Today, most enterprises first try an application service provider (ASP) by subscribing for a single hosted application. Often, this initial trial involves an application such as payroll, which typically requires a simple data transfer from the corporation to the service and back. As such, the integration required between corporate systems and the service provider isn't very demanding.
But as more hosted applications become available and companies realise the potential cost savings of outsourced applications, there's a need to ensure that in-house applications work with hosted applications. And as corporate customers begin to work with multiple ASPs, those companies will also require the various hosted applications to share data effectively.
Right now, the burden of integrating in-house and hosted applications falls more on the ASP customers than the ASPs themselves. Enterprises have a number of choices:
- Use in-house programmers, contract consultants, or programmers to write the necessary integration programs so that multiple programs can exchange information. Hopefully, the ASP's applications will have an appropriate application programming interface (API) to reduce the amount of manual coding required.
- Rely on the ASP's integration consulting and programming services.
- Find an ASP with applications that integrate seamlessly without additional coding.
ASPs are fully aware of the problem and eager to accommodate customers. In response to the reluctance of customers to roll out proprietary solutions, more and more ASPs are designing their applications to integrate seamlessly with existing corporate data
