Free Domain Name and Web Hosting from Microsoft?

Sounds too good to be true? 

First of all, before getting into the details, I want to state that this entry is not an advertisement. I only post it because I thought it's a piece of information that somebody may be interested in.

 I got this email from Microsoft, saying that I can sign up with Microsoft Office Live Basics for free. What this free service offered includes:

• A company domain name
• A hosted Web site with 30 MB of storage
• Five free e-mail accounts with 2 GB of storage each
• 10 MB E-mail attachment limit
• 10 GB/month data transfer (bandwidth)
• Basic Web site traffic reports

I then followed the link in my email to the site for registration. What I noticed is that there are actually three versions of the service and the Basics is free during and after beta (yes, it's still in the beta stage). For the other two version, Live Collaboration and Essentials, there are $29.95 monthly fee after beta.For this free version, it seems that 30 MB of storage is too small, but the paid service only offers 50 MB of storage.

During the registration, I was asked for credit card information and the reason is "to validate that every customer is a legitimate entity" also 

We also require a credit card to facilitate payment of services during the beta (e.g., the purchase of additional domain names) as well as at the conclusion of the beta period, when customers will be asked if they would like to continue using our services on a paid, monthly subscription basis. With your explicit permission, we can establish monthly billing using your credit card information. You will be able to continue using our services without interruption and without having to submit additional account information.

After providing the credit card information and my Passport login, I got the domain name I chose and can access the temperatory web page with some tools to build my own page, something like a template. I didn't spend any time with the tools yet, so I don't know how the page will look like and whether or not I can customerize it.

Anyway, the whole process seems quite simple and after completing the registration, I received email confirmation about my subscription, which says 

This mail is confirmation that you successfully purchased Microsoft Office Live Basics on Friday, September 22, 2006. Here is a description of your purchase:

This is a free monthly subscription for this Microsoft Office Live beta offer. This offer will end if you cancel your subscription or when the beta concludes, at which time you will have the option to continue with Office Live through a free or fee-based subscription.

The only thing that I am not sure about is whether after the beta ends, I will be automatically swithed to other paid service, or I can keep my current service as it is and only switch if I want. Since, according the the email, I will be asked if I want to switch when the beta end, this won't bother me a lot right now.

If you want to take a look, follow this link. 

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