Digex, which develops sites and serves as an ASP, committed to using Compaq and Microsoft products and services as part of the agreement. Digex will be using Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system and SQL Server database management software running on Compaq servers. Nike, W.W. Grainger and Forbes are some of Digex's current customers. Chief information officers are increasingly choosing smaller, simplified computers, such as iPaq, over network computers, said computer executives. ASPs business models differ significantly from the network computer concept, in that application processing is done locally.
Users run the applications on their desktops, while management is a remote function.
Network computers, on the other hand, run applications from a server, increasing the bandwidth and computing power required to maintain a corporate network. While Microsoft would like Digex and other ASPs to use its BackOffice products, the company also is looking to bolster its efforts to rent Office and other software products online. Digex is one of Microsoft's partners in software rentals. We'll continue to do more of these partnerships. ASPs are another outlet for our software.