The Application Service Provider (ASP) Consortium this week outlined plans for equipping its members with the market and technical research they need to deliver the most reliable and useful application rental services.
The group has formed its first four committees: research, education and outreach, best practices and membership. The research group may prove to be the most important.
"Information needs to be generated about what users want and what the challenges are to deliver services for small and large businesses," says Traver Gruen-Kennedy, chairman of the ASP Consortium and director of business development at Citrix.
The research will emanate from technical standards groups, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force, and from labs, such as Cisco's ASP Lab. The forum's research committee has yet to determine which studies it will organize first. The group hopes to make some decisions by the time of the consortium's next meeting in mid-August.
The education and outreach committee expects to post findings from the research group on the ASP Consortium's Web site. Other information, such as industry white papers and business user case studies, will also be posted on the Web site. The best practices group is expected to take the research committee's technical findings and draft relevant documents, such as "How to deliver predictable applications over the Internet."
Sun, one of the ASP Consortium's founding members, last week announced an effort to help develop best practice methodology for service providers, equipment and software vendors.
The SunTone Architectural Council is comprised of 18 industry members, including Lucent, Oracle and @Home. The council will publish guidelines for supporting IP-based services, including ASP services.
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