While users are still trying to understand the pros and cons and technical as well as business issues surrounding application service providers and managed applications services, vendors of all kinds are jumping on the ASP bandwagon. Lucent, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Exodus, Digex, IBM, Novell, Qwest, Nortel and other players have all made ASP related announcements, from infrastructure to enabling programs to hosted applications. Many of the public comments from users about ASPs have been fairly negative, saying that the ASP push is coming from vendors looking for new market opportunities, rather than users with real needs.
Users appear to be moving very cautiously.
There are, however, a number of strong reasons why ASPs could succeed. The shortage of qualified IT professionals with enterprise management experience in networks and applications, and the increasing IT growth due to electronic business is putting more strain on the already over burdened IT organization. Managed application services may perhaps provide corporate decision makers with alternatives to their internal IT groups. One reason sometimes given for the slow adoption of ASPs is that users are waiting for vendors they trust to enter the field before making the move. As a next step in managed services, telcos provide a logical choice.