Even in the midst of several quarters of floundering sales for its conventional operating systems, SCO is bullish on the ASP opportunity. In June 2000, SCO quietly revealed the formation of Tarantella Inc., a business unit poised for freestanding operation. A lot now rides on proficiency in serving Windows applications for Internet and e-business applications and improving Tarantella's brand and market presence as an ASP solution. Thus, Tarantella is either a ray of sunshine or the eye of the storm for SCO solutions providers. Well, bringing the swordfish to market requires the proverbial working ice maker.
Successful ASPs focus on application deployment.
They provide access to and management of a commercially available application. The ASP model is fundamentally changing the way users access their software. These solutions providers take the ISV's software and combine it with other software, hardware, and services to form a complete IT solution. The solution is uniquely designed to meet a company's particular needs. After designing the solution, a typical solutions provider will not only sell product to the company but also provide professional services related to configuration, implementation, training, and support.