Specifically, we re integrating certain USPS online services, such as NetPost Mailing Online, with Microsoft bCentral Business Web Services, an offering that allows small businesses to create a Web site, promote their products and services online and manage company communications. The collaboration will bring small businesses more solutions that help them be more efficient, saving time and money. By delivering software as a service to meet the core needs of small businesses, we re putting the customer at the center of the equation throughout the planning and development phases. Rather than have the user click here and there, and log onto multiple sites, to complete a particular business transaction, Microsoft and USPS will be working together to integrate services that focus on the task at hand. I think one of the biggest impacts this will have on small businesses is that it will give them the ability to do direct mail as efficiently and easily as a Fortune 500 company.
Direct mail is one of the best marketing tools around, but it s grown up around big businesses.
By combining bCentral services and USPS expertise, we re offering small businesses the capability to use the desktop and the Internet to create and distribute direct mail. For bCentral customers, we re the best connection for delivery in the physical world that you could ask for. We are the only service that delivers to every address in the United States. A small business, by our definition, usually has fewer than 100 employees, so there isn t as much time to spend on learning new programs and accessing several different services to accomplish one task. For small businesses, efficiency is a key factor when they decide which services to purchase.