ASP Industry Consortium Receives Strong Response From Entrants to Premier `Aspire Awards' Program; Review Team Set, Features Renowned Analysts, Academicians.

Business/Technology Editors

WAKEFIELD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 7, 2000

With a tremendous response of nearly 100 entries, the first ASP Industry Consortium "ASPire Awards" are moving ahead to the next phase of the contest, which will culminate with a high-profile awards ceremony to be held at COMDEX/Fall 2000 in Las Vegas on November 14.

The ASPire Awards will highlight best practices in the application service provider (ASP) industry by honoring practitioners in four different categories, according to Lisa Angelastro, the vice president, service marketing with ASP firm IntraLinks, who is heading up the awards program as a member of the Consortium's Best Practices Committee.

Angelastro announced the names of five renowned ASP experts who have volunteered to serve on the program's Review Board, an independent audit team of industry experts from outside the Consortium who will anonymously review the five finalists in each awards category and choose an ASPire Award winner in each. They are:

- Professor Wendy L. Currie, director of the Centre for Strategic Information
Systems at the Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel
University, West London, UK

- Clare Gillan, group vice president of Applications and Information Access
Research for IDC of Framingham, Mass.

- Laurie McCabe, vice president and service director of analyst firm Summit
Strategies of Boston.

- Rich Shapero, managing partner of venture capital firm Crosspoint Venture
Partners of Woodside, Calif.

- Amy Wohl, president of analyst firm Wohl Associates of Narberth, Pa.

"The response we received from the entrants was overwhelming," noted Angelastro. "Those companies that entered had to submit very detailed applications, including the names of their customers and the measurable benefits they brought to each customer. Given the submission criteria and the fact that this is the first year for this program, we couldn't be more gratified.

"Beyond the number of entries, the quality of people who volunteered for the Review Board is exceptional," she added. "With the outstanding entries we've received, their task in selecting only four winners will be extremely difficult. I don't envy them."

In all, 98 entries were received for judging in four ASP categories, each representing a different element of the ASP model:

DELIVERY - Focusing on business models and the related technology for presenting applications to users, including packaging of those services, price plans, management of electronic channels and support for value added partners.

INTEGRATION - Focusing on two essential elements of integration: infrastructure that results in greater manageability among applications and for hosting providers, and the synergy that results from the combination of individual applications, creating more complete business solutions and value-added services to meet customer needs.

MANAGEMENT and OPERATIONS - Focusing on the management of the hosted application infrastructure. This covers traditional IT data center management, network management, storage area networks including data management, backup and restore procedures, as well as the software hosting platforms from an operational point of view.

ENABLEMENT - Focusing on the hosted application software services, middleware, tools for creation of hosted applications and the desktop productivity, collaboration or transaction-oriented applications.

All entrants will be now be reviewed by four separate category Evaluation Teams, comprising members of the Consortium's Best Practices Committee. These teams will select five finalists in each category, who will then be judged by the external Review Board. The Review Board's four winners, as well as category finalists, will be announced on November 14 as the cornerstone of the ASP Industry Consortium's "AllAboutASP Connection Center" program, which will anchor the ASP Summit at COMDEX/Fall 2000 in Las Vegas.

The "AllAboutASP Connection Center" will serve as a hub for information and demonstration, where event attendees will be able to view ASP demonstrations, talk to ASP experts, review ASP case studies and take advantage of the educational resources of the ASP Industry Consortium. For more information, visit the ASP Industry Consortium's 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 635 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].