New Zealand software as a service (SaaS) provider ActionStep has extended its market share into the UK by signing a deal with Deskforce.

Homegown online accounting software company Xero is getting to piggyback on Telstra’s June launch of its “T-Suite”, a software-as-service (SaaS) portal that will mirror Telecom NZ’s Business Hub.

Chief executive Rod Drury says being part of T-suite will give his company access to up to 700,000 Australian small businesses - making it easily Xero’s largest ever reseller deal.

Other T-Suite launch partners include heavyweights like Microsoft, McAfee and SAP.

UPDATE: A rep for Microsoft says Business Productivity Online customers will have a choice of hosting with Telecom, via a Microsoft partner, or on-premise via Gen-i.

Taking a baby step beyond shrink-wrapped software, Microsoft has launched a hosted service called Business Productivity Online suite.

Microsoft has unveiled a new version of Windows, Azure, designed to work in the suddenly trendy cloud computing environment.

While the traditional version of Windows puts Microsoft's OS onto every client PC -- making apps running on, say, Vista, a headache for large companies to update desktop by desktop -- applications built for Azure will sit on computers hosted at Microsoft data centres.