SMB Tech Roll-up: Google and Verizon Partner to Offer Apps, IBM Targets SMBs with New Releases

By David Roe (@druadh20) Feb 3, 2011

This week, IBM held its Lotusphere get together, offering Big Blue a chance to highlight some of its recent releases — two of which target the SMB market specifically, Google and Verizon got together to offer SMB bundled apps, HubSpot goes social and CMSWire goes to the White House.

Google and Verizon Partner

A surprising partnership between broadband business services provider Verizon (news, site) and Google has resulted in the creation of Google Apps for Verizon, which includes business applications like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites.

Specifically designed for SMBs, it provides them with a domain name and email, and aims to boost their productivity by making cloud-based capabilities available to employees, whether in an office or on the go.

The new offering for Verizon business customers includes 25 GB (gigabytes) of domain name e-mail storage per user, web-based documents, spreadsheets and presentation tools, instant messaging and more to help small and medium-sized businesses and their employees collaborate seamlessly.

All the features can be easily accessed online from any computer, as well as on smartphones and other mobile devices, allowing you to get your work done in an anywhere, anytime mobile environment.

The bundles with Google Apps are available in Washington, D.C., and different locations within 12 other states. Google Apps for Verizon is also available as a stand-alone service to all businesses across the country for US$ 3.99 per month per user. It’s not clear whether this deal will be extended to other states.

White House Outlines SMB Strategy

This week, CMSWire went to the White House. The event was the launch of Startup America, a national campaign to help America achieve the goal of promoting high-growth entrepreneurship.

High on that list of goals, which were listed at the event, was that of supporting the growth of SMBs and the technologies that help businesses develop and grow.

The technological focus of the campaign is underlined by the presence of a long list of IT entrepreneurs including AOL (news, site) founder Steve Case.

The event also provided the opportunity for entrepreneurs to share their small business stories and adventures with contributions from people like Jennifer Zeszut at Scoutlabs, a social media monitoring company in San Francisco, to Kimberly Brown at AmethystTechnologies in Baltimore.

Many corporations also used Startup America to showcase their own investments in entrepreneurs and small businesses. IBM, for instance, announced that they will invest US$ 150 million in 2011 to fund programs promoting entrepreneurs and new business opportunities. While not strictly technology orientated, the implications of SMB technology are profound. Interested in more?

IBM Enters Cloud Office Market

Competition in the Web office suite space shifted into a higher gear this week when IBM (news, site) launched LotusLive Symphony for the cloud, an office suite that offers a social platform enabling simultaneous collaboration on documents in the cloud.