BCentral To Drive Microsoft's ASP Ambitions
11:52 AM EDT Fri. Jul. 28, 2000
From the July 28, 2000 issue of CRN
As previously reported, the software giant will launch later this year a series of new Web services on bCentral including lead generation and management, customer management, business operations, and MybCentral Web services, company executives said during Microsoft's annual financial analyst meeting on Thursday. BCentral is Microsoft's first internally hosted Web service portal.
Microsoft demonstrated its next-generation bCentral Customer Manager and MybCentral Web services to be launched later this year. Another new service, code-named Clearinghouse, is designed to allow small-business owners to publish catalogs to any Internet marketplace. This "list once, sell anywhere" technology also includes hosting online product catalogs.
Microsoft executives also said bCentral will be expanded into five new countries around the globe and integrated with .Net services such as Passport next year.
Microsoft is appealing to its smallest channel partners, value-added providers (VAP), to sell bCentral, its first internally hosted Web service, to small businesses. Microsoft plans to push 855,000 VAPs to switch from selling products such as Office 2000 to selling MSN Web services such as bCentral, says Kathleen Hebert, vice president of Microsoft's small-business division.
In the midst of slowing growth, Microsoft is gunning hard to slice more revenue growth from the most "underserved" segment in the computer market--small businesses, says Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. He also says Microsoft will provide small businesses with Internet-based accounting services and line-of-business offerings so small businesses can outsource all of their IT needs.
Even Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said Microsoft wants to be the leading ASP for small businesses. "The small business market is not a very active market," Gates said during the financial analyst meeting. "Our job is to give them integrated services including line-of-business services that are all integrated, updated and managed by us."
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