REDMOND, Wash., and CHICAGO, March 7, 2002 — Bank One Corporation and Microsoft Corp. today launched the first phase of their strategic relationship: a joint effort to provide easy access to the small-business management solutions of Microsoft® bCentral®
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Bank One customers now have access through bankone.com to the bCentral suite of integrated business solutions that helps small businesses better manage their everyday business processes. These easy-to-use solutions, built on the .NET platform, allow small businesses to create and manage an effective Web presence, improve sales and marketing effectiveness, and respond more quickly to customers.
“Together with Microsoft, Bank One helps businesses with banking and online business solutions because we know that owners have more than a full-time job just serving their customers and running their companies,” said Bank One Executive Vice President Michael Cleary. “Our alliance with Microsoft gives our customers a key advantage in a competitive world.”
In December, Bank One and Microsoft announced a strategic relationship valued at more than $30 million to jointly promote and develop services and products for the two companies’ U.S. customers, focusing on consumers and small and mid-size businesses.
“We are committed to helping small businesses meet their business management needs with solutions that can grow with them as they grow” said Jeff Riley, senior director of business development at Microsoft bCentral. “Bank One has a similar approach to the small-business customer, so we’re pleased to extend our services to its customer base.”
The first phase of the Bank One-Microsoft bCentral focus on small businesses includes the opportunity for Bank One customers to learn more about and subscribe to these popular bCentral solutions:
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Create and manage an effective web presence: Web Hosting provides comprehensive hosting and email services that utilize popular web authoring tools.
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Improve marketing effectiveness: Traffic Builder combines the benefits of two popular marketing tools — Submit It! and List Builder. This allows small businesses to market their sites on top search engines as well as through advertising on a broad web-based advertising network. Businesses also can deliver a comprehensive email marketing campaign and build a customer community with e-mail newsletters.
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Increase and manage sales: Commerce Manager helps users quickly and easily build an online catalog and sell products on their website or popular Internet marketplaces such as eBay.
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Respond more quickly to customers: Online appointment scheduling through Appointment Manager helps save businesses time and money while improving customer service.
Bank One customers can access the bCentral solutions at http://bankone.com/bcentral/overview/ .
About Bank One
Bank One (NYSE “ONE”) is the nation’s sixth-largest bank holding company, with assets of more than $265 billion. Bank One offers a full range of financial services to commercial and business customers and consumers. It can be found on the Internet at http://www.bankone.com/ .
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft and bCentral are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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