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Applications for Rent - Page 2

© Nazan Fathy

Service level guarantees are likely to be pivotal to the success of the ASP model since the top reasons to rent applications according to an InformationWeek survey are guaranteed performance levels, predictable costs, service expertise and guaranteed application uptime.

This is in turn has prompted vendors such as HP to promise 99.999% availability to providers using its E-services-on tap. This is a service to host and operate the infrastructure required by providers for day-to-day business operations on a pay-per-use or revenue sharing basis. To provide this bulletproof service, HP is partnering with CISCO, Equant, Microsoft and Nortel who will lend expertise in the areas of software applications, end-to-end network solutions, IP infrastructure and global IP communications, respectively.

But HP is not alone in this league. PC Week Online reports that ebaseone Corp, an ASP that hosts packaged software applications for a flat monthly fee, plans to offer a similar guarantee and promises cash back if it fails to deliver.

As IDC says, the proposition of a flat fee per month is indeed simple but the model is complex and requires significant partnerships. "This model is not about dial-up access to the middle market, but about forming relations with companies that can help string together whole product solutions that a vendor could not otherwise deliver cost-effectively".

This holds equally true for the small and large players.

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