Lotus Development -- no stranger to selling rentable applications -- took steps this week to bolster its position vs. rivals like Microsoft in the current ASP market.
Lotus, an IBM subsidiary, unveiled a more manageable application hosting environment, plus new billing packages meant to overcome lingering resistance to the ASP model among potential ASPs and customers.
Citing IDC's predictions of a US$2 billion ASP market by 2004, Lotus president and CEO Al Zollar described the new ASP Solution Pack environment for messaging/collaboration, knowledge management and e-learning applications as part of a broader effort to eventually "ASP-enable" all software applications from IBM and Lotus.
In a press conference at Lotus headquarters, Zollar and other officials contended that Lotus' new ASP package will benefit ISV, systems integrator and traditional channel partners by opening up new routes to generating revenues from among the 65 million existing users of Notes/Domino.
"We need to modify [ISV] applications," admitted Pat Hume, the VP in charge of Lotus' partnership programs. Hume added that the ASP Solution Pack "does take some level of integration."
This week's ASP initiatives from Lotus come a couple of months after Microsoft's announcement of its big ASP push. In a keynote speech at the Microsoft Fusion conference in July, Microsoft CEO/president conceded that Microsoft itself ultimately will become an ASP.
But that's not so for Lotus/IBM, according to Zollar, who maintained that Big Blue and its subsidiary will make a strong effort "not to compete with partners" by shunning the role of "hosting provider."
Lotus introduced its first software product for rentable applications, Domino Instant Host, in 1998. IBM, of course, got its start in the applications-for-rent business even earlier, back in the mainframe time-sharing era of the 1950s and 1960s.
When IBM first bought Lotus, IBM officials acknowledged that the Notes messaging/groupware development environment was the main motivator. Many observers at the time saw the initially unfriendly acquisition as a hedge by IBM against Microsoft's Exchange. Lotus Domino, rolled out in 1996, combines support for Notes- and Web-based applications.
Hume also pointed out this week that Lotus has launched a recruitment effort among ISVs to drive more third-party applications to Lotus' ASP environment.
Lotus' ASP Environment
Available immediately, Lotus' ASP Solution Pack makes it possible for ASPs to run multiple Domino-based applications, for multiple business customers, on a single hardware server for the first time ever, said Brian White, product manager. Aside from adding greater scalability, the product also is aimed at making it easier for ASPs to manage Web- and Notes-based applications, and to bill customers for ASP services, according to White.
The ASP Solution Pack supports some Domino applications, including Lotus' QuickPlace and the Sametime "chat" offering, straight out of the box, but support for other applications is still forthcoming.
The Solution Pack adds several new components to the existing Domino hosting environment, White said. Those include a new user interface called Community Workspace; APIs and an ODBC interface for integrating third-party billing packages; and a new middleware layer for adding scalability by connecting up Domino and IBM's WebSphere environment.
White claimed that Community Workspace is so easy to use that it will let an administrative assistant at an ASP customer site add users to the Domino directory, change users' e-mail addresses and divide users into groups. "So IT can now delegate these tasks to end users," he remarked.
The new licensing models are based on monthly per-user pricing. Under one new approach, ASPs will track and pay for licenses based on the number of activated users per month, in a "pay-as-you-grow" scenario. Lotus also plans to offer hosting contracts with monthly per-user pricing to some larger ASPs, Hume said. Lotus is not releasing information on the licensing fees, however.
Bob Curry, director of technology for ISV Iemagine, said Iemagine has been partnering with ASP Encanto Networks on beta testing a number of Domino applications with the ASP Solution Pack, including Iemagine's AuctionPool, TeamPurchase, TeamCareer and ReadyMart, for example.
Curry also asserted that Lotus' new licensing packages will make the ASP model more attractive, by overcoming risks associated with year-long licensing commitments in this still unfolding space.
Lotus' newer partners, such as Sonera, are looking to add Notes customers to their existing ASP base. Sonera, a security and smart card specialist, recently launched an ASP arm as a way of leveraging its "core competency" of application management, Sonera officials said during this week's Lotus event. Although Sonera hasn't gained any Notes customers yet, the officials hope to do so soon.
Doug Bradley, marketing manager for the University of Wisconsin's Learning Innovations, said Learning Innovations and Web hoster/integrator Berbee will move to using the ASP Solution Pack just as soon as Lotus adds support for its own LearningSpace application.
The university spin-off and Berbee have teamed up on building Domino-based courseware, for training business users how to use custom software, as well as commercial products like Microsoft Word.
