Excite@Home (ATHM) Thursday announced the launch of Work.com, an online service designed to meet the growing needs of business professionals.

The launch is the first phase of a major initiative to develop a comprehensive business portal featuring vertical industry content, communities and customized business applications.

Don Hutchison, Excite@Home senior vice president and general manager of the @Work division, said the business-to-business marketplace is exploding and current portals fail to meet business professionals needs.

"Work.com will leverage the distribution and programming expertise of Excite with the commercial access and application hosting experience of @Work to take advantage of this opportunity," Hutchison said. "The addition of Work.com to @Work Internet access and hosting solutions creates a complete set of tools that we can offer to business people to better manage and grow their businesses."

The @Work service is part of the business channel on at the Excite.com portal. Excite@Home has partnered with several leading content providers to offer Work.com users detailed news and product information across 36 industries.

Work.com provides applications that assist users in running their businesses, including email, voice mail, calendar services, as well as storefront creation and hosting. The site also includes a directory of business resources on topics such as sales, marketing, financing and e-commerce.