BT helps SMEs tool up online

BT has moved a step further beyond its traditional role as a supplier of telecommunications services, by releasing an online sharing space for small businesses.

BT Workspace, which is designed to help groups of people share information and manage projects, gives users the opportunity to check status updates for themselves and manage personal contacts, tasks, calendar events, "milestones" and documents. This is a similar approach to the one taken by other hosted applications like those in the Windows Live stable, and is in fact built on Microsoft Sharepoint.

Bill Murphy, managing director of BT Business, described Workspace as "a simple, powerful and inexpensive tool that enables small businesses to improve their customer relationships".

Murphy also claimed using Workspace means "you don't need an IT team because [BT manages] all the technology for you".

The full service costs £7.50 (excluding VAT) for each 'Company Workspace' user per month, with 100MB storage included for each paid user. 'BT Workspace Lite' is free, although it includes only two 'Project Workspaces', two 'Company Workspace' users and 10MB of storage.

David Meyer writes for ZDNet UK