SAP to host try-before-buy
July 23rd 1999:Prospective customers for SAP's enterprise portal system will be able to test and configure their solutions online before purchase, the company announced Tuesday (Jul 20th). The Internet Demonstration and Evaluation System (IDES) allows customers to evaluate and preconfigure System mySAP.com, an enterprise portal framework for integrating applications, content, online services and electronic trading. The IDES system will operate at an Internet-based shared data centre operated by SAP, and can simultaneously support many hundreds of separate customer evaluations, the company said. SAP and third-party consulting expertise will be available online as part of the IDES offering, and customers will be able to complete the entire implementation process online if they wish. Once ready for production use, they can either download the completed solution for hosting in-house, or have it transferred to a third-party hosting provider. Company officials said they believed ease of installation and updating would encourage customers to switch rapidly to an outsourced model. "Outsourcing is really becoming central to our mySAP.com strategy," SAP America director of outsourcing Tom Melchiore confirmed to ASP News Review today.
o See related ASP News Review story SAP confirms hosting strategy (May 5th)
o SAP
o System mySAP.com press release

Merrill Lynch becomes an ASP
July 16th 1999:Leading US investment bank Merrill Lynch is to provide an online electronic purchasing and payment processing service to its small business customers, effectively acting as an application service provider. The move is the result of an alliance announced Monday (July 12th) with Austin TX-based startup Works.com, whose Internet-based automated purchasing service went live in May. Merrill Lynch will initially link to the Works.com site as part of an expanded ecommerce network service it is due to launch this month for its small and medium-size business clients, who will attract special discounts on the 20,000 office products offered through the provider. A later offering will integrate Works.com into a co-branded site for Merrill business account holders. In a separate announcement this week, Works.com revealed it has recruited Martin Neath, formerly executive VP and nine-year veteran at IBM subsidiary Tivoli Systems, as its president and COO.
o Merrill Lynch
o Works.com

Interliant makes Nasdaq debut
July 9th 1999: Interliant shares started trading on Nasdaq yesterday, opening at $16, 60% up on the $10 placement price of its initial public offering (IPO). 10 million shares were issued, raising the company $70m. By midday, the stock had hit a peak of $18-and-a-half before falling back to a low of $15-and-one-eighth. It ended the day at just under $17, showing a rise of 68.13%. Interliant is the second ASP pioneer to list on Nasdaq, following USinternetworking's debut in April, which raised $126m and posted a 173% gain at the end of its first day of trading. Interliant's performance today comes in the context of a more subdued market and its less visible profile as an ASP compared to USi. It first filed for the IPO in March, after the acquisition of the application rental pioneer by web hosting provider Sage Networks, which adopted the Interliant name. USi's stock closed at $36-and-a-quarter today.
o See related ASP News Review stories Sage Networks nabs Interliant (Mar 18th) and USi in $2.9bn Nasdaq debut (Apr 9th)
o Interliant
o USinternetworking

Logility sets up shop as ASP
July 8th 1999: Leading supply chain software vendor Logility announced an ASP operation Tuesday (Jul 6th) to provide application services to customers, becoming the first value chain specialist to move into the ASP market. Logility i-Connection will host an "i-Community", where companies can collaborate to manage supply chain forecasting and replenishment using its Internet-based Voyager XPS product. It will also offer hosting of any of the vendor's value chain applications and remote application management. The system, which will go live later this year, will run on a data centre at Logility's premises in Atlanta GA, and the services will be sold direct. "Our main motivation here is the large, untapped midmarket," PR manager Todd Craig told ASP News Review today. "The midmarket couldn't necessarily go in and buy a supply chain management system, but they can see the benefits of it."
o Logility
o Press release

Rental tide rises down under
July 5th 1999: Australian startup Application Service Provider Pty Ltd has become the latest Citrix partner aiming to offer desktop apps for rent over the Internet. The Adelaide-based former reseller, which has scored a global first by registering the full form of ASP as its official company name, says it is in negotiations to rent popular apps by top vendors Microsoft, Adobe and Corel, as well as others from Australian developers. Meanwhile, leading accounting software provider Solution 6 announced July 1st that it has paid $A15m ($US10m) for the 160-employee Australian and Singaporean operations of US systems integrator CVSI, based in Bedford MA. The Sydney-based vendor-turned-ASP, which is currently piloting rental of SAP applications, said it will use CVSI staff to implement infrastructure for ASP customers throughout Australia and south-east Asia. Solution 6 will also fold CVSI's range of knowledge management software packages into its ASP-delivered ERP offerings to form a complete business and information management solution. (Report by David Braue)
o Application Service Provider Pty
o Solution 6 Holdings
o CVSI

Startup ASP spurns rental
July 1st 1999: A leading ASP startup has decided not to include software licensing in its monthly service charge, preferring to let customers purchase licences direct from vendors. Applicast, based in Mountain View CA, launched SAP and Siebel application services last week and will add other complementary products to its portfolio over the course of the year. GTE Data Services, the data centre arm of the US telco, provides Applicast's hosting infrastructure. Having bought the licence and paid implementation costs, customers pay a basic monthly charge of $6,000-$14,000 plus $200 per user per month. Applicast is targetting midmarket and high-growth emerging enterprises and offers manufacturing as well as finance, sales force automation and customer service modules. Founded early last year as Plenan Systems, the company is currently closing a "very large" new funding round, CEO John McGrory told ASP News Review yesterday. "We are going for aggressive growth plus a couple of acquisitions in the next six months," he said.
o Read more about Applicast in the July issue of ASP News Review ... click here>>
o Applicast