option will be available.
Update: A Microsoft spokeswoman said my understanding here was incorrect and that Microsoft will not allow users to run SharePoint On the internet or any other of its On-line providers in their own datacenters. Microsoft is offering users three Software+Service deployment options: on-premise software-only (SharePoint Server running on a customer’s systems at their own facilities); Microsoft-hosted (SharePoint Online); or partner-hosted (Hosted SharePoint). That’s it.
This is somewhat surprising to me, given that Microsoft is touting Azure’s virtualization functionality as enabling users to have more deployment options. From a Microsoft official, cited in a new blog entry on Virtualization Review:
“In the future, Windows Azure Companies Platform will allow customers to run Windows Server 2008-based virtual machines in the cloud and move Windows Server virtual machines back and forth between cloud and on-premise servers. Currently, Windows Azure Solutions Platform does not support customers uploading virtual machines containing any version of Windows Server.”
Meanwhile,Office Professional 2007, back to SharePoint Online….Microsoft is pushing cost- and energy-saving messages as reasons customers might be interested in its Over the internet solutions. Company officials are telling users they can save 10 percent in IT costs by running the hosted edition of these companies vs. the software-only equivalents, and up to 50 percent if they replace “legacy systems” with Microsoft On the net offerings. Microsoft also is offering users a service-level agreement guaranteeing 99.9 percent up-time of these new Microsoft-hosted services. The hosted edition of Microsoft’s On the net services typically run about $15 per month per user.
As Forrester Research noted earlier this year, however,Office 2010, SharePoint Internet is not simply a the hosted version of SharePoint Server. A number of SharePoint Server’s capabilites and features are not offered to users if they take the hosted approach. Examples: The business data catalog, use of Excel companies and enterprise data search. Check out this Forrester table (from a July 2008 SharePoint research note) for the more total comparison:
For some users, this stripped-down feature set is no doubt worth the cost savings. Others — who aren’t ready to entrust Microsoft (or any cloud vendor, for that matter) with their data — or who need all the functionality in Exchange, SharePoint, etc., will stick with the software-only versions of these goods.
Anyone out there looking hard at Exchange Internet, SharePoint Via the internet, etc.? What are the plusses and minuses, in your book?