Companies ponder ASP dilemma

Enterprises are stuck between a rock and a hard place on whether to use ASP's now or wait until the industry matures, according to US analysts.

Tere Bracco, principal analyst of enterprise infrastructure at Current Analysis, said that enterprises are faced with more options and less information about what those options really represent and what it's going to take to implement them.

"I think enterprises are being told that they can outsource most of these things, and do away with their expensive people. They're also being told that they can lease out a lot of expensive capital expenditures to get all of these wonderful services," Bracco said.

However Bracco doubted that it is so easy to take business online. "Why do they need to spend all this money on applications that have to be upgraded constantly when they can subscribe to a service?" he said.

Bob Larribeau, a director at Access Networks said that despite the huge array of service provider offerings to enterprises, there is little choice.

He said: "Frankly, its difficult to differentiate between them and I don't think that the way they come out of the box is necessarily the way they end up."

Larribeau said that the industry has yet to mature. "There is going to be a process that we have to go through to get these products defined and delivered through service providers. Right now, we're in the middle of this", he said.

Bracco added: "The service provider industry is telling enterprises that they are close to revolutionising everything, so don't buy anything yet.

See also:

ASPs - the next big thing?

Everyone is talking about application service providers and how much money and staff resources they should be able to save customers. The new outsourcing model has yet to be taken up to any great extent, however. vnunet.comlooks at the phenomenon and tries to inject a note of reality into the hype.  30 Nov 2000

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