Orbitz, MapQuest partner with hosted apps vendor

Orbitz, Business.com, and AOL’s MapQuest have partnered with BlueTie to have their online services featured in BlueTie’s Web-hosted communications applications for small and medium-size businesses.

Putting a twist on the traditional advertising model for Web-hosted software, the Orbitz, MapQuest, and Business.com services will be organically embedded into BlueTie’s hosted e-mail, calendaring, and file sharing applications, BlueTie announced Monday.

Called Featuretisement, this inclusion of third-party online services lets BlueTie generate revenue while avoiding the display of intrusive and distracting banner ads in its Web hosted applications, said David Koretz, BlueTie’s founder, president and CEO. Simultaneously, BlueTie provides what it considers valuable third-party services to its around 3.5 million end users, Koretz said.

The Orbitz integration will let users call up travel booking services from within the BlueTie applications, giving them access to Orbitz’s inventory from over 400 airlines, 65,000 hotels and 13 rental car companies. The companies have a pay-per-action agreement, so BlueTie gets paid only when its users book a flight, reserve a room or rent a car via Orbitz. “We make money only when Orbitz makes money, so our goals are very aligned when it comes to user experience,” he said.

Regarding Business.com, which is a search engine tailored for business information, a search box has been included in the BlueTie user interface, where the search results and accompanying text ads are also subsequently displayed. BlueTie users can also trigger a search by highlighting text and clicking on it. The companies will split revenue whenever a BlueTie user clicks on a Business.com sponsored link.

With MapQuest, users can click on an address in their BlueTie address book and generate a map and driving directions. MapQuest and BlueTie haven’t yet settled on a monetization agreement, but it will likely be of the pay-per-action type, a BlueTie spokesman said.

BlueTie has similar partnerships as these three with another nine providers that it will formally announce when their integration is ready, Koretz said. One partnership is with J2 Global Communications’ eFax Internet fax service. BlueTie offers a free version of its application suite, as well as a fee-based version with more capacity and features for $4.99 per user per month.

The hosted, software-as-a-service model BlueTie has adopted is drawing a lot of attention because it lets the service provider host the applications on its premises, cutting down on hardware expenses and maintenance work. Downsides include less control over software upgrades, data security and server uptime, should something go wrong in the vendors’ data centers.

The hosted model, particularly popular among small and medium-size businesses with limited IT resources, is an option to the traditional approach of installing software internally on company servers and PCs. Google is one of the most vocal proponents of the hosted model, with its Google Apps communication and productivity suite, while Microsoft is often viewed as the epitome of traditional software provisioning.