From the annual LotusSphere trade show, Lotus officials announced the ASP Enablement Suite in conjunction with parent IBM and the long-distance giant.
The suite, which includes multiple components, is designed to create hosted Lotus-based applications offerings for small and midsize enterprises.
For software vendors that are IBM or Lotus clients and that develop Lotus-based applications, AT&T will provide hosting services and ASP knowledge. Conversely, when AT&T's ASP customers want technical, sales or marketing help with Lotus-based software, they will be referred to IBM, which will also provide IBM servers.
Partnering for non-core competencies is one of the lessons ASPs and ASPs-to-be can learn in the dot-com era, AT&T and IBM officials said in an interview.
No actual OEM or reselling will take place between the three companies, officials said, just advice, marketing and referrals.
This isn't the first effort by the three companies to get a slice of the ASP pie.
AT&T entered the hosting game about two years ago, and it announced new data centres and two new OC-192 backbones earlier this month.
IBM, through its ASP Prime, Global Services, Net Generation and Hosting Advantage programs, offers ISVs assistance for becoming ASPs as well as top-tier managed hosting.
Lotus, with its ASP Solutions Pack, makes available hosting platform tools, for such tasks as tracking and monitoring, plus a suite of software applications that are hosting-ready.
