Microsoft Online Services is out of Beta and ready for prime time. List of products offered through online services is impressive. You can either go for BPOS (Business Productivity Online Standard Suite) which includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting. Or you can subscribe for individual products such as CRM, Email protection, Web conferencing and few more.

Microsoft provides some guidelines about the level of subscriptions suitable for Small Business, Mid market and Enterprise. My feeling is that while Enterprise could be the last to get on board, Small Businesses have much to gain from this service. There are no more troubles of maintaining server, installing software and administrating the infrastructure. Having said that, not all control is surrendered with Online Services. You still have control over what your end user can access.

The subscriptions from what I understand are for 12 months and you can pay on monthly bases.