Telstra has announced the latest partnership for its T-Suite SaaS platform, adding Jamcracker to deliver on-demand business applications under the T-Suite brand.

The partnership will see Telstra use the Jamcracker Services Delivery Network (JSDN), a completely outsourced SaaS channel enablement platform, to provide IP services and Jamcracker-provided SaaS applications bundled with Telstra’s existing T-Suite services.

Jamcracker vice-president, Steve Crawford, said that by tying into the JSDN, Telstra could simultaneously supply on-demand applications directly to SMBs and provide easy to set-up Web stores that enable its channel of agents and resellers to make click-through sales.

Telstra customers will be able to mix and match the new application services with their voice, data and Internet access services. T-Suite is initially offering security and collaboration applications for SMBs ahead of its full scale launch early next year. Telstra has been mum on the details but said it is in active talks with more than 50 software providers.

Services include security offerings from McAfee and MessageLabs, online backup from Iron Mountain, Hosted Exchange messaging and Sharepoint collaboration services from Microsoft, and Microsoft Dynamics hosted CRM.

Telstra has made several partnership announcements in recent weeks, including forging an alliance with Microsoft to revamp Windows mobile and deliver cloud-based unified communications services.

Analysts at Gartner say the current economic downturn is sparking increased interest in SaaS.

The T-Suite portfolio of on-demand application services is available now.