IRVINE, Calif.,June 30, 2000 (PRIMEZONE) -- FutureLink Corp. (Nasdaq:FTRL), one of the first Application Service Providers (ASPs), today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to jointly establish an R&D Lab and two Hosted Application Showcase facilities for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who wish to provide hosted versions of their applications using Windows 2000 Terminal Services. FutureLink also announced Microsoft is making a $10 million equity investment in the company.
The R&D Lab, which will be located in southern California, will provide technical guidance to ISVs preparing their applications for ASP deployment using Windows 2000 Terminal Services. FutureLink will establish an ASP-Hosted Application Showcase facility in Irvine, Calif., and Microsoft, with assistance from FutureLink, will establish a similar site at the Microsoft Partner Solutions Center in Redmond, Wash. The Hosted Application Showcase facility in Irvine can be used by ISV sales forces and sales channels to demonstrate their hosted applications.
Xpedian, Inc. (OTCBB:XPDN) is one of the first ASP's in the world to market financial and estate planning through a proprietary software system that produces customized documents and planning solutions that can potentially save large companies millions of dollars each year. Xpedian is a financial and estate planning ASP focused on technology to deliver web-based financial planning services. The company expects that this rapidly growing E-Commerce network will enable established Stock Brokerage Firms, Certified Public Accountants, Financial Planners, Insurance Agents, Attorneys, and other financial intermediaries to provide value-added, on-line financial and estate planning products and services to their clients, at a reduced cost. Visit www.estateplanet.com.
International Business Machine Corp. is looking to develop next generation Web enterprises - including ASP ventures - through a trio of incubator initiatives introduced. The programs are designed to provide partners with the fuel to propel the solutions they provide onto a fast track for e-commerce profits on a global scale. IBM (NYSE:IBM) operates in 164 counties worldwide and can claim to be intimate with the trials, tribulations, and pitfalls that come with taking a company global.
C Me Run Corp. (OTCBB:CMER), the Internet computing company offering Application Service Provider (ASP) services to Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecommunications companies, announced that Cyber Beach Communications will offer C Me Run's Internet computing services to their subscribers. Cyber Beach has over 4,000 home-based subscribers and hosts approximately 200 businesses online in the Sudbury, Canada area. The company will begin roll-out of the C Me Run service in July 2000. The announcement was made following C Me Run's keynote presentation on the consumer ASP market at the ASP Summit in Toronto.
A worldwide elite of Microsoft's closest ASP partners is pressing ahead with preparations for services based around Exchange 2000. Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) will formally launch the flagship email and collaboration platform next month, and the product is expected to ship at the end of the summer. In the meantime, providers have full-scale customer trials in progress using beta versions.
NEW WORLD APPS, a leading Internet Management Service Provider and pioneer of the Internet Leveraged Cluster(TM), has joined the fast-growing Application Service Provider (ASP) Industry Consortium, an international advocacy group formed to promote the application service provider industry by sponsoring research, promoting best practices, and articulating the measurable benefits of the ASP delivery model of computing.
Digital Insight(TM) Corporation (Nasdaq:DGIN) announced the delivery of Online Statements to its AXIS(TM) Internet Banking solution. The new feature, made possible through a partnership with Austin, Texas-based PSI Technologies Corporation, is designed to strengthen a financial institution's ability to retain their customers and increase their online consumer base by providing a more robust Internet presence and better customer service overall.
Digital Insight(TM) empowers financial institutions to provide Internet-based financial solutions to their retail and commercial customers via a cost-effective, outsourced service. The Company's unique AXIS(TM) architecture is the only ASP system designed to communicate in either real time or batch, based on the institution's core data processing system.
Obongo Inc., creators of the personalized companion toolbar for Web users, announced that it has released its latest version of the innovative Web tool. The obongo bar is a toolbar, which after downloading from the Web, appears at the bottom of a traditional Web browser. Using it saves time and makes surfing and shopping on the Internet an easier experience by remembering passwords for any number of sites and offering one-click. The company operates an ASP (application service provider). It provides a turnkey hosted service to partners such as financial and telecom companies to strengthen their relationships with their customers by providing them with obongo services under their own brand. Obongo Inc. is backed by Sequoia Capital, Atlas Venture, Merrill Lynch and VeriSign. Sequoia were the original backers of Apple Computer (Nasdaq:AAPL), Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq:CSCO), Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO), MP3 (Nasdaq:MPPP), WebVan (Nasdaq:WBVN), LSI Logic (Nasdaq:LSI), Linear Technology (Nasdaq:LLTC) and Scient (Nasdaq:SCNT).
UNICOMP, INC. (Nasdaq:UCMP), a provider of e-business retail solutions and e-business software offerings for small and medium-sized companies and independent system integrators (ISVs), announced a further step in strengthening its e-business imitative with the acquisition of Oxford, England-based Commitment Software Ltd. Commitment Software, an innovative six-year old private software development company, was acquired for approximately $200,000 of cash and shares of UniComp's common stock.
According to UniComp President and Chief Executive Officer Stephen A. Hafer, the two companies have been collaborating to Web-enable UniComp's suite of e-business software offerings targeting small and medium-sized companies as well as ISVs. Once this is accomplished, the Company will market its Web-enabled applications via its new ASP (Application Service Provider) portal.
Imagine Software, Inc., the industry leader in state-of-the-art derivatives and risk management technologies, announced at the Securities Industry Association's (SIA) annual Technology Management Conference, the launch of the Imagine Application Service Provider (ASP) via the Internet at www.Derivatives.com , scheduled for completion in Summer of 2000.
Derivatives.com is powered by Imagine software analytics that run on a server farm, composed of multiple Sun E4500 servers. Imagine is also using Sun Enterprise Servers (Nasdaq:SUNW) for its relational database management system, firewall boxes and web servers.
TALX Corp. (Nasdaq:TALX), a leading application service provider (ASP) of HR, benefits and payroll employee self-service solutions announced $2.4 million in new ASP contracts signed recently. The TALX team of project managers and technical service professionals are working together in specialized teams to implement these six new contracts for clients operating in the health care, banking, pharmaceutical and service industry.
Ulticom, Inc. (Nasdaq:ULCM), a leading provider of service enabling software for wireless, wireline and Internet communications, announced that Steven C. Davis, Vice President of Research and Development, has been named President of the Parlay Group, an industry consortium.
"There is a changing landscape for creation of telecomm services that will harness the creative energy of the IT computing environment with the functionality of the current and emerging telephone network," Davis said. "The telco application space, is, in fact, merging with the world wide web, the ASP community and the enterprise. Telecom Cool Apps of the future will be services that are customized by users who control them, tapping into resources where needed - from within telco networks, the enterprise or ASP, in browsers on desktops, or in databases stored on hand-held devices."
RADWARE (Nasdaq:RDWR) a leading provider of Internet Traffic Management (ITM) solutions enabling continuous access to Web sites, IP applications and content, announced its partnership with Finnish company Connectus Oy. Under its terms, Connectus will distribute RADWARE's Web Server Director(TM) (WSD), Cache Server Director(R) (CSD),Linkproof and FireProof(TM) in Finland.
Virus scanning application service provider McAfee.com Tuesday announced it has signed-up more than 500,000 paying subscribers to its Internet-based service in just over nine months.
Upon achieving the milestone, Srivats Sampath, McAfee.com president and chief executive officer, said it has built a global business as an application service provider to secure and manage consumers' personal digital assets over the Internet. Symantec's (Nasdaq:SYMC) Norton 2000 program is currently the seventh best-selling business software in the nation.
Enterprise computing systems vendor Unisys Corp (NYSE:UIS) co-ordinated an alliance of five leading companies to launch a European ASP enablement program, and announced plans to open a European Centre of Excellence in Paris.
Microsoft, Unisys, Cisco, EMC and StorageTek announced ASP 2000, a European initiative that brings together the five partners' technologies to meet the end-to-end infrastructure needs of application service providers. The aim is to help ASPs draw on the group's expertise, services and R&D investment to develop new solutions more quickly, and to provide more reliable and comprehensive service to their customers.
J.D. Edwards & Company's JDe.sourcing application hosting program announced the extension of its international arm through partnerships with ASPs in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America and North America. JDe.sourcing includes 18 ASP partners and more than 2,500 users worldwide. This second-generation app hosting initiative allows J.D. Edwards & Company (Nasdaq:JDEC) to offer industry-specific solutions. PeopleSoft announced that its eBusiness applications are the most widely hosted in the ASP industry with more than 125 customers. Focusing now on its partners as opposed to its direct customer base, the PeopleSoft (Nasdaq:PSFT) ASP Channel Partner Program totals 12. These partners host PeopleSoft apps and serve as a customer point.
Nortel Networks Inc (NYSE:NT) revealed new alliances with top-tier infrastructure software vendors and a $275m company acquisition for the launch of its ASP platform Jun 14th. Nortel said its Preside Managed Application Services Platform offers a complete solution for application service management and integration. It combines the network equipment vendor's own technology with contributions from BEA Systems (Nasdaq:BEAS), the Sun-Netscape Alliance's iPlanet division and SCO's Tarantella unit.
Two up-and-coming ASP businesses agreed to a merger to create what they described as a major e-solutions FSP (full service provider). Although the merger will be accounted as a purchase of Cereus Technology Partners, Inc (Nasdaq:CEUS) by Eltrax Systems, Inc (NASDAQ:ELTX), the combined company is to be led by Cereus management, the companies said yesterday. IBC has an equity position in the companies mentioned herein, please see our disclaimer at www.ibchannel.com.