No mess, no fuss
While e-businesses such as NDB see using ASPs as a good way to get into wireless quickly, others are motivated more by the opportunity to offload the hassle and expense of responding to lightning-quick changes taking place in wireless technologies.
"We're still in an era of competing standards, and who knows who the winner will be?" said D.R. Grimes, CEO of NetBank Inc., an Atlanta-based Internet bank that outsourced wireless Web services to Air2Web. NetBank, which launched its wireless offering in September, wanted to deploy the service to as many of its 135,000 account holders as possible and to support a wide array of devices, including PDAs, WAP phones and even non-WAP cell phones using Short Message Service.
Supporting that many wireless devices, however, meant that NetBank would need to be ready to respond quickly when, say, the still-young WAP standard changes. So NetBank, which had experience outsourcing other operations to ASPs, decided to use an ASP for wireless Web services.
So far, Grimes said, the Air2Web service has been safe, secure and reliable.
Not all enterprises will be willing to rely on relatively young ASPs to support critical wireless services or to protect sensitive customer data. Nor should they, say experts. Before signing on with a wireless ASP, said Steve Butman, chief technology officer at wireless consulting and integration company Mobilocity Inc., in New York, IT managers should be satisfied that the service provider has a strong business plan and that it won't go away. IT managers should also ensure that their wireless ASP has invested in creating a secure environment. Because they view wireless as a competitive advantage, Butman predicted, many larger enterprises in particular may choose to maintain control of their wireless initiatives.
"In wireless, we are where we were four years ago with the Internet, with technology changing weekly or monthly," Butman said. "It makes sense to let the dust settle on the technology before outsourcing."
One company that has decided to develop wireless Web systems and skills in-house is Excara Inc. The company, which runs industrial goods e-marketplace PurchasingCenter.com, recently decided to deploy NetMorf Inc.'s SiteMorf software to transform Web contentâ€"350,000 catalog itemsâ€"into a form accessible by buying agents using WAP phones. Officials at Excara expect that NetMorf will help the company keep up with changes in wireless technology standards by continuously upgrading the SiteMorf tool. Meanwhile, Excara gets to take direct responsibility for issues like security and reliability.
Not that e-business managers going the wireless outsourcing route aren't also concerned about controlling issues like security. NDB's Shah took pains to get his reliability and security questions answered before signing on with Aether. Shah, for example, demanded contract language prohibiting Aether from making any use of NDB's customer information. In addition, he made sure that Aether's wireless sessions are encrypted. Shah got NDB's IT department to approve Aether's security before the implementation.
And NDB, during its review of wireless ASPs, evaluated all providers' long-term viability, considering their financial backing and plan for growth.
