'True' ASP applications delayed by lack of broadband access

In the absence of widely available and affordable broadband access, most ASPs use a thin client based model which some analysts say has lower bandwidth requirements.

But industry experts claim many of them have failed to explain to customers that the applications are web-enabled by middleware and are not designed for delivery over the internet, which could cause problems when they come to move to a true ASP model.

However, Eamus Halpin, CEO of newly launched ASP iFuel, claims the thin client model is preferable because customers are not prepared to pay for high bandwidth technologies.

"Thin client is a major advantage for us irrespective of the fact that it's not designed to run on the web environment. You can run an ASP on a thin client for under 30K. Clients will not pay a fortune for broadband and in many cases it's not available, especially for pan-European companies," he said at yesterday's launch.

Maxine Holt, senior research analyst at Butler Research, complained that comments like this mislead customers on performance and scalability issues. She said that as DSL is rolled out over the next two years ASPs would have to come clean with customers.

She said: "The market is driven by vendor hype. There are scalability issues. When you're talking about user volumes of hundreds or thousands ASPs often cannot add extra users or applications at the touch of a switch. But there is a lack of information among customers about this."

Greg Coyle, CEO of independent software vendor Sevina Technologies, also voiced concerns over current methods of ASP delivery.

"When you take applications developed for Windows into 100MB situations there are issues. They were designed for use on internal servers. The developers were not concerned with bandwidth. Also a lot of them don't incorporate XML so you can't integrate them with other web native applications."

He said that while the current partnerships between ASPs and independent software vendors (ISVs) will be instrumental in the development of native web applications, bigger corporations will be slower to react and it could be several years before we see reconfigured versions of Microsoft or Lotus applications.

However, Nick Greenway, analyst at Datamonitor, disagreed. He said acceptance of ASPs will increase as DSL technology improves the model, but it was in the interest of large corporations like Microsoft to be frontrunners in developing native web applications.

"The sooner Microsoft can migrate people to an ASP the better. In the SME market they should be paying for one licence per user, but that doesn't happen because of piracy.

"With ASPs usage can be metered as part of their agreement. If Microsoft can reduce piracy by even 10 per cent they'll make a killing. I think we'll see Microsoft offering the majority of its applications on a rented basis within five years."