Novell has pounced on the emergent application service provider (ASP) model, offering many of its Internet services software on a per-user, per-month basis to attract new business from application hosters.
ISPs, ASPs and other e-commerce providers are being introduced to Novell's Internet Commercial Service Provider (iCSP) program which offers a monthly royalty model for Novell's directory software, messaging, desktop management, security and billing products.
Ed Pierson, corporate business strategist for Novell, said the suite of products, which include NetWare, GroupWise, BorderManager, iChain, OnDemand, Novell Instant Messaging System and Zen for Desktops, solve the three key hurdles service providers face when going to market.
"First there is reducing the administration costs and general headaches associated with managing the identity of the people you are giving access to," he said. "The second issue is security, which we solve using biometrics, smartcards and tokens. Finally there is the acceleration of delivery - we aim to solve this issue with caching."
Novell sees the service provider model as a means of gaining new revenue streams and has also found a lot of demand from corporate and Government clients for similar pricing models.
"There is a significant amount of focus on this market space within Novell," said Rajeev Mitroo, licensing program manager of Novell, Asia-Pacific, who is heading up the promotion of the scheme in the Asia-Pacific region. Mitroo has seen the region take a leading role in the scheme, with several ISPs and ASPs conducting pilots in the initial stages of its development.
"Web hosting and ASPs are some of the highest growth markets in the industry today," said Pierson. "We are applying an enormous amount of resources into this scheme, and we are expecting to achieve the rewards from it."
