Small Business Center Replaces bCentral

bCentral will be phased out by summer 2004 as Microsoft relaunches its small business Web site with less emphasis on services and original content and more prominence given to information about Microsoft software geared to small businesses. The replacement site will be called Small Business Center, a brand that better identifies the focus of the site as small businesses (defined by Microsoft as fewer than 25 employees and fewer than 49 PCs).

Shift in Branding

Doug Leland, general manager of small business sales and marketing in Microsoft’s Small and Midmarket Sales and Partners (SMS&P) Group, said that while bCentral has been a “very successful” project for Microsoft, with 2 million registered (but not necessarily paying) members and 7 million unique visitors each month, the bCentral brand itself is not well known. Small Business Center better identifies the focus of the site. (bCentral could be for businesses of any size.)

The new site also addresses a concern that bCentral customers interested in Microsoft products and services had to look elsewhere on the microsoft.com Web site for this information. The Small Business Center will provide better links and more information about small-business-oriented software, such as Windows Small Business Server, and Office Small Business Edition, as well as other Microsoft products and services of interest to small companies.