As hosting companies build out quality infrastructure across Europe, Web outsourcing makes sense for everyone. Emerging collaborative software and online trading mechanisms mean companies will vie to reinvent their operations, seeking efficiencies in new eMarketplaces, driving out excess cost, and delivering speed to market with new products. But they realise clients want more than this, so hosters will look to build out more sophisticated management, support, and application services. They aim to master not just hosting, but online intermediary roles as well. They lay plans to create and own eMarketplaces, ASP offerings, online payment processing services, and more.
Few companies can afford to wait out hosting developments.
In the short term, firms must turn to hosters to secure Web-based services against rapidly scaling user demand and operational complexity. For the inside story on hosting developments, Forrester also conducted interviews with 25 hosters and related businesses. Although these execs give hosters better marks than Forrester had expected, all recognise the need to push hosters harder as their own strategies mature. Forrester Research is Europe's leading independent Internet research firm, analysing technology change and its impact on business, consumers, and society. Forrester's European Research Center is located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and its UK Research Centre is located in London.