Communications, collaboration, electronic commerce, training, and education applications top Zona's list of the most popular applications used via ASPs. IDC's Mizoras agrees. Companies are more interested in outsourcing new and different applications, such as e-commerce and customer relationship management applications. These applications are also in higher demand, and it's hard to find the talent to run them. Fear of the Unknown Unfamiliarity with the players is another reason some people shy away from ASPs.
Most ASPs are fairly unknown, and people are skeptical.
For some businesses, that's how they feel about ASPs. Users generally know what applications they want, and they know these applications by brand name. Microsoft Office may be the best example of this. A business or a home user may wish to use Microsoft Office in a hosted version but may not be able to distinguish among the service providers offering the application. Microsoft's applications are available in hosted versions, but they are not available through Microsoft itself.