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May 24, 1999 Hosting Applications Users outsource apps to save money and boost performance, security By Mary E. Thyfault, with Bruce Caldwell and Tom Stein Related links: App Hosts Court Users And from our sister publications: tele.com What Could Be Bigger Than the Internet? VARBusiness Delivering Apps In a Brave New World usinesses are signing up for some of the new hosting services being offered by a variety of vendors. 3WK, an Internet radio station in St. Louis, last week said it will begin using the Web-hosting services of Digital Broadcast Network Corp., a startup that has created a 35-city asynchronous transfer mode network. DBN's E-Business Services Platform includes collocation facilities, four data centers with enterprise-class servers and storage from Hewlett-Packard and EMC Corp., a multicast capability for video and audio streaming, and a service-management center. Jim Atkinson, 3WK's president and founder, says he considered buying or leasing a server to host its Internet site and hiring a full-time technical person. "But I'd prefer to have DBN host it, because they're the experts," Atkinson says. "There's no comparison when it comes to their bandwidth and their servers. I'd rather focus on our programming and content." Hershey Direct, a division of Hershey Foods Corp. in Hershey Pa., is turning to USinternetworking Inc. to build and maintain Hershey's new merchandise Web site. "We didn't want to make the investment, to provide the setup and management of the site, and provide redundancy," says Mark Potts, project manager for Hershey Direct. Just as important, Hershey required high security, Potts says. Also last week, vendors introduced some new offerings in the emerging market for hosted applications. USinternetworking rolled out AppHost, which will let independent software vendors host their apps on the USi network. Qwest Communications International Inc. and Siebel Systems Inc. last week unveiled plans to provide small and midsize businesses with Siebel applications on the Qwest network. The Siebel deal, and agreements earlier this month with SAP and Hewlett-Packard, provide Qwest customers with a package of back-office and front-office applications that are available around the clock. Compaq rolled out Compaq FutureSourcing for SAP R/3 Utility, an Internet SAP R/3 4.0 outsourcing service available to small and midsize businesses. Compaq will offer server management and network support for the new offering from its data center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Analysts says it may take five to seven years before the application service provider market takes off. So far, the number of big contracts can be counted on two hands, says Ben Pring, a senior industry analyst at Dataquest. "This will reverse the explosion of integration services based around tying together products," Pring says. Instead, he says, users will be able to reduce their dependence on consultants and integrators by buying Internet access to the software functions they need. Back to This Week's Issue Send Us Your Feedback Top of the Page Home | Career | Financials | Date Book Resource Centers | Search | Subscriptions