Though the quest to acquire Yahoo dominated news surrounding Microsoft's Web strategy in 2008, another story was brewing quietly behind the scenes that could be even more significant for the company in the long run -- its move to offer hosted business productivity services.
The company makes much of its revenue from selling software licenses to enterprises. Those customers are starting to see value in using software that's hosted remotely on the Web -- or in "the cloud" -- and less in building out expensive IT systems in-house, which is becoming even more cost-prohibitive now as economies around the world falter.
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