Application service provisioning - Current state and partnership strategies

Abstract

The European Application Service Provisioning (ASP) market is estimated to grow to USD 8.2 billion in 2003. Application Service Providers are companies that provision software applications over the Internet. The ASP will change traditional software businesses by turning software applications from products to services. This study researched the state of the current software business, ASP and the ability of Finnish software companies to gain partners in the international ASP competition based on the situation in November 2000. The current state of ASP business was examined by researching literature and four Finnish software companies that make use or are going to make use of ASP in the future. Because the concept of ASP is new, the amount of previous researches concerning ASP is very limited. The current state of software companies in this research is based on a study made by Forsell and Nukari in 1999 and on an international research of 100 software firms made by Harvard Business School in 1999. In this research it was found out that Finnish ASPs seek value added service and technology partners on the basis of their quality and trustworthiness. The partners co-operate in marketing, support and research. The current ASP market is fast changing, fast growing, immature and uncertain, but the faith in it is very strong. Finnish companies regard finding competent partners difficult because of the still immature market. Technology and security do not prevent the widespread use of ASP. The keys to success in the ASP market are co-operation with qualified partners, specializing in existing strengths, and qualitative and secure software products.