While the European market has been slow and watch ful towards the ASP model, companies in the US are responding well, and are busy redefining their strategies and changing their business models to exploit the opportunity. Skepticism of the European market notwithstanding, Indian corporates have been quite receptive to the concept. Their only problem so far-the lack of a high-speed and reliable connectivity.

So, what happens if India has the adequate bandwidth-300GB by 2005 (the demand projected by Nasscom) to be precise, as against the currently available 325Mbps? To quote Scot McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems, "Five years from now, if you are a CIO with a head for business, you won't be buying computers anymore. You won't buy software either. You will rent all your resources from a service provider." Does this mean that the present day ASPs will emerge in a new avatar and change the way enterprises work, or that the good old software companies will adopt a new business model to hawk their products?

New driving force

Experts believe that once the bandwidth issue is resolved, ASPs will emerge as the new driving force for enterprises. Says Balu Doraisamy, President HP India, Compaq Computer India, "The ASP model will help enterprises enhance their productivity and competitiveness. While the fundamental tenants of business will not change, what will definitely undergo a metamorphosis is the TCO model of owning infrastructure and the people around IT services. IT enablement of a large number of SMEs will facilitate the proliferation of end-to-end supply chain solutions."

Adds Ashutosh Yadav, CEO, Ideas 2 Dotcom Ventures, "ASPs will have the same revolutionary impact on business that cell phones had on personal productivity-it is like leveraging the technology without caring to know or being concerned about the systems in use behind the screen." According to him, once there is enough bandwidth, ASPs are bound to change the way business is done in the country, and for the first time the true benefits of IT would reach businesses across all sectors.

Anil Bakht, CMD, Eastern Software Solutions (ESS), a company that recently switched over from selling its ERP package to offering it on rent, says "All companies, especially the SMEs that cannot retain EDP staff and do not know which server to buy, will log on to the ASP model. All they will need is a PC and a browser to be able to avail of every application on the Net."

Bakht's statement sums up the benefits of the ASP model from the end-user perspective. The fact that it allows businesses to leverage the technologies, processes and expertise from leading providers of enterprise applications, without having to make investment in owning them, is a big drawing force. Add to this issues like implementation time, manpower shortage, insurance from obsolescence and simplicity, and it becomes clear why the user industry world over is hopping on to the ASP model.

However, Bakht faces a problem-one that is common to all ASPs in the country. While enterprises are impressed by their offerings, they are also skeptical of the reliability of the services, mainly on account of the poor accessibility of the applications on the Net. The culprit-bandwidth.

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The new model

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