Small business.

• Position: Technology tools

International Business Machines Corp. has launched what it calls the industry's first portfolio of offerings and programs designed and priced specifically for medium-sized business customers, including new software for rapidly building e-commerce sites and a new Linux-based portal solution to enhance office productivity through customized access to business tools and information.

The portfolio will consist of new hardware, software, services, solutions and financing. All are designed to meet specific criteria for medium-sized businesses with respect to function, ease of use and management, and price--a set of brand attributes delivered under the name Express. The offerings within this new IBM Express portfolio will assist medium-sized business--companies with between 100 and 1,000 employees that often have fewer IT skills and tighter budgets than larger enterprises--in their transformation to on-demand businesses using IBM's open standards-based technology.

The new WebSphere Commerce-Express, IBM says, is designed to enable medium-sized companies to create and manage e-commerce sites in fewer steps than the comparable offering from Microsoft, and at a lower price point. The new portal solution combines...