Edward Cone

You may be ready for software as a service, but is your software vendor? An education and testing program that IBM runs for would-be service providers should make it easier for businesses to gauge the preparedness of their partners. Graduates of the course have the IBM seal of approval on their claims of functionality, security […]

Software may be on its way to becoming a service, but its going to take more than todays rickety application service providers to get everyone to the promised land. Genuity, the big hosting and access company, thinks the right vehicle for some enterprises is its Black Rocket e-services platform. “Software as a service is our […]

Blame it on the application service provider market. FutureLink has a nice, profitable business as a reseller and integrator of Citrix Systems software for server-based computing. It attracted enough customers in 2000 that revenue multiplied more than nine times. Unfortunately, FutureLink also has $900,000 per month in costs related to data center space it built […]

Early customers of application service providers tend to pull services from their ASPs, using outsourced software to run their own businesses. Now Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., a unit of the $13.2 billion Japanese conglomerate, is using an ASP to push a new line of ser- vices out to its customers. Its a model that could […]

Forget what you know about Web services. Forget what you know about application service providers. Microsoft and Oracle are quietly building a new software delivery and management model that could dramatically change the way corporations acquire, distribute and use software. “Our company, our entire support organization is undergoing a wholesale transformation,” said Tim Chou, president […]

In a world where applications are becoming services, the layer of software that supports those services occupies some valuable real estate. Microsoft is trying to leverage its desktop dominance to establish its .Net services platform as a kind of operating system for the new era, but it faces plenty of competition, including platform plays by […]

Choosing an application service provider is a gamble, with uncertain odds on the viability of the business plans — not to mention long-term health — of some ASPs. Crosspoint Venture Partners, a successful California investment shop, has $350 million on the table that says so-called vertical service providers will end up in the money. Crosspoint […]

PeopleSoft makes money the old-fashioned way: by selling software licenses and consulting services. So much so that net income in the last quarter was $36 million. A small but increasingly important driver of these core businesses is software as a service from PeopleSofts eCenter unit and its third-party application service provider partners. “Total revenue driven […]

When a company built for speed hits a protracted slowdown, something has to give. For Agilera, one of the more successful first-wave application service providers, that meant laying off about one-third of its work force — more than 100 people — and focusing on existing customers, instead of pushing for growth in an economy that […]

The customer is king, or at least he will be if the near future plays out the way i-managers expect. “We are focused on meeting our customers needs and doing what can we to satisfy them,” said Bob Reiner, manager of enterprise Internet services at State Farm Insurance in Bloomington, Ill. “The next generation [of […]