Microsoft’s more cohesive online offering – Office 365 – marks a new product strategy for the company, making its Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) – through which the software biggie has been offered hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and other popular servers – especially affordable for small businesses.

While Microsoft has earlier been branding and marketing its productivity-oriented online services differently, Office 365 essentially consolidates BPOS and Office Live Small Business initially, with Live@edu soon to join in - all under one brand.

With Office 365 actually being a way for Microsoft to sell its Office and Office-type server products as consolidated hosted offerings, the product will have two versions - Office 365 Beta for enterprises and Office 365 Beta for small businesses.

According to Microsoft, both the versions of Office 365 are subscription services, which chiefly include access to Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and the new Lync Online – which is Microsoft’s next-generation version of Office Communications Server.

Boasting notable additions like the Office 2010 Professional Plus client software and 24x7 support, the enterprise version of Office 365 is priced at $2 to $24 per user, per month and has volume-license options. Meanwhile, the small business version, which is aimed at businesses with 25 or fewer workers, will cost $6 per user per month.

At present, Office 365 is available for testing in a beta version; with its final version likely to become available sometime in 2011.