Edward Cone

In a world where applications are becoming services, the layer of software that supports those services occupies some valuable real estate. Microsoft is trying to leverage its desktop dominance to establish its .Net services platform as a kind of operating system for the new era, but it faces plenty of competition, including platform plays by […]

Forget what you know about Web services. Forget what you know about application service providers. Microsoft and Oracle are quietly building a new software delivery and management model that could dramatically change the way corporations acquire, distribute and use software. “Our company, our entire support organization is undergoing a wholesale transformation,” said Tim Chou, president […]

Choosing an application service provider is a gamble, with uncertain odds on the viability of the business plans — not to mention long-term health — of some ASPs. Crosspoint Venture Partners, a successful California investment shop, has $350 million on the table that says so-called vertical service providers will end up in the money. Crosspoint […]

PeopleSoft makes money the old-fashioned way: by selling software licenses and consulting services. So much so that net income in the last quarter was $36 million. A small but increasingly important driver of these core businesses is software as a service from PeopleSofts eCenter unit and its third-party application service provider partners. “Total revenue driven […]

When a company built for speed hits a protracted slowdown, something has to give. For Agilera, one of the more successful first-wave application service providers, that meant laying off about one-third of its work force — more than 100 people — and focusing on existing customers, instead of pushing for growth in an economy that […]

The customer is king, or at least he will be if the near future plays out the way i-managers expect. “We are focused on meeting our customers needs and doing what can we to satisfy them,” said Bob Reiner, manager of enterprise Internet services at State Farm Insurance in Bloomington, Ill. “The next generation [of […]

In Japan, an accounts payable clerk at Cigna International uses a financial application from Oracle to enter a transaction in Yen, while in Brazil her counterpart performs the same operation in Reals. In California, Oracle employees tend the software supporting these users and others in more than two dozen countries. And in Philadelphia, Nick Amin […]

When Microsoft rescued USinternetworking with a $50 million equity investment last November, the software vendor wasnt just shopping for an underpriced asset. Instead, Microsoft was buying a potentially potent distribution channel for its .Net services initiative. It was a role USi was ready to play. “We were always a Microsoft partner, but we were less […]

The $1 billion Nutrilite division of person-to-person marketer Amway demands a lot from its global Web site. Content must be not just multilingual but multicultural, reflecting in its various versions the local laws, customs and idioms of each of the 70-plus countries the site serves, not to mention the appropriate mix of products for each […]

April has been anything but cruel for NetLedger, a San Mateo, Calif., application service provider that this week launches a new suite of application services for small companies. Earlier in the month, NetLedger announced $30 million in funding, a good chunk of that coming from Oracle boss Larry Ellison, an early backer. “We didnt even […]

Perks and salaries are easy to compare, but some companies offer employees an atmosphere that is tougher to quantify. “I tell my friends about the morale here,” says Stacy Rogers, 30, a senior buyer at ASAP Software. “No one says bad things about work, because people are happy to be here. Its a family atmosphere. […]

The early promise of application services has been keyed to stuff that most people never see — implementation, cost and staffing issues that are important, but off the radar screen of the average worker. Now the fun part is coming, including wireless application services that will have a noticeable impact on many jobs by providing […]