Top Microsoft  executives speaking in San Francisco next week are expected to reveal the first in what many observers believe will be a range of hosted services from the software company, analysts said Friday.

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie will hold a press and analyst event in San Francisco on Tuesday where they will, among other things, "preview upcoming technologies from Microsoft," according to an e-mail about the event from Microsoft's public relations firm, Waggener Edstrom.

Analysts said the two high-profile industry executives are likely to unveil hosted services from Microsoft that steer users toward using other components of Microsoft's software platform. Microsoft executives have announced the company's intent to offer hosted services but have not unveiled many details of that plan so far.

"I think they’re going to announce business-focused services that are complements to Microsoft’s software," said Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft. "I think at the [July] financial analyst meeting, [executives] said clearly they saw it as a viable business. ... Outside vendors are proving it’s a viable business."

Microsoft will probably follow the lead of companies such as Intuit and Salesforce.com and offer both a hosted document data-sharing service and a hosted CRM (customer relationship management) service, Helm said. Intuit offers the former with its QuickBase service, and Salesforce.com offers the latter with its namesake service, Salesforce.com.

Hosted CRM would not be new territory for Microsoft, since the company's MSN division offered a hosted CRM service called ClearLead as part of its BCentral for Hosted Small Business Services in 2000, but it didn't catch on with customers.

"It was too early, and MSN didn’t have a strong brand recognition in the small-business area," Helm said. "Since then, Salesforce.com has shown that [hosted CRM] is a viable business, and this time around Microsoft has a better understanding of how to get to customers."

In addition, analysts expect the two executives to discuss new services from Groove Networks, Ozzie's company that Microsoft purchased in March, such as a secure file-sharing service companies can use to collaborate with trusted partners.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.