Bandwidth critical to ASP uptake: Citrix

Locally based application service providers risk being eclipsed by their US counterparts unless Australia's bandwidth inadequacies are resolved.

According to Citrix Systems' Asia-Pacific managing director, Nabeel Youakim, the uptake of ASP services in Australia is being hampered by current bandwidth problems. "The US has got so much better bandwidth and there are over 250 ASPs. They are way ahead of us because the bandwidth is much more available at a better price.

"If we're not careful it's not going to be hard for an ASP in the US to sell services to Australian users, so we need to get this [bandwidth] issue solved locally."

Youakim added that the current hype surrounding the ASP market is "definitely bigger than the uptake, although he said "there are a few ASPs in Australia that are doing quite well and have customers on board".

Citrix's launch yesterday of NFuse, its application portal software, will fast-track the ASP market, Youakim said. NFuse, running on MetaFrame, gives IT departments and ASPs the ability to access applications via a standard Web browser, eliminating the need for ASPs to visit client sites and install software.

Youakim said NFuse is likely to become the basis of a true ASP model. "There are very few ways of [running an ASP] other than through Citrix at the moment.

"[Companies] have tried hosting just the application back end and saying [the customer] has to run the client end. That's not really an ASP because it's like a hosting service.

"In our true definition of an ASP you need to manage the whole environment from the PC environment to the desktop environment, to the applications client access, to the network and to the back-end database and applications."

Despite the push for ASP services, future corporate IT departments will not be jeopardised in the shift. ASP services are more targeted at small-to-medium business where there is usually either one or no IT staff. Corporates are more likely to use an ASP for one particular application rather than their complete IT environment, Youakim said.

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