Head to Head: ASPs won't hit the big time for three years

IT directors eagerly anticipating the flood of Application Service Providers (ASPs) will have to wait up to three years before they can take full advantage of the concept.

The claim came from Mark Roberts, director at consultancy Cap Gemini, in Silicon.com's latest Head to Head programme.

Roberts said the potential market is huge, but it's still very early in its development. "It will be another three years before it is fully implemented. I think a number of people in the market are being slightly economical with the truth. I have yet to meet anybody who's being very successful at it," he said.

Sun Microsystems sales and marketing manager, Terry Maloney, agreed that it's still early days: "It is an emerging market. The technology is making the ASP concept a much more viable approach - but companies are still trying to come to terms with how they actually go to market."

Cap Gemini's Roberts went on to criticise vendors for claiming to be ASPs when they are really following a much more traditional model. "It's bureau services as we knew them 20 years ago. It's the sort of thing IBM Global Services and Cap Gemini have been doing for 25 years," he said.

Software vendors like Baan, Oracle and SAP failed to recognised quickly enough that developers can provide applications and software over the Internet without asking for millions of dollars in advance, he added. "They've got an awful lot of work to do to revamp their licensing, their revenue stream and their commercial models to make this market sustainable at the highest end."

Despite having misgivings about the current state of the market, both Roberts and Maloney were positive about the long-term future and its effect on the IT department.

"ASP is all about giving flexibility it's the ability to rent connectivity, applications and capacity, on an 'as you require it' basis," said Maloney.

The full discussion is available in Silicon's Client/Server Channel (http://www.silicon.com/a36753 ).