Cable & Wireless Launches ASP

Communications Today, Sept 27, 2000

Many startup application service providers are germinating every day, but they better warily look over their shoulders at the giant telcos that are looking to step into this space and stomp them into oblivion.

Cable & Wireless [CWP] launched yesterday its own ASP, a-Services, with the help of Microsoft [MSFT] office applications and Compaq [CPQ] computers. It will target small and medium businesses with its initial U.S. rollout. Later this year, it will branch into the U.K. and Australia.

Other telcos and large Internet service providers that have some type of ASP capabilities include PSINet [PSIX] and SBC [SBC], while Verio is looking to become an ASP and UUNET has an ASP partner program. Qwest [Q], an ILEC and CLEC, owns its own subsidiary ASP, much like a-Services.

Over the past year, Cable & Wireless has been restructuring itself to move from its sole concentration on voice to focus on building a data-oriented network.

The shortage of IT workers played a large part in Cable & Wireless' decision to create an ASP, as did the desire of many small- and mid-sized businesses to make transactions over the Web, said Jeremy Thompson, president of a-Services.

Cable & Wireless is touting the fact that a-Services will be able to offer a better SLA because its parent company owns the network: data centers and the backbone. Qwest makes a similar argument, and it has been in the ASP business since last year, well ahead of most ASPs. ASP a-Services will initially charge $169 and $189 for Microsoft Office and Exchange respectively, which includes a Compaq computer. The company will be launching back-office applications, as well as vertical applications, by the end of the year.

Eric Ladley