HP funds hosting for the masses
Apr 26th 1999: With the aim of bring over a million small businesses online in the next one to two years, Hewlett-Packard is investing over $1m each in hosting infrastructure at several dozen service providers globally. Announced today, its Commerce for the Millennium offering is a complete, pre-integrated e-commerce hosting solution capable of supporting thousands of merchants and funded on a revenue-sharing basis with service providers. Merchants access all the store setup and management functions from a web browser. The solution incorporates software from e-commerce specialists Breakthrough Software, ClearCommerce and Portal Software, payment processing from local providers, and other elements from Cisco and HP itself. The first service provider partners include Econex and Interland in the USA, and in Europe CECA (Confederacion Empresarial de Comercio de Andalucia), a leading Spanish small business association.
o HP also announced a $35m tie-up with high-end e-business vendor Broadvision today. The commitment is to fund development of a suite of packaged e-commerce and knowledge-management solutions that allow businesses to offer personalised web-based commerce, marketing and customer relations to their customers.
o See also the Mar 11th ASP News Review story HP commits to app services
o Hewlett-Packard
o Commerce for the Millennium
o Broadvision

Citrix forms ASP division
Apr 19th 1999: Citrix Systems today announced the formation of a new company division to direct its activities in the ASP market. The Citrix iBusiness Unit is the first separate division to be created by the Fort Lauderdale FL company, which is the original developer of the Windows terminal technology used by many existing ASPs. Its role will be both to market existing Citrix technology to the ASP community and to spearhead the development of new technologies to support browser-accessed, Web server-based applications. The unit's VP and general manager is Chris Phoenix, who formerly ran APM Ltd/Digitivity Inc, a Java app deployment company that Citrix acquired last year. There are currently almost 50 ASPs already using Citrix technology to deliver apps to customers, director of advanced business development Traver Kennedy told ASP News Review today. Around 15 telcos and ISPs also have ASP projects under development, he added. "By the end of the year there will be a potential user base of 120m just with those NSPs (network service providers)," he said.
o Citrix Systems
o iBU announcement press release

Cisco brews up ASP offering
Apr 16th 1999: Cisco is preparing to launch a portfolio of applications ready-packaged for rental by ASPs. Codenamed the Cisco Hosted Applications Initiative (CHAI), the scheme brings together products and services from a number of software vendors and data centre hosting providers, together with Cisco's own infrastructure technology, to create fixed-price, market-ready, application service offerings. San Jose CA-based Cisco, whose network equipment forms a large part of the Internet infrastructure, will promote the CHAI portfolio to both existing and would-be ASPs, including ISPs and resellers in its current customer base. Fargo ND-based accounting software vendor Great Plains, which has been working with ASPs since last autumn, is one of the vendors in the scheme, its general manager of hosting services Wayne Harding told ASP News Review. According to a report today in the online edition of InfoWorld magazine, others include customer relationship vendor SalesLogix (Scottsdale AZ) and project management startup Netmosphere (San Mateo CA), which this week (Apr 12th) announced a Java-based portal application for enterprise project management.
o Cisco
o InfoWorld Electric report
o Great Plains Software
o Netmosphere
o SalesLogix

USi in $2.9bn Nasdaq debut
Apr 9th 1999: USinternetworking, the first ASP to list on a major stock market, achieved a valuation of $2.9bn when its stock began trading on Nasdaq today. Trading opened at a share price of $43 and soared to a peak of $60 before falling back to close at $57-and-a-half, valuing the company at a little over $2.9bn. The offering of 6m shares (out of a total 51m) had been priced at $21 before trading began. USi (ticker: USIX) was the second-biggest gainer of three Internet-related IPOs (initial public offerings) today, posting a 173% gain of $36-and-a-half on heavy volume of over 12m shares. Networking software maker Extreme Networks achieved a 225% gain, while iTurf rose 161%. Encouraged by the positive showings of its latest recruits, the Nasdaq composite index closed at a record high of 2593.05. ASPs with IPOs pending include Interliant and Futurelink.
o Related ASP News Review stories: Jan 7th - USi equity funding tops $95m; Nov 18th - USi pips IBM as first global ASP
o USinternetworking

BEA puts components on sale
Apr 7th 1999: BEA Systems today launched a new division to sell pre-built software components with the announcement it had closed a $100m order from Hewlett-Packard. The top-tier middleware and application integration vendor said it is investing $50m in setting up its eSolutions business unit, which will market a commercial product portfolio of reusable components developed by BEA's Component Development Center. The HP deal is the first of several alliances BEA will enter into to accelerate the adoption of components in selected markets. HP has signed up for $100m worth of development, sales and support services over the next three years. BEA components based on technologies that include its Tuxedo transaction server, WebLogic application server and eLink application integration system will become the core infrastructure of HP's e-Services initiative. BEA expects to have a portfolio of reusable components priced and on sale within 60 days, alongside eLink connectors that integrate them into legacy and ERP applications including SAP R/3.
o Related ASP News Review story (Mar 11th), HP commits to app services
o BEA Systems
o BEA eSolutions overview
o HP press release