Utility Computing: ASP by another name or a new trend?
George Feuerlicht, Jiří Voříšek · UTS ePRESS (University of Technology Sydney) · 2004
Application Service Providing (ASP) emerged towards the end of 90s with claims of extensive advantages for client organizations, in particular for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).Notwithstanding many perceived advantages the ASP approach has not gained wide acceptance as the new model for delivery of enterprise applications.Many of the early ASP providers have not been able to establish a viable business model and have discontinued ASP services, or went out of business altogether.However, some major ICT vendors have recently re-confirmed their commitment to the application-as-service model and made large investments in Utility Computing infrastructure.What are the long-term prospects for application servicing?Is Utility Computing a new paradigm for the delivery of enterprise applications, or is this yet another ICT industry fad? How should user organizations respond to these developments?This paper follows on from earlier contributions of the authors at SI 2002 and SI 2003, and gives a detailed description of the ASP approach and an analysis of the reasons for failure of many of the early ASP providers.We then summarize both technological and business prerequisites for successful application servicing.We argue that the application-as-service model constitutes a viable alternative to software licensing for many application types today, and will become the dominant method for delivery of enterprise applications in not too distant future.End user organizations need to prepare now for this shift from licensed software and in-house implementation towards applications delivered as services, so that they are able to take full advantage of this new trend.