The Fourth of July festivities may be over, but the fireworks are just getting started when it comes to the ASPnews Top 50 list. Two departures and two newcomers, along with a reshuffle, have made July an eventful month in the ASPnews Top 20 Providers and Top 30 Enablers lists.
Things heat up on our lists of the industry’s Top 20 Providers and Top 30 Enablers.
All Quiet at Loudcloud
The most striking departure is Loudcloud, which last month gave up its quest
to become “the EDS of the Internet” with the sale of its managed hosting
business … to EDS. Now known as Opsware, the company must prove itself
among the ranks of systems management software vendors, where it will face
stiff competition.
Loudcloud’s place on the Providers list is taken by Avasta, which we previously listed as a Top 30 Enabler. After its recent acqusition of SiteROCK (see Avasta and SiteROCK Announce Merger), along with Loudcloud’s departure from the scene, Avasta is now clearly the leading pureplay MSP, and its significant end-user business justifies its inclusion as a Top 20 Provider.
The Power of Atomz
The other new entrant to the Top 20 Provider list is Atomz, the hosted Web site search and content management provider that recently celebrated the third anniversary of its June 1999 launch. Atomz is best known as the provider of a free Web site search service, which puts its brand onto 50 million search results a month for Web sites the world over. Less well known is that it has a fast-expanding customer list among Fortune 500 enterprises, who pay for high-end versions of its search and content management services.
Atomz has always remained committed to a hosted service model, and is often cited as an example of net-native ASP success. Its growing customer base among top corporates as varied as General Motors, Sharp, Maxtor, Red Herring and Princess Cruise Lines has now earned its place on the ASPnews Top 20 list.
The End of a Qwest
The second departure is Qwest Cyber.Solutions. As the combined managed hosting and ASP business of the troubled telco, it no longer meets our criteria of deriving the majority of its revenues from ASP and related activities. Formerly regarded as one of the largest enterprise ASPs, its replacement by net-native Atomz is a further sign of the fundamental shift taking place in the ASP business.
Sprint Races to Providers’ List
Sprint joins the Top 30 Providers list to fill the remaining vacancy. Its E|Solutions hosting division has been playing a long-term strategy to build a significant industry presence, and the announcement of recent deals to host for ASPs Concur and Appshop (both members of our Top 20 Providers list) show that the strategy is now paying off. There has been a drastic shrinkage of late in the choice of hosting providers that are committed to supporting ASPs. It’s a welcome sight to see the established and reputable name of Sprint stepping up to the plate.
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