[ ASP news ] [ publications ] [ forum ] [ about us ] [ directory ]


NEWS
Futurelink unwraps application portal

Dec 10th 1998: Calgary-based ASP Futurelink announced Tuesday (Dec 8th) that it will start renting traditional desktop software over the Internet from an 'Application Portal', slated to start alpha trials late February 1999.

"We are going to do for applications what Hotmail did for email," said chairman and CEO Cameron Chell in a conference call with company investors earlier today. Applications available at launch will include popular office suites and contact management. Later Futurelink plans to add graphics packages, finance management for individuals and small businesses, presentation software and network gaming.

Users will pay by credit card and pricing will be either on a monthly, hourly or per session basis. Access will be from standard Web browsers, and users will be able to choose whether they save data on the site or to their own local storage.

But full launch of the service will not take place until September 1999, Chell revealed. "We're not going to launch it until it's really good," he explained. There will be a restricted beta launch to enterprise customers in May.

Futurelink, which styles itself "The World's First Computer Utility Company", will operate the service from a new data centre which it is currently commissioning at new premises it moved into this week. The data centre is expected to go live from 1st January and will be used initially to operate the company's existing ASP services.

As well as the application portal plan, Chell explained there are two other elements to the company's ASP services. The first of these he called "vertical application hosting," in which Futurelink offers applications from partners such as Great Plains, Galleon and Applix. This service is already in operation, normally supplying applications to established companies with several branch offices who wish to upgrade their computing infrastructure. Within this context, "we offer these applications to a company that typically already has some sort of IP infrastructure," he said.

This will be the larger part of Futurelink's ASP business in the short term, he said, since the ASP is able to take advantage of its vendor partners' distribution channels to reach a wide customer base.

The other part of the ASP business he proposed will be "hosted outsourcing". This was where Futurelink brought the computing infrastructure of customers whose IT it already operates on an outsourced basis into its own on-site data centre. No customers are live with this service at present, but he said the company expected to sign "several" $1m contracts by the end of Q1, 1999.

Chell said the company had been researching and developing its ASP operation for "about three years". Its aim was to become the primary outsourced applications supplier to midmarket companies in north America.


[ ASP news ]  [ publications ]  [ forum ]  [ about us ]  [ directory ]
Copyright © 1998-1999, Farleit Limited. All Rights Reserved.

ANALYSIS

Futurelink is aiming to brand the words 'Application Portal' as a trademark, but although it has become the first to claim the name, it is unlikely to retain a monopoly for very long. Serving internet-based applications to clients is set to become the primary revenue stream for business-to-business portals and will be the saviour of many a struggling consumer portal. Futurelink's announcement marks the beginning of the final defining phase of the Internet's development - and its would-be trademark brand is destined to be the Web's latest and greatest buzzword.

LINKS

Futurelink:
o Corporate site