Several companies have recently announced new B2B marketplaces for SaaS, subscription-based services targeting small business owners.
Verizon has an SMB portal, that they announced in April. Etelos Inc and Renovatix announced another new marketplace, MySMBStore.com last week. They have about 25 different branded, hosted-applications available through their site, and offer business owners their own support in addition to that of the application vendors.
These sites could be a great source of value to SMBs, assuming tha they offer competitive pricing and some additional benefits beyond one-stop shopping. I'd like to see them work with the vendors they represent to offer integrated customer support, ensuring that the different applications integrate well. I'd also like to see bundled offers that give better pricing to users of multiple services.
Barriers to entry are low, but the real opportunity is building a community of small business owners. If these sites invest in advertising and other methods of building awareness, they could leverage economies of scale especially around customer acquisition, something that has been historically difficult for subscription-based businesses trying to reach the smallest businesses.
Many SMB focused SaaS providers seem to be willing to try these sites as part of their referral networks, but the jury is out regarding how influential they will be.
