American Express OPEN Sponsors The Small Business Web

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Small Business Web, a network of web-based software solution providers helping small businesses grow, today announced that American Express OPEN, the financial service company’s small business unit, has become its first-ever sponsor.

“The caliber of The Small Business Web member companies and the depth of their respective integrations means small business owners can access the same tools and technologies as big companies”

OPEN is the official sponsor of The Small Business Web’s online directory (http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com), a free resource for businesses to easily find and research web-based software targeted to small businesses. It includes a wide range of small business-focused service providers in areas including customer relationship management, invoicing services, shopping carts, shipping fulfillment and email marketing.

“The caliber of The Small Business Web member companies and the depth of their respective integrations means small business owners can access the same tools and technologies as big companies,” said Michelle Riggen-Ransom, CCO of BatchBlue Software and co-founder of the Small Business Web. “American Express OPEN supporting us in our mission to bring the very best technologies to small businesses further demonstrates their commitment to helping small business owners grow.”

“We are delighted to sponsor The Small Business Web,” said Jay Lee, Vice President of Business Development at American Express OPEN. “One of OPEN's main areas of focus is bringing small business owners leading edge, software-as-a-service, or SaaS, offerings through partnerships with innovative companies as a compliment to our traditional payment products. Sponsoring the Small Business Web helps ensure that we remain on top of the latest innovations in this space.”

Last year, American Express OPEN launched Business Apps, a new line of products that help business owners harness the power of the “cloud” to help them run their firms. This includes AcceptPay (http://www.acceptpay.com), a web-based tool that allows small business owners to accept online payments and electronically invoice customers; InsuranceEdge (http://www.insuranceedge.com), an online portal that offers small business owners real-time, competitive quotes from some of the nation’s leading insurance carriers and SearchManager (http://www.searchmanager.com), an online solution that allows business owners to easily manage paid search campaigns across all major search ad networks, through a centralized dashboard. A number of additional product launches are planned for 2011.

About The Small Business Web

The Small Business Web, founded in 2009, is a movement to bring together like-minded, customer-obsessed software companies to integrate our respective products and make life easier for small businesses. While there are many products available for small business owners on the Web, The Small Business Web represents individual, yet highly integrated web applications that create a more seamless experience for customers. More than 150 companies have signed our manifesto and are listed in The Small Business Web Directory. More information is available at http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com.

About American Express OPEN

American Express OPEN is the leading payment card issuer for small businesses in the United States and supports business owners with products and services to help them run and grow their businesses. This includes business charge and credit cards that deliver purchasing power, flexibility, rewards, savings on business services from an expanded lineup of partners and online tools and services designed to help improve profitability. Learn more at www.OPEN.com and connect with us at www.openforum.com, facebook.com/open and twitter.com/openforum.

American Express is a global services company, providing customers with access to products, insights and experiences that enrich lives and build business success. Learn more at www.americanexpress.com and connect with us on facebook.com/americanexpress, twitter.com/americanexpress and youtube.com/americanexpress.

About BatchBlue Software

BatchBlue Software's flagship product, Batchbook, solves a crucial need by providing small businesses and entrepreneurs with web-based CRM software to manage and track the contact information, communications and tasks for their greatest asset: their people network. The company was established in 2006 with the goal of creating useful, user-friendly software for small businesses. BatchBlue co-founded The Small Business Web (http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com) in March of 2009 with other customer-obsessed software companies to integrate their respective products and make life easier for growing businesses. Based in Providence, R.I., BatchBlue Software is a privately held company. More information is available at http://www.batchblue.com.