ASP Industry Consortium Forms End User Council to Gauge Customer Needs; Group's First Meeting Held at COMDEX Fall 2000 in Las Vegas.

Business/Technology Editors

COMDEX Fall 2000

WAKEFIELD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 13, 2000

As part of its continuing effort to meet the needs of application service provider customers, the ASP Industry Consortium has announced the formation of an End User Council to provide leadership and direction on how Consortium members can better meet the needs of their customers. The Council held its first meeting in conjunction with the Consortium's educational program at the recent COMDEX Fall 2000 conference in Las Vegas.

"The ASPIC End User Council provides customers with a way to play a crucial role in the direction, development and improvement of ASP services," explained Richard Jenkins of IntraLinks, chairman of the Consortium's End User Committee, of which the End User Council is a component. "This is also a way for our members to provide more value to end users. Customer input is especially critical as the Consortium helps to establish guidelines for the application service provider industry."

The initial members of the council include:

Mark Hoffman                        Gates Ouimette
Application Systems Architect       Co-Founder, Partner
Tufts Health Plan                   Launch Technology

Michael Mandelbaum                  James Priolo
Vice President,                     Vice President,
Information Systems                 Global e-Investment Banking
Prudential Insurance                Chase Manhattan Bank

Mark A. Olson                       Sarah Tonks
V.P., Business Development          Managing Director
Sallie Mae                          Bloor Research (UK)

"We expect to expand significantly the membership of the End User Council, which is comprised of key decision-makers within their organizations." Jenkins noted. "Current and future members will use their expertise to assist in perfecting our current services as well as laying the foundation for future services. They will assure that businesses worldwide can reap the full benefits of the ASP model, which include rapid deployment of state-of-the-art software, economies of scale and the freeing of existing IT resources."

The End User Council is continuing to add members, with a goal of comprising professionals from around the world in the finance, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, high tech and professional services industries. Each member needs to have influence over e-commerce initiatives within his/her organization and have significant potential to influence overall industry practices and standards. Membership on the Council is by invitation only.

From the customer's perspective, members of the End Users Council will be able to have an open dialog with other ASP implementers on lessons learned, as well as access to the Consortium's research and other resources.

The End User Council is the latest step by the ASP Industry Consortium to help promote customer understanding of the ASP computing model. In recent weeks, the Consortium has built an End User Resources offering into its web site where a number of helpful guides, overviews and other materials are publicly available to answer basic questions on topics ranging from service level agreements (SLAs) to security.

For more information about the ASP Industry Consortium's End User Council, or any of the Consortium's end user resources, visit its web site at www.allaboutasp.org.

About the ASP Industry

An application service provider manages and delivers application capabilities to multiple entities from data centers across a wide area network, giving customers a viable alternative to procuring and implementing complex systems themselves. In some cases, ASPs even provide customers with a comprehensive alternative to building and managing internal information technology operations. ASP customers also are able to control more precisely the total cost of technology ownership through scheduled payment schemes.

Though the ASP market is relatively new, computer industry analysts foresee rapid growth and multi-billion-dollar annual sales within the next few years. End users cross industry lines and include anyone from the small office/home office (SOHO) client to large corporations and from complex businesses to specific verticals.

About the ASP Industry Consortium

Founded in May of 1999, the Application Service Provider Industry Consortium is an international advocacy group of more than 700 companies formed to promote the application service provider industry by sponsoring research, promoting best practices, and articulating the measurable benefits of this evolving delivery model. Its goals include educating the marketplace, developing common definitions for the industry, as well as serving as a forum for discussion and sponsoring research. Among the technology sectors represented among the ASP Industry Consortium membership are Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), Network Service Providers (NSPs), Application Service Providers (ASPs), as well as emerging business models and other sectors supporting the industry.

Information on the ASP Industry Consortium - including a full list of member companies - is available at www.allaboutasp.org or by contacting the Consortium's headquarters at: ASP Industry Consortium, Inc., 401 Edgewater Place, Suite 500, Wakefield, Mass. 01880; Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; e-mail [e-mail].