Microsoft Shows Small Business Software
408260
New Navision 4.0 application includes financial, e-commerce, and CRM tools.
412547
IBM will announced the pre-release of several tools for SMEs designed to speed development of solutions built on IBM middleware. The tools support the IBM Solutions Builder Express Portfolio, which provides
683018
Continuing its push to grab larger chunks of the SMB (small and midsize business) markets, Microsoft on Friday confirmed it will ship a low-end accounting package -- code-named Magellan -- with a new version of Office, and the two will work in concert.
255664
Frankfurt, October 18: Microsoft launched a new software product aimed at small and mid-sized enterprises on Monday to strengthen its position in a fragmented market it sees as ripe for growth.
424839
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft this week unveiled a partner program for its Office Live hosted service for small businesses, a product Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner predicted will one day be nearly as important to the company as its Windows client OS. Through the program, Microsoft partners get an Office Live software development kit and various training opportunities so they can build new services that will be available to subscribers on the Office Live Marketplace, said Marja Koopmans, director of partner strategy for Office Live at Microsoft. The company unveiled the program at its Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver. Microsoft currently has about 50 third-party products listed on the marketplace, Koopmans said. Currently, an Office Live subscriber has to have purchased one of two subscription-based Office Live offerings to buy an application on the marketplace. However, beginning in January, subscribers to the free version of Office Live also can purchase third-party offerings from the marketplace, Koopmans said. Partners also gain access through online forums to Microsoft Office Live engineers for assistance with building new offerings, Koopmans said. In addition to earning revenue by selling new applications, partners can offer consulting services to build Office Live-based Web sites for small businesses, she added. Beginning in January 2008, Microsoft plans to launch an affiliate program for Office Live that will give them revenue-sharing opportunities with Microsoft, Koopmans said. If partners that sell Office Live-based applications on the marketplace refer a customer to purchase an Office Live subscription, Microsoft will share a percentage of whatever the company earns from that customer with the partner. The company will disclose the specific percentage as the program is closer to launching, she added. Microsoft unveiled Office Live in November 2005, and the company is grooming the product -- which gives small businesses tools for building a Web site as well as Web-based e-mail, instant messaging, collaboration and customer relationship management -- to be one of its top sellers. In his keynote at the partner conference Tuesday, Turner said that the hosted service will eventually become one of Microsoft's most popular products alongside long-time top revenue-earners like the Windows client OS and the Office desktop productivity suite. "We do believe it will reach our top three or four largest deployed applications we have around the world," he said. That's a tall order, but at least one partner who is offering an application for small legal firms on the Office Live Marketplace said he thinks Turner's prediction will come true. "The numbers add up and the demand is there," said Joe McDermott, managing director for Solution Canvas Ltd. in Glasgow, Scotland. He said it's been traditionally difficult for small businesses to find IT products tailored to them, and Office Live meets many of their needs. More importantly, he added, broadband is now ubiquitous and more people accept and use online services such as banking, every day. Small businesses are more comfortable going straight to the Web for an IT infrastructure rather than buying and installing products on site themselves. To improve Office Live, Microsoft in the next two months will enhance the service with more options for subscribers to buy ad words on search engines other than Microsoft's Windows Live Search. Currently, subscribers can use the service's AdManager user interface to buy ad words through AdCenter, Microsoft's paid search platform. Microsoft will extend that ability to other search engines, though it is not ready to disclose which ones yet, Koopmans said. In the same time frame, the company will add the ability to build e-commerce sites in Office Live's tool for building Web sites, she added.
559566
Continuing to fill out its Visual Studio tools line, Microsoft on Monday is announcing Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition, intended for developers working in small organizations.
670948
Cisco Systems plans to offer a tool to help small and medium-size businesses use Microsoft CRM software in combination with a Cisco IP communication system.
654319
Company looks to juice its application server business with a version tuned for smaller organizations.
746916
A simplified version of the QuickBooks application will target sole proprietors and other small firms that use basic accounting methods.
187301
Office, Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT.O  collection of programs for business documents and tasks, is  fast becoming a software platform unto itself.
263069
Blog: Microsoft adds Ask keyword ad sales to its adManager service for small businesses.
321816
Many small-business applications that offer templated tools for business owners often fly under the radar, widely unknown to larger businesses.
620448
Beta 2.0 version adds security and management functions to software-and-service product for small businesses.
742645
A new product lets workers combine simple bits of software to create business tools.
562481
Microsoft is launching free software to make it easier for developers to create software compatible with Windows Server 2008.
37844
Microsoft Corp. has released the latest preview versions of two members of its System Center 2007 family of management software.
725545
Microsoft has updated its Office Live Small Business hosted service with new e-commerce and marketing tools to help small businesses sell their products and services online.The new version of Microsoft&#39;s service to help small businesses build a Web presence, unveiled Monday, now includes Store Manager, a tool aimed at helping small businesses build their own e-commerce sites as well as storefronts on eBay.com to sell their products. Store Manager costs US$39.95 per month.Microsoft also has added a beta version of an e-mail marketing service that allows users to send out regular e-mail newsletters, promotions and updates. The service is free for up to 200 e-mails per month during the beta, the company said.Other new features to Office Live Small Business include custom domain name and business e-mail that is available free for one year and $14.95 per year after that. Through the service, businesses can privately register their domain names and brand up to 100 business e-mail accounts, each with 5G bytes of storage, according to Microsoft.Microsoft also has added Web-site customization tools; support for Firefox 2.0 so Mac users can use Office Live Small Business tools and features; and an improved interface and enhanced search ability in Contact Manager, the service&#39;s contact-management system, to the updated service.Office Live Small Business is Microsoft&#39;s Web-based service aimed at giving small businesses a Web site as well as providing basic management, worker collaboration, accounting, and CRM (customer relationship management) capabilities. Microsoft defines small businesses as those with 50 employees or fewer. The service originally was called Office Live but Microsoft recently changed the name.People often mistake Office Live for a Web-based version of Microsoft&#39;s Office productivity suite, one of the reasons Microsoft added &quot;Small Business&quot; to the service&#39;s name. Eventually, Microsoft does plan to offer features of its Office software online as a service, plans Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates discussed Monday at the Microsoft Office System Developer Conference in San Jose, California.Microsoft said Office Live Small Business currently has nearly 600,000 customers in the countries where it is currently available -- the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Japan.More information about Office Live Small Business can be found on the home page for the service.