The folks at Microsoft have decided to take a page from politicians’ playbooks this year and make nice with small businesses.

How so?

They’ve decided to launch a bit of a giveaway. In a bid to get more small companies to do business online, the software maker is offering its suite of online small business services for free.

That’s right, free.

Microsoft will now make key components of Office Live for Small Business available at no charge, and they won’t even demand a credit card to get started.

The Microsoft marketing folks responsible for Office Live Small Business are touting the new app’s e-commerce capabilities, better analytics, improved e-mail marketing capabilities and new pay-per-click advertising tools.

To get more small businesses (typically those with fewer than 10 employees) hooked, users now get a free site, free hosting, free design tools and some 30 free business applications, including a content manager and online workspaces.

Microsoft is also offering a free, private, custom domain for a year (it’s $14.95/year after that) along with 100 ad-supported e-mail accounts with 5GB of storage each.

Of course, you have to look at ads on the site (though there won’t be any ads on your customer-facing pages) and many other services and transactions do carry fees.

This new deal should make Office Live Small Business much more attractive for small companies.

It’s interesting to note that while the suite now works with Firefox, there’s no telling how Microsoft’s machinations to buy Yahoo might affect the suite and how it works with other browsers.

Tags: Microsoft, Office Live, small business, suite