NEW YORK (08/18/2000) - AppCity Corp., a New York-based developer of customer relationship management and mobile workforce applications, will enter the application service provider (ASP) market next week by offering applications the company says can be customized in less than a day.
The fast turnaround on the customization service is made possible by an application-generation platform called AppZap, says AppCity co-founder and CEO Mark Frankel.
"All we're really customizing is the customer data," he says. "We ask what data a customer wants access to, what the relationship of the data to the user is, and then the platform generates components to handle that."
The custom applications work by interfacing with an organization's database and making the information available by browser over the Internet. When off-site users request information, their requests go over the Internet to an AppCity secure server housed in a Genuity data center. The AppCity server authenticates the user and then interfaces with the organization's database and serves up the requested information to the off-site user.
AppZap is ideal for manufacturers and distributors who need to give their customers and business partners access to interactive catalogs, order status and account histories, Frankel says. The platform can also be used by mobile employees to enable sales force automation and time, billing and expense tracking, he says.
AppCity's applications can be used online and offline. Frankel says this allows employees to enter data offline and minimize the time they spend connected to the Internet. The offline versions of the applications have been available since February.
Although AppCity is currently operating out of one Genuity data center, Frankel says the company will expand to other locations. The company is also working on Palm and wireless device versions of its applications.
AppCity doesn't offer any standard service-level agreements, Frankel says, but will set up SLAs for large customers, he adds.
Users can be billed on either a per-use or per-seat basis. The per-seat option is probably better for employees accessing information online frequently, while the per-use option is geared toward infrequent users, Frankel says.
Pricing on AppCity's applications begins at US$90 per month.
AppCity: www.appcity.com.