Event Summary
SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 26, 1999 -- At ISPCON'99, IBM's Lotus Development Corp.
today announced the ASP Solution Pack, a hosted applications offering that provides
a Lotus Domino- and IBM WebSphere-powered platform and a ready-to-rent solution
set directly targeted at the needs of Application Service Providers (ASPs) and
their small and mid-sized business customers. The ASP Solution Pack combines
Web application servers with differing core competencies and manages them via
a common Hosting Management System. This enables ASPs to easily host, manage
and deliver three categories of business applications: collaborative, transactive
and real-time. (Source: Lotus Press)
Market
Impact
The Lotus ASP Solution Pack contains four core "ready to rent" applications,
which provide secure on-line groupware and application configuration based upon
a user's network profile. The applications include Lotus QuickPlace, Domino
Web Mail with calendaring and scheduling, Lotus Sametime and Instant Messaging.
The ASP Solution Pack will provide support for Microsoft Windows NT, Sun Solaris
and AIX, support for Linux and AS/400 will be added after the initial release.
The product is expected for release to manufacturing in the 2nd Quarter of 2000
(probability 70%).
The
product is targeted at small and mid-sized businesses, which make up the primary
user base in the ASP arena. Lotus is the first of the big three to offer a lightweight,
all-in-one groupware system designed specifically for ASPs. The ASP market is
still in relative infancy, however it is raising quite a few eyebrows within
the technology sector due to its remarkable growth rate. Lotus is stepping in
to the application rental market in order to enhance its Internet viability
with the ASP Solution Pack, and they are stepping in at the right time. Expect
to see Lotus' ASP Solution Pack offering to take off in the 3rd quarter of 2000
(probability 65%).
User
Recommendations
While Lotus is offering a fully functional, lightweight Internet Solution Pack
that will provide end users with essential point to point collaboration applications,
it will not be released until the 2nd quarter of 2000. We expect the product
and the service to be strong and to benefit both end users and ASPs. However,
we recommend that users wait six months on an application renting decision,
as cheaper and more functional ASP solutions from a broader set of vendors will
be delivered within that timeframe.