So if you've built a Web site with other tools, have a Web development team, or have hired an outside firm to build a site for you, you're out of luck -- you can't build your own site and then have it hosted on Office 365. Microsoft says that you may eventually be able to use a work-around in which only your mail is hosted on Office 365 and your Web site can remain elsewhere, but there are no details yet.

The site-building tools are simplistic and template-driven, so your site will end up looking generic, with only images and text to distinguish it. There are the usual "About Us," "Contact Us," "Site Map" and "Member Login" navigation links, several preset "zones" where you can place content and so on. You can choose from a variety of different themes that will populate the site with graphics, and there are plenty of these, ranging from accounting to lawn and garden -- but since this is a beta, many of the themes are missing. You can also choose from a number of basic layouts such as one-column, two-column, three-column and so on. And you can define your own custom style sheets and change the background.

On the upside, changing the text is as simple as typing, and publishing is as simple as pressing a button after you've made all your changes. You can also easily preview everything before you publish.

So if you don't yet have a Web site and are looking to get one up and running with the minimum fuss, you may be satisfied, if a generic-looking site is all you need. But those who want something more sophisticated than a fill-in-the-blanks approach will not be pleased.

Microsoft would do well to give people the option to design and post their own sites using their own tools, and allow Office 365 to function as a traditional hosting service, not one that forces you to use predesigned templates.