Leading Internet and IT business Chrome Global Ltd has launched into
the application service provider (ASP) market, offering Oracle
Financials over the Internet or wide area network as a 'leased'
application to current and prospective clients.
Chrome Global's Managing Director Kevin Baum said Oracle's underlying
technology was ideally suited to the ASP model.
"We see the ASP model as becoming an increasingly important component
of Chrome Global's delivery model," Mr Baum said. "It presents some
great opportunities to deliver our products and services in different
ways and to develop new revenue lines."
By adopting this model, organisations could free their IT staff from
supporting core systems, while gaining the economies of scale offered
by the ASP. Improved accessibility, rapid deployment, reduced capital
investment and scalability could also be achieved.
Mr Baum said the ASP industry was a rapidly emerging area, offering a
new application delivery model to organisations that currently
maintain and deliver core business system internally.
As an ASP, Chrome Global will provide software applications, such as
Oracle Financials, to multiple organisations across a wide area
network or via the Internet. Estimates of the value of the worldwide
market for ASP services have ranged between US$2 billion and
$50 billion per annum.
Under its model, Chrome Global will be responsible for the ongoing
support, maintenance and upgrading of the application. Customers can
access the service on a per-user, per month basis at a fraction of
the cost of purchasing, deploying and supporting the same solution
in-house.
Chrome Global is well placed to be an application service provider,
with more 10 years experience in on-site implementation and support
of Oracle Applications. It is a current reseller of Oracle
Applications. As part of it's new premises, Chrome Global has
established the physical and network infrastructure for ASP services,
including a high-speed network connection via the corporate internet
service, UUNET.
The hardware platform for the solution will be provided by Sun
Microsystems.
Chrome Global's Executive Manager Technical Services Philip de la
Harpe said Sun Microsystems had embraced the Internet and was
delivering hardware solutions designed for ISP's and ASP's.
"They offer us a suitable platform today which is developing in all
of the right directions," Mr de la Harpe said.
"This ASP product, which offers core financial systems, should be of
interest to most public and private sector organisations, but it is
just the first step for Chrome Global in this direction."
"We will be following this with more fully integrated vertical market
options for the resources, engineering and health sectors."
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