“Startup Center was built specifically for entrepreneurs who want to turn an idea written on the back of a napkin into a reality,” Bates says.

Microsoft Startup Center Teams with Bank of America, MasterCard and FedEx

Startups generally need funding, and Microsoft’s Startup Center added tools to help entrepreneurs access and manage funds this summer when it announced partnerships with Bank of America Corp., MasterCard Worldwide and FedEx Corporate Services for financial management, payroll and shipping solutions.

Startup Center, which launched in March as an extension of Microsoft’s Small Business Center, focuses on the more than 1 million businesses that startup in the US each year, according to Microsoft estimates.

“Startup Center was built specifically for entrepreneurs who want to turn an idea written on the back of a napkin into a reality – it’s for those who have a business idea that’s currently in its first development stages,” says Cindy Bates, US general manager for small business at Microsoft. “At the heart of its strategy is Microsoft’s taxonomy structure. While this may not seem significant, the way an IT company defines small businesses influences their engagement model and product development strategy. Microsoft defines small businesses as 1-50 employees while other vendors define this much more broadly treating small businesses the same as midsize companies.”

Startup Center includes a free online guide that provides step-by-step advice and resources for entrepreneurs looking to start a business. The Web site’s easy-to-follow format includes a variety of content and resources including small-business advice from entrepreneurial experts Rich and Jeff Sloan of StartupNation.

Initial efforts to market Startup Center included traditional marketing approaches such as search engine placements, and promotion at the Microsoft Small Business Center site and within products such as Microsoft Office Accounting and Microsoft Office Live, Bates says.

In addition to providing services, partners have joined in the marketing of the center, beginning with a joint Microsoft MasterCard “Priceless” campaign that kicked off July 1.

“The campaign included online banners and print insertions in 10 to 12 different publications and Web properties, with taglines such as: ‘Being your own Boss: Priceless,’ with a call-to-action to the Microsoft Startup Center,” Bates says.

In addition, Bank of America will feature the site on its site’s small business resource center, its “Business 24/7” newsletter and via an email and print publication campaign reaching up to 1.5 million customers. The center will be featured on FedEx’s small business site as well.

Citing Microsoft’s long history of partnerships to deliver services to customers, Bates says the Bank of America, MasterCard and FedEx announcements are just the tip of the iceberg. Startup Center is in active negotiations with partners in other categories, and at some point there may be additional partners within financial services as well.

“Microsoft has a long and successful history of partnering with companies that may have offerings that are competitive with each other, or even with some of our own products and services,” Bates says. “We realize that one company cannot meet the diverse needs of our customers, especially entrepreneurs who are in the early stages of building their businesses. Within the Startup Center we highlight the benefits that Startup Center alliance partners have to offer, while also referring to other options.”

As for other services, a personalized checklist and social networking concept for small businesses are a few new features currently under consideration.

“This is only the beginning of the expanded partnerships and offerings we plan to include on the Startup Center,” she says.

www.startupcenter.com

Lost in Translation? Can you talk the talk? According to the Microsoft resources site, the following acronyms are just a few of the ways technology has brought new meaning to things we know and love. BED: Business & Enterprise Division DAD: Desktop Applications Division (Now known as BPG for business productivity group) MOM: Microsoft Operations Manager LAMP: Linux Apache MySQL Php (Refers to the popular open source combination for Web applications.) OAK: OEM Adaptation Kit POP: Point of Purchase ROW: Rest of World (People outside of the little universe that is (insert your location here)) SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol SEA: Southeast Asia