06
March
2006
|
17:01 PM
America/Los_Angeles

Six Apart beefs up its hosted blog service for business users

I nearly got to speak with Anil Dash, vp at Six Apart, the publisher of Movable Type--which we use here on SVW--but we kept missing each other.


Basically it boils down to a hosted solution for corporations and a way to do an end-run around a slow moving corporate IT team. Why wait for the IT department to implement your corporate blog! You can set it up in minutes...


Here is the press release for more info:

From Six Apart:


New TypePad Business Class builds on Six Apart’s experience powering over 75% of Fortune 500 blogs today


San Francisco, CA—March 7, 2006—Six Apart, the world leader in blogging software and services for individuals and businesses, today announced a new strategy for expanding its business blogging solutions to meet the needs of this rapidly expanding market in 2006.


The strategy includes several new product and service launches, growing the company’s already large developer network, expanded partnerships, increased engineering resources devoted to developing business services, customer education programs and enterprise-level support options.


“2006 will be the year that blogging becomes an essential business communication tool,” said Barak Berkowitz, Six Apart’s chief executive officer. “With more experience in business blogging than any other company in the world and the widest network of partners, we are the leaders in helping small and large enterprises across the globe make the most effective use of blogs. This strategy will further cement our place as the provider of choice for business blogging.”


As a first delivery on its strategy, Six Apart today launched TypePad Business Class, a new service designed specifically to meet the integration, security, control and management needs of enterprises and large organizations. It also ensures that Six Apart offers the broadest range of blogging solutions for business available today.


Among the many companies currently using Six Apart’s blogging software and services are Adobe, Amazon, Boeing, Casio, Cisco, Conde Nast, Discovery, eBay, EMI Music, Fuji, Forbes.com, General Motors, Hitachi, Honeywell, Intuit, Los Angeles Times, Motorola, MSNBC, Nissan Motor, Oracle Japan, Proctor & Gamble, Ricoh, University of Michigan, Viacom, Visa, Wal-Mart, Washington Post, Xerox, and Yahoo.


TypePad Business Class was created using the real-world experience of thousands of companies who use Six Apart’s blogging platforms to create internal and external blogs read by millions of employees and customers. Combined with Six Apart’s current offerings, extensive professional network of developers, systems integrators and IT professionals, new business blogging tools and a host of support options, Six Apart aims to demystify business blogging and give customers the tools they need to leap into a new era of communication with their customers and employees.


TypePad Business Class is a cost-effective hosted service geared specifically to companies with high-traffic sites who want to use blogs to engage with their audience, like media companies. With TypePad Business Class, companies can easily create and manage multiple blogs that reach numerous customers in both niched and broad communities. It offers:


· A set-up process so simple that companies can literally be ready to publish overnight


· Ability to set up and maintain blogs without the need to use IT resources


· Automatic updates to the latest software versions


· Advanced customization for total flexibility and control of layout and design


· Advanced comment and spam controls


· Four distinct administration roles per blog, with the ability to assign an unlimited number of bloggers to each role


· Enterprise services such as added bandwidth allowances, invoicing options and priority technical support with guaranteed response times


A second new product Movable Type Enterprise was announced for the Japanese market and is in beta tests with several companies in the US. Movable Type Enterprise is a server-based blogging platform used behind a company’s firewall and is ideal for companies looking for secure enterprise-wide deployments, advanced configuration and integration with existing enterprise systems. It offers:


· Fast creation of fully-featured and easily customizable blogs


· Platform integration for the Oracle 10g database, as well as MySQL, PostGres and many other open source databases


· Quick and easy set up using existing enterprise authentication tools like LDAP, giving site managers control over blog comments, who can blog and what permissions they have


· Powerful anti-spam protection


· Customizable email integration


· Support for unlimited blogs, allowing companies to easily create separate blogs for each project, client or workgroup, all centrally managed


· World-class customer support


In addition to TypePad Business Class and Movable Type Enterprise, Six Apart also offers solutions for home offices and smaller businesses, as well as versions and special pricing for educational institutions and non-profit organizations. A complete listing of products and their benefits can be found at http://www.sixapart.com/business.



As part of its education outreach, Six Apart is helping produce or is participating in a series of in-person seminars to help companies get started in blogging. The first of these is the Blog Business Summit on March 16, 2006 in Los Angeles, with more information available at http://blogbusinesssummit.com.


For companies looking for additional assistance, the Six Apart Professional Network offers access to thousands of developers, designers, consultants, system integrators and IT professionals around the world who have expertise in Six Apart’s business blogging solutions.


TypePad Business Class is available immediately, starting at $89.95 per blog per month, for 4GB of storage and 40 GB of bandwidth per month. Movable Type Enterprise is available today in Japan and will be available worldwide later this year.