BlueTie Offers Free Email and Calendaring for Small Businesses

WebKnowHow
Monday, October 23, 2006; 04:29 AM

BlueTie, Inc., provider of small business email and calendaring services, announced that it has begun offering its online service for free. The firm currently supports hundreds of thousands of paid users. This move introduces collaboration software free as a service, replacing other client-server solutions like Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. BlueTie is supported by a business model that generates revenue through partnerships with trusted business service providers.

BlueTie online calendar.

BlueTie has developed a patent-pending method to drive revenue from its free offering by presenting value-added services to users through partnerships with well-known companies such as Orbitz, Constant Contact and many others. Unlike free consumer email services such as Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Google Gmail – which secure revenue through advertising - these partners provide a wide range of useful small business services such as the ability to book travel, send and receive faxes, and purchase office supplies from within the application. There are no banner, text or other advertisements within the application and the use of partner services is entirely optional.

“We’re democratizing technology by delivering full-featured business software at no cost, while providing a user experience that is superior in speed and performance to traditional desktop applications,” said David Koretz, founder, president and CEO of BlueTie. “Our revenue model enables us to deliver this software for free, while growing our business through partnerships with leading small business vendors.”

The free online email, calendaring and collaboration solution is now available within the United States at www.BlueTie.com.

BlueTie’s offering includes business class email with domain name support and spam and virus protection, integrated with shared calendars, files and contacts. The free offering supports up to 20 users per account and includes administrative tools that make it easy for any small business to manage.

Email accounts can be personalized to reflect a company’s domain for a more professional appearance, such as [email protected]. Each user receives five Gigabytes (GB) of email and file storage – the highest capacity of any online business application – and a desktop-like experience including rich-text formatting, spellcheck and drag-and-drop folders.

BlueTie said it will soon introduce integrated travel reservation services from Orbitz, and email marketing services from Constant Contact. Additional services, such as web conferencing, small business credit cards and office supplies ordering, will be phased in over time. Partners and services are all nationally recognized brands and are selected based on their relevance to small businesses.