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NEWS
July 24th 1999: Leading ASPs including Telecomputing, Futurelink and Qwest have begun recruiting a reseller channel to take their online application services to market. Telecomputing announced Thursday (Jul 22nd) the names of eight leading US resellers recruited for its north American ASP offering launched last week, while Qwest on Friday spelt out its new partner programme to delegates at Microsoft's annual partner conference. Earlier this month (Jul 7th), Futurelink named the 21 charter members of its pilot reseller programme. Telecomputing has declared a 100% channel-only route to market for North America, either through resellers and system integrators, or through vertical market ISVs such as healthcare specialist TherAssist, its first ISV partner. The Norwegian ASP, which has its US headquarters in Fort Lauderdale FL, has operated a reseller programme in Scandinavia since February this year. Reseller members of its TECpartners programme provide first-line field sales and support for its Windows terminal-based application services. They work directly with customers to provide initial implementation, including transfer of data to Telecomputing's servers, and continue providing on-site support afterwards. Helpdesk support is provided from Telecomputing's own facilities. Telecomputing gives resellers a slice of the three-year contract revenues from a customer. It claims the package can generate up to ten times more income than traditional solution selling. Several of the eight charter members announced are leading Citrix resellers. The eight are CompuCom Systems, Data Transit International, e-Com Solutions, IKON Office Solutions Inc, InaCom Information Systems, LAN Associates, Manchester Equipment Co and Syscom Technologies. The ASP is also due to launch a reseller strategy for channel partners of Uunet, the ISP which hosts its data centre. Futurelink announced the launch of its pilot reseller programme Jul 7th with twenty-one companies participating. They include a number of Citrix resellers, other resellers and systems integrators, and ISVs. The programme will move into its beta phase at the end of September, when others will be invited to join the fold. Reseller partners sell and implement solutions for hosting at Futurelink's data centres, and the ASP provides helpdesk support. It pays partners up to ten percent of the value of the contract, with a fifth of that amount paid at the outset. Although Futurelink is itself a leading Citrix reseller following its acquisition of Californian company Micro Visions in June, it will place all of its ASP business through the channel. "Without the VARS, we just wouldn't have the feet on the street," senior VP of ASP Roger Gallego told ASP News Review last week. Qwest announced its reseller programme on Tuesday (Jul 20th). The Qwest Business Partner Program appoints resellers to sell a full range of Qwest-supplied Internet services, including hosted Exchange and Office 2000 collaboration. However Qwest Cyber.Solutions, its joint venture with KPMG, remains its primary channel for marketing enterprise-scale applications direct to midmarket and larger customers. One of the longest-running ASP channel programmes is operated by IBM Global Services, which has been selling ASP offerings based on Great Plains software through resellers since September last year. In June it added apps from SalesLogix and Ultimate Software. The ASP services are sold by qualified members of the software vendors' existing reseller channels. The full list of Futurelink's resellers is Aquarius Technology Corporation, Async Technologies Inc, Baystate Data Systems, Computer Networks Inc (CNI), En Tech Solutions, IMAGECOM, InfoLAN, IPM, James A. Alga and Co, LANtech, Linc Network Systems Inc, Moose Logic Inc, Omni Tech, Precision Computer Services, Sage Technology Group Inc, Sky Systems, Syntax Inc, Tangible Solutions Inc, TechnologyWorks, Vector Technology Corp and Vertical Software Inc.
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ANALYSIS
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