Outsourcing Center, Bruce McCracken, Business Writer
To paraphrase Mark Twain, the demise of ASPs has been greatly exaggerated. They are experiencing a remarkable resurgence, as enterprises small and large embrace their offerings. And one ASP, salesforce.com, just went public with the highest first-day price rise so far this year.
George Kimball
Application service providers (ASP’s) promise to make all this go away. Rather than pay large license fees and hire swarms of consultants, companies may rent the software, or buy applications by the drink, paying so much per user, per month. Applications will be delivered to the desktop, over the Internet. Just pay the money, and someone else will buy, install, connect and configure everything. The allure is plain, and has aroused interest in the marketplace, and from service providers, including well-financed startups, as well as such stalwarts as Intel and Oracle. The appeal is especially strong to new and smaller companies, who can adopt standard functions from popular packages more easily than larger, long-established organizations.
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