Weekly Review: Collaborative Software Development Emerges

Continued from Page 1

Consolidation at the Top
Hardly a week seems to go by these days without an announcement that yet another ailing industry bellwether has been swallowed up by a more powerful and cash-rich suitor. Away from the headlines, failures and acquisitions of smaller players often pass unnoticed. Will the wave of consolidation that has swept through the industry since the beginning of the year ever come to an end?

Perhaps last week's news that the ASP Industry Consortium has itself succumbed to consolidation signals that the trend has finally reached a coda of some kind (see ASP Trade Group Joins CompTIA).

Launched in May 1999, the Consortium worked hard to ensure that everyone heard all about the ASP model. Thankfully its officers have avoided the embarrassment that would have been caused to the entire industry had the association been forced to wind itself up.

Its quiet absorption by CompTIA allows the preservation of intellectual assets that its members donated valuable resources to create over the past two-and-a-half years.

Much more newsworthy in comparison was the agreement of an $850 million deal by international telco Cable & Wireless to acquire most of the assets of stricken hosting company Exodus Communications (see C&W Deals $850 Million For Exodus). As time goes by, C&W is looking smarter and smarter, offering somewhere near a fifth of the price for Exodus compared to what it would have had to pay if it had listened to those who were already encouraging it to buy Exodus back in May.

At the time, it bought Digital Island instead, which it has since made the center of its Web services and hosting strategy. The Exodus deal allows it to pick and choose the assets that it now adds to that existing core infrastructure, along with whatever remains of Exodus' extensive customer base by the time the deal closes.

Even after buying Exodus, C&W will still have several billion left in the bank, which amply demonstrates that, these days, cash is king.

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