MS begins app rental pilots
May 26th 1999: Futurelink today became the first ASP to reveal it has signed a contract with Microsoft to pilot rental licensing of Microsoft BackOffice products including SQL Server, Exchange and Windows NT Server. The pilot scheme will work on the same basis as the Subscriber Access Licence (SAL) currently used for its ISP hosting product, Microsoft Commercial Internet System (MCIS). Under the SAL scheme, the hosting provider pays Microsoft a monthly licence fee calculated according to the total number of users accessing an application during that month. This allows the provider to offer the applications to users on pay-as-you-go monthly rental terms. Microsoft confirmed to ASP News Review today that it had signed a contract with Futurelink for the pilot, and sources indicated that it has signed up several dozen other ASPs and ISPs worldwide to participate in the trial. Rental licensing of BackOffice products legitimises rental of applications which run on SQL Server and Windows NT, from vendors such as Futurelink partners Onyx and Great Plains.
o See related ASP News Review story Microsoft to allow apps rental (Feb 1st)
o Microsoft
o Futurelink

MS adds to Exchange hosting
May 25th 1999: Microsoft confirmed this week that it is adding new hosting capabilities to the next version of Exchange, its messaging and email system, in an effort to improve its appeal in the hosting market. The next release, codenamed Platinum, will support hosting of multiple customers on shared servers, developers learnt at the company's TechEd developers conference in Dallas TX. The new features will include the ability to run multiple separate messaging databases and multiple unique customer accounts on a single server, or partitioned across multiple servers or clusters. Currently, hosting providers must run Exchange on a separate server for each individual customer, making the product uneconomic as a hosted solution for small and medium-size businesses. "We're making the investments in Platinum that get us over [those] hurdles," Microsoft president Steve Ballmer told ASP News Review at a briefing in London today.
o Microsoft

USi rents app hosting to ISVs
May 19th 1999: Nasdaq listed ASP USinternetworking (USi) yesterday launched a scheme to rent out its app hosting facilities to independent software vendors (ISVs). USi has set up a new company division to market and operate the scheme, called AppHost. ISVs will be able to host apps at USi's data centres for a monthly fee ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, depending on the platform requirements of the service they wish to offer. The Annapolis MD-based ASP will target ISVs serving vertical markets such as healthcare and other sectors. Sources close to the company indicated that it is already at an advanced stage in discussions with a first wave of prospective ISV partners. The move, which company officials said was in response to overwhelming demand from ISVs, marks a reversal of USi's previous policy of focussing exclusively on a hand-picked portfolio of top-tier enterprise applications. However VP of marketing Michele Perry told ASP News Review that the AppHost scheme would operate separately from the company's core ASP services to midmarket enterprises. "It does not change at all what our business is. But what we realised is, this is a huge opportunity we just weren't taking advantage of," she explained.
o USinternetworking
o AppHost press release

Interpath gets rights to rent R/3
May 18th 1999: Interpath yesterday became the first ASP accredited by SAP America to supply its R/3 financials and human resources apps on monthly rental terms. In previous app services announcements by SAP America with providers such as EDS and Qwest, the vendor has retained a direct licensing relationship with the end customer. But Interpath, which is based in Research Triangle Park NC, will bundle the application as part of a single-sourced, full-service ASP offering to its customer base in south-eastern US states. "Interpath is the first opportunity we've been involved with where a single vendor provides not only the network, but the hardware and the software, the call centre and the maintenance activity. The others use an implementation outsourcing model," VP of services sector sales Ted Weniger told ASP News Review today. The SAP applications, which will be available from the third quarter, add enterprise apps to Interpath's portfolio of IP telecoms, messaging and e-commerce application services. Interpath also announced it has become the first 'Elite' category member of Sun's new ServiceProvider.com programme, a status which includes eligibility for the vendor's SunTone badge of ASP reliability.
o There's a profile of Interpath in this month's ASP News Review monthly newsletter - for subscription details, .. click here
o See related ASP News Review story ASPs grab spotlight at N+I (May 11th)
o Interpath Communications
o SAP America
o Sun ServiceProvider.com

Oracle launches Business OnLine
May 7th 1999: Oracle announced Wednesday (May 5th) that it has successfully completed the pilot phase of its Business OnLine application services operation and is making the service available immediately. The announcement comes ahead of a formal launch expected in June. Three US customers have completed their pilot implementations, accessing Oracle enterprise applications running at Oracle's own Business OnLine data centres. Oracle claims the pilots demonstrate each customer making savings on IT management costs amounting to thousands of dollars per month. The customers are Californian wine producer Robert Mondavi, IT solutions provider Core Technology Group, also based in California, and wireless network equipment manufacturer Triton Network Systems, which accessed the Silicon Valley data centre from its Orlando, Florida base.
o See related ASP News Review stories Oracle will host third-party apps for rent (Oct 8th) and Oracle hones net platform strategy (Nov 13th)
o Oracle
o Oracle Business OnLine
o Press release