EarthLink to expand small business unit

<p>EarthLink Inc., one of the nation's largest Internet service providers, said Monday it will expand its offerings to small and medium-sized businesses.</p><p>A beefed up unit, called EarthLink Business Solutions, will offer bundled services to business customers that will include web hosting, security software and payment infrastructure services, said Linda Beck, the unit's executive vice president.</p><p>The company also hopes to capitalize on sales of broadband connections to companies that still use land-lines to conduct credit card transactions. Most larger corporations have already moved to broadband, but some smaller businesses might not have made the switch yet.</p><p>"There's huge growth potential," Beck said.</p><p>The Atlanta-based company said the venture will take advantage of the company's December purchase of New Edge Networks, a $144 million deal that EarthLink said gave it one of the nation's largest data communication networks.</p><p>New Edge Networks specializes in building and managing broadband networks for businesses and communications companies, and EarthLink said the two businesses expect to package their voice, data, protection and security tools.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cd9e6c)</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2006/5/125127