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NEWS
Mar 25th 2000: A wave of ASP announcements in Europe this week coincided with a survey showing that as many as two-thirds of companies in Germany and the UK expect to do business with an ASP in the next eighteen months. In Germany, ASPs and supporting vendors met on Thursday to form Europe's first indigenous ASP industry body (see separate story Germans form Konsortium). On the same day in the UK, British ASP Integration Group broke new ground with the announcement of a system for secure access across the Internet based on technology from RSA Security and Novell. Meanwhile, a survey commissioned by the ASP Industry Consortium found that a majority of businesses in both countries are ready to embrace the ASP model, although it French and Scandinavian respondents proved to be less keen. One quarter of the companies contacted said they already use ASPs for payroll, Website and e-mail applications. (See Cyberatlas story European market ripe for ASPs). Katy Ring, senior analyst at Ovum, the London-based company which carried out the research, noted that the survey had used a broad definition of ASP. "Companies that were outsourcing hosting of a Website were classified as using an ASP," she told ASP News Review this week. But she confirmed the finding that Europeans are willing to try out ASP services. "They didn't see it as any different from dealing with an outsourcer," she said. "The market is here to be sold to." Integration's secure access system protects user data by requiring the use of an encrypted RSA token to authenticate the user's identity. Novell directory services enable precise control of access rights. The system will enable Integration to offer its small business customers completely secure access to their applications across the Internet from anywhere in the world. "We're bringing world class applications to the user at a price you can afford, with security you would never have dreamed of," managing director Eamus Halpin told ASP News Review yesterday. West Drayton-based Integration, which already provides Systems Union financials and other applications to customers using Citrix Windows terminal technology, is preparing to launch a portfolio of as many as fifty applications from up to fifteen vendors, said Halpin. The ASP will operate throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa and is targetting a user base of 250,000 within three years. In other announcements in Europe this week, Microsoft and Compaq on Thursday signed a pan-European agreement with broadband Internet provider FirstMark Communications to build a network of hosting centres, dubbed "Solution Hotels" by FirstMark. The provider aims to work with ASPs and business service providers to offer packaged solutions to small and medium-sized enterprises. It will also connect its network into Compaq's ASP competence centre located in Sophia Antipolis in southern France. In a separate announcement on Tuesday, Danish enterprise software vendor Damgaard revealed it has become the first software vendor to join Microsoft's application hosting pilot programme. And last week NetStore, another participant in Microsoft's pilot, announced its intention to join the London Stock Exchange, putting it in line to become the first pureplay ASP to attempt a stock market flotation in Europe. Observers have estimated it is likely to achieve a valuation of around half a billion dollars.
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