Today we released the announcement for our next version; for the whole thing go here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/oct06/10-312007OfficeLivePR.mspx

 Below I took a few snippets out of it

•  Microsoft^® Office Live will be coming out of beta in the United States Nov. 15
• Expanding internationally as well and are also scheduled for free beta availability in France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom on Nov. 21 (was 15, change of plans)
• Web site design tools with asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to allow users to more easily drag and drop content and images into any section of their Web site.
• includes more page templates and the ability to modify and import HTML to create more robust and sophisticated Web sites
• Office Live provides an open platform on which developers can build customized or industry-specific software applications. Three partners participated in the pilot program and have already developed valuable small-business solutions on the Office Live platform, 75 partners worldwide are participating in the Early Adopter Program, building a wide variety of solutions to help meet the unique needs of small businesses.
• Microsoft Office Live Basics: a company domain name; a Web site with 500 MB of storage; 25 company-branded e-mail accounts (each with 2 GB of storage)
• Microsoft Office Live Essentials, offered at $19.95 per month, includes all the features of Office Live Basics, 1 GB of Web site storage, 50 company-branded e-mail, calendar and instant messaging accounts, and Microsoft Office Live Business Contact Manager and online Workspaces for 10 users with 500 MB of storage.
• Microsoft Office Live Premium, $39.95 per month. Services include all the features of Office Live Basics and Office Live Essentials as well as an additional 2 GB of Web site storage; an increased capacity for 20 additional users and 1 GB of storage for the Workspaces. Office Live Premium also provides a rich set of Internet-based applications to help small-business owners streamline and automate the daily business tasks of managing their customers, projects and documents.

Are you a current Office Live Customer? What does the new release mean to you?

We have now published pages @  http://officelive.microsoft.com/Misc/Links.aspx?linkId=preview   that provide more information about the upcoming release. Please make sure you check it out; particularly the “Current Customers” Section (green button almost upper right corner)