How can you use ASPs for your business? This HOTT Guide Special helps you to get the best out of ASP for your company. It provides practical information as well as market guidance and validation, to help you understand buyer demand and requirements, capitalise on emerging market opportunities, identify the right partners, hone their business model, price offers appropriately and get into the market faster.

Learn how to use Application Service Providers to enhance the future of your business! Application Service Providers in Business is a comprehensive analysis of the present ASP model and its place in business today. Business success in today’s information-intensive marketplace depends on a company’s ability to acquire and fully use the latest advancements in business-critical applications. By having these applications delivered as services over the Internet, businesses can lessen the demands on company IT staff, and increase the ability to get complex software into use immediately. Within this context, a new outsourcing business model called ASP (Application Service Provider) has emerged that is transforming how businesses access and leverage software applications. The book explains the specific contingent ASP models, including business, enterprise, functional-focused, and vertical market ASPs, and ASP aggregators. It demonstrates how different ASP models have fulfilled diverse market/customer expectations and explores future scenarios for current ASP business models. Case studies, tables, and figures illustrate important concepts and make complex information easy to access and understand. Based on a thorough analysis of the ASP market environment, the book provides detailed Best Practices Guidelines that managers of ASPs can use to improve the chances of success of their respective ASPs. It outlines contingency factors such as application offerings, customer selection, operations, and strategic fit. The book also not only assists business managers in deciding on whether to use an ASP, but it presents ways to use ASPs to effectively support their business process. The ability to provide the workforce with access to data whenever and wherever is crucial for positively impacting a company’s profitability, and ASPs provide the software to make it possible. Topics included in Application Service Providers in Business are: Best Practices Guidelines strategic management management decision making and planning IT management and outsourcing future of the ASP market ASP business models and much more! Application Service Providers in Business is a comprehensive resource for executives, managers, professors, and business students in the US and worldwide. Using the information and guidelines provided, executives and managers can learn how to use ASPs to enhance their business, and managers of ASPs can learn how to increase their chance of success in the competitive ASP market. The material is also appropriate as a textbook for management and computer information/software development classes.

With the increasing reliance on digital means to transact goods that are retail and communication based, e-services continue to develop as key applications for business, finance, industry and innovation.Electronic Services: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications is an all-inclusive research collection covering the latest studies on the consumption, delivery and availability of e-services. This multi-volume book contains over 100 articles, making it an essential reference for the evolving e-services discipline.

This book focuses on the market dynamics in business today that are driving the development of the ASP Model. It defines the core concepts and building blocks of e-business, leading the reader to a comprehensive understanding of the opportunities in this area. Market needs in all sizes and classes of business are driving the adoption of the ASP model by more businesses than was originally forecasted. Now, the largest software and technology companies of the world are actively pursuing the ASP model as a strong business approach. This book will define the key market drivers behind every aspect of the ASP model, including case studies to illustrate each major component. There will also be case studies of the companies that are market and industry leaders that describe their participation in this market. This book will also explore Microsoft's Office Online initiative, Oracle's Business Online stores, and the focus of AT & T's and SoftBank's role in this market. Dell Computer is actively looking into the ASP Model via investments in Interliant and Agillion. This book will delve into the collaborative tools aspect of the ASP model, which is crucial for the long-term success of this marketplace.

The importance of the Internet and information and communication technologies to the global economy has never been greater. This volume aims to facilitate knowledge sharing relevant to everyone, irrespective of background, thematic or goegraphic focus.

A strategic guide to mastering service provider relationships Well-known business management consultant and Boston Globe columnist Mary Helen Gillespie helps business and IT managers navigate through the confusing technology-driven landscape of service providers. Offering insight into the points of view for both the service provider and client, Gillespie guides readers through available services, from Internet access and applications service providers, to wireless and networking services and IT management services. Readers will find business models, overviews of the enabling technologies, coverage of economic and management issues, and clear descriptions of service offerings within each provider type. Most importantly, decision makers will be able to choose the right service provider to meet their needs and develop strategic partnerships when outsourcing non-core business functions.

E-Commerce and E-Government has become known as the wave of the future for business all over the world. Whether large, small, or just starting, E-Commerce and E- Government have been the easier and more sufficient way to handle business. This book brings together revised and expanded versions of eighteen papers selected from the 2003 International Conference on Management of e-Commerce and e-Government. This book presents leading edge research in this new and exciting field. The ICMeCG 2003 has initially received a total of 176 submissions from Australia, China, Norway, UK, and USA. Unfortunately, risk of SARS prevented many authors from actually participating in the conference. The Program Committee of ICMeCG selected papers through a careful reviewing process. Although some papers remain devoted to conceptual and general discussion about e-Commerce management, many papers have adopted quantitative or formal analysis methods in their research. Results presented in these papers provide an important contribution, especially as compared with earlier research based on qualitative methods alone. This book presents cutting edge research in this new and exciting field.