Microsoft turns its back on 'confused' ASP partners

Microsoft's offering, to be called bCentral, is slated for a summer launch, and has caused concern among the company's European ASP partners. These include Commtouch, Equant, FutureLink, Interliant and NetStore, who are worried that the service will take badly needed customers away from them.

At a meeting with Microsoft held last month in Seattle, the ASPs discussed the possibility of providing services through bCentral. However, many of the people who attended that meeting remain confused about how even the most fundamental parts of bCentral, such as Exchange, will be rolled out in Europe.

Dave Mills, vice president commercial at FutureLink Europe, said: "It all depends whether you see bCentral as a potential threat or a plug-in to your own services. Those ASPs that have built their business on basic messaging and Office will be watching this space."

Attendees returning from the meeting believe Commtouch is Microsoft's favoured partner at this stage. Sources who refused to be named reported that the Israeli Nasdaq-listed ASP has been selected to provide "communications services" to bCentral in Europe.

This means London-listed NetStore - which counts Exchange as its core revenue stream - has been passed over, having undergone Microsoft's stringent, and costly, certification process for hosted Exchange.

However, Paul Tollet, director of small business at Microsoft, insisted that internal personnel, rather than Commtouch, will run bCentral's email services. Despite this, Tollett himself added to the confusion, saying he too is unsure what bCentral will eventually look like.

He said: "It's like the shifting sands of the Sahara. I would love to be able to say 'these are the services that we will offer.'"

One thing which is certain is that the bCentral services will be run out of the Microsoft operations centre, in the shared hosting facility in London Docklands that is also home to MSN.

NetStore refused to comment until Microsoft has made an official announcement.