Australia's Telstra is launching a new suite of software-as-a-service (SAAS) applications targeting small and medium businesses in partnership with vendor Jamcracker.

The deployment of the Jamcracker Services Delivery Network (JSDN) by the service provider will enable it to deploy an array of applications alongside its existing on-demand services spanning both wired and wireless networks. Telstra will offer those applications -- including messaging, security and customer relationship management (CRM) apps -- under the brand name T-Suite.

"Telstra is a very aggressive carrier, and they pride themselves on innovation," said Steve Crawford, Jamcracker's vice president of marketing. Jamcracker will provide Telstra a fully branded application marketplace.

Jamcracker gets something out of the deal as well, as Telstra will serve as a "node" in the Jamcracker network, running the full JSDN within its data center, on-boarding Australian application providers and potentially delivering JSDN platform services to other operators in the region, Crawford said. "They will be a significant distribution partner for us and an extension of our partner recruitment activities.”

While Telstra has delivered SMB hosted apps on its own in the past, including Iron Mountain for online backup and Microsoft hosted Exchange, "It's one thing to stand up a number of hosted apps," Crawford said. "It's a whole ‘nother thing to provide a single, unified experience for their business customers and access to all these different applications."