SBC, Yahoo! Expand Suite of SMB Services

SBC Communications and Yahoo! this week launched a suite of new Web hosting services for small businesses. The new integrated service offerings are designed to give small businesses greater flexibility when combining Web hosting with voice and data services — as well as more bang for the buck when buying bundled services. The new
SBC Yahoo! Small Business offerings include:

• SBC Yahoo! Web Hosting: Offers a choice of three plans that provide increasing levels of functionality to meet a variety of small business needs. The service ranges in price from $8.37 a month to $39.95 a month. The services includes domain name hosting with up to 35 business-branded e-mail accounts, access to Web design tools and templates, up to 350 MB of storage for files and images, up to 35 GB a month of data transport (bandwidth), a 24-hour toll-free phone line for support, and in-depth business reporting tools.
• SBC Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: E-commerce solutions are also available in three plans — Intro, Enhanced, and Premium. Monthly prices range from $27.97 a month plus a 1.5 percent transaction fee to $299.95 a month with a 0.75 percent transaction fee. The service includes all of the SBC Yahoo! Web Hosting Premium features, plus shopping cart and checkout pages that automatically calculate tax and shipping charges, product information and inventory level tracking, an order management system to process, track and confirm status of orders, merchandising tools such as coupons, automated cross-selling and gift certificates, along with detailed product sales and Web site performance reporting.
• SBC Yahoo! Business Mail: Offers small businesses the opportunity to create custom e-mail addresses for monthly costs ranging from $6.97 to $9.95. The plan includes five custom e-mail accounts with 25 MB of storage each, access to e-mail from a Web browser or POP mail client, SpamGuard junk mail protection, the ability to send up to 10 attachments per e-mail for a total of 10 MB per message, and e-mail archiving.

For SBC, the new small business services expand upon their flagship small business bundle, SBC Connections for Business. For Yahoo, the co-branded services raise awareness of its Web-based solutions for small businesses. The co-brand also helps Yahoo expand its marketing and sales channel for small business products.

In addition to the new services, small businesses may be eligible for deep discounts on their monthly communications bills.

Under the Web Advantage program, small businesses that bundle SBC Yahoo! digital subscriber line (DSL) or dial-up services with other programs — Business Mail, Web Hosting, or Merchant Solutions — can save up to 20 percent on their monthly communications fees.

Under the Hosting Connections discount, small businesses that also subscribe to a qualifying voice plan from SBC or its local affiliates can receive discounts of up to 30 percent on monthly communications fees.

To be eligible for either discount, small businesses must subscribe to Internet Access and Small Business services using the same SBC Yahoo! User ID. SBC Yahoo! Small Business services and the new SBC bundled service discount offers are available immediately.