The collaboration and portal vendor, along with channel partners, intends to propel the two product lines to an underserved market.The largest companies have used Web collaboration and portals for years to support business and workflow, but price and availability have made the technology all but unattainable to most of the SMB market.
The top tier of that market, however, will get its turn this fall, as Vignette Corp., the largest vendor in the field, announced today it is targeting their business.
Through an initial cadre of six VARs, the company intends to propel sales of its collaboration and portal software to the top SMBs—mid-level companies with 1,000 to 10,000 employees. The program is to include a full array of training, support and incentives for VARs, as well as an as yet unestablished pricing model fit for the market, said Mark Belles, vice president of strategic alliances and business development at Vignette.
The company and participating VARs intend the campaign to drive the technology into the arms of a new market, opening new possibilities for the Web presence of those top SMBs and new business opportunities for participating VARs.
"From a public perspective, you're not going to see a real difference in the Web sites you see," said John Cook vice president of business development at LCN Technology, one of the early VARs. "But for the businesses and resellers, the difference will be ease of use, efficiency and cost."
"Everybody out there is collaborating in some way already; it's just a matter of how well" Cook said. "For some it just means swapping e-mails and documents. It's a question of how much easier can I make it for them and this is a big step forward for these smaller businesses. They can do more and better with this solution than anything available right now."
Read the full story on The Channel Insider: Vignette Brings Collaboration, Portals to SMBs
Web Design 
