Microsoft has made its hosted business applications available to users in 18 countries outside the United States with the Monday release  of a trial version expected to go on sale in April, the Redmond, Washington-based software giant announced at the CeBIT trade show in Germany. Microsoft also revealed that pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline would adopt Microsoft's selection of hosted applications for about 100,000 of its computers, in place of certain products from rivals Lotus and Google. GlaxoSmithKline Signs Multi-year Hosted Application Agreement With Microsoft Under the new Microsoft global push test versions of the company's Web-based software applications became available to users in Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Norway, Japan, Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark and Austria. Companies in the test run were able to try out Microsoft's hosted, or cloud-computing-based, applications for up to 20 users. Businesses have been more reluctant than individuals to store sensitive information using so-called online software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications such as Google Apps, often fearing that private business information will reside on computer servers operated by another firm and due to availability concerns inherent with a technology that can only function fully with a working Internet connection. By extending the availability of its Business Productivity Online Suite to users in 18 countries outside the United States, Microsoft signaled its intention to move towards increasing its user base for the collaboration and productivity applications from a current global deployment of 600,000 desktops, Microsoft said. Microsoft Seeks To Expand Its 600,000-Desktop Base For Hosted Applications GlaxoSmithKline joined other large corporate users of Microsoft's hosted applications such as Coca-Cola and Eddie Bauer, signing a multi-year agreement. "We have chosen Microsoft Online Services because it promises to deliver a simple intuitive Information  Workplace that should not only value to the company through simplification, but provide an improved user experience and ultimately create a more productive GSK," said GlaxoSmithKline chief information officer Bill Louv in a statement released Monday. "GlaxoSmithKline has more than 100,000 employees, hundreds of business partners, and locations around the world, so effective collaboration is critical to our business," Louv added. GlaxoSmithKline vice president of information technology strategy Ingo Elfering said the move to use Microsoft's hosted applications would cut operational costs. Microsoft To Expand Hosted Services In 18-Country Global Push "The move to Microsoft Online Services will help GlaxoSmithKline cut operational costs by an estimated 30 percent and create a variable cost model that will provide increased flexibility in the future," Elfering said. Online software revenue was expected to top $6.4 billion in 2008 and more than double by 2012 to $14.8 billion, according to October 2008 research by analysts at Gartner Inc. The cloud computing delivery method has played a major role in propelling Internet search and advertising giant Google into its position as one of the world's largest Internet company's, and its chief executive officer Eric Schmidt sees the Internet connecting even more devices as an important factor in Google's continued growth. While some at Microsoft may downplay the importance of the shift to Web-based applications, the trend toward cloud computing delivery has been predicted to be a lucrative one, and Microsoft's global expansion announced Monday along with it's new GlaxoSmithKline agreement appeared likely to strengthen its hosted application position. Related Links:
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