Open-source CRM for rent
Nov 22nd 1999: Australian technology distributor MUA last Thursday (Nov 18th) launched its FullCRM customer relationship management system as an ASP offering, and made the source code available to other developers under an open source licence. The Sydney-based distributor's 2000-plus resellers can now trial the application suite over the Internet and either rent it for a flat monthly fee per user or install and offer it as an ASP themselves. The product includes modules covering areas such as quoting, ordering, sales, marketing, accounting and customer communications. MUA plans to add complementary products in coming months. Ultimately, its plan is to help its VARs jump into the ASP market without having to set up their own data centres; MUA will host applications for the resellers� small customers on their behalf, and split the profits with the VARs. "A number of resellers are asking us to get ready to host our own applications, and we�re doing this in order to build volume at the same time," managing director Paul McQuarrie told ASP News Review. "We are not software developers, but if our resellers can get value from FullCRM they will do well - and by them doing well, we will do well." (Report by David Braue)
� MUA

LearningStation off to Oz
Nov 17th 1999: Charlotte NC-based ASP TheLearningStation.com (TLS) extended its model to Australia this week with the announcement yesterday of a joint venture with Redfern NSW-based outsourcing and facilities management company BDO SynergyIT. To be called ApplicationStation.com, the new venture will trial a TLS-designed suite of small business applications based around MS Office and Lotus Notes that the Australian company has been been testing with several dozen local users for over a year. It will also seek to replicate TLS� success in the US education market with a localised version of the LearningStation.com ASP service, which includes hundreds of individual modules covering educational and school administration functions. That offering is expected to be hosted from BDO�s Sydney data centre by the start of the Australian school year in February 2000. Jim Pennington, co-founder and chief of innovation with TheLearningStation.com, told ASP News Review that Australia's small business population makes the market a "huge opportunity" for ApplicationStation.com, which BDO SynergyIT will back with full call centre and onsite support services. Success in the Australian market could also act as a springboard into the massive Asian market, he added. (Report by David Braue)
� TheLearningStation.com
� BDO Synergy

Futurelink bursts into Europe
Nov 16th 1999: Futurelink today announced its first overseas acquisition, snapping up Newbury UK-based KNS Distribution Limited in a deal valued at £27m ($44.3m), with £7.25m ($11.9m) to be paid in cash and performance-related payments, and the balance in stock. A subsidiary of computer services group Kerridge Computer Company Limited, KNS is the largest distributor of Citrix products based outside of the USA. KNS - which is to be renamed Futurelink Europe - already markets a portfolio of value-added services through its customer base of 360 active UK resellers, who now become a ready-made channel for Futurelink's ASP offerings. With plans already in hand to bring a European data centre operational early next year, the company expects its first UK customers to go live in the first quarter 2000. Futurelink's CFO Raghu Kilambi told ASP News Review today that the company expects to make further acquisitions in Europe as well as other regions. "Everything is on our target list right now," he said. "We look at markets where server-based computing has really taken off outside the US. We have to be in the next markets we see where ASP will cross the chasm."
� Futurelink

JD Edwards ASPs go live
Nov 11th 1999: JD Edwards (JDE) re-emerged as a key vendor on the ASP scene this week, announcing its membership of the ASP Industry Consortium as partners in California and Argentina launched ASP operations. Mountain View CA-based startup Aristasoft unveiled its ASP offering for fast-growing high-tech manufacturers on Monday (Nov 8th), revealing the first live customer implementation by an ASP of the vendor's OneWorld enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite. Aristasoft, which will add complementary applications to its offering in coming months, is using 'big five' consulting firm Deloitte & Touche as an implementation partner, and obtains hosting and communications services from Covad, Digital Island and Exodus. Last week it announced $30m first-round funding led by respected venture capital firms Warburg, Pincus & Co and Crosspoint Venture Partners. Meanwhile, leading Latin America solutions provider Grupo ASSA, based in Buenos Aires, launched its ASP service targetting small and medium-size businesses with a complete subscription computing service. JDE was one of the first vendors to test the ASP model, in trials begun late 1997 with IBM Global Services and Seattle WA-based World Technology Services.
� There's an interview with Aristasoft CEO Drew Hoffman in December's ASP News Review newsletter ... click here>>
� Aristasoft
� Grupo ASSA
� JD Edwards

Progress signs up IBM, USi
Nov 8th 1999: Application server vendor Progress Software today signed up IBM as a hosting partner for its ASPEN (ASP enablement) Program in Europe, Middle East and Africa. IBM becomes the second European hosting provider in the scheme, alongside Manchester UK-based ESoft Global. The roster of US hosters was swelled last week by the addition of leading ASP USinternetworking, joining Futurelink and Navisite. Progress revealed that more than 50 ASPs and independent software vendors (ISVs) have joined the scheme so far, making it the largest of its type in the ASP industry. Participants include HR, CRM and distribution industry ISVs from the USA, Brisbane Australia-based stock market transaction systems vendor GBST, and Latin America's top ERP vendor, Brazil-based Datasul. In a competitive jibe against rival vendor Oracle's Business OnLine (BOL) operation, Progress reported that its database-centred application development and deployment platform is in use at 77 end user accounts worldwide, serving an estimated 2400 user seats in total. The comparative figures for BOL are around 30 and 2000 respectively. "It took us four or five weeks to work out how many seats we had," ASP Business Unit VP Mike Mitsock told ASP News Review, explaining that the vendor had had to ask each of its ISV partners for user numbers. "But we didn't want Oracle to get away with the idea that they lead the market, because our ISVs have more seats than they do."
� Progress Software
� Oracle Business OnLine