IBM ASP Products and Programs Due in Fall >BY William Fellows.

IBM Corp is building out a new set of products and services for the application service provider (ASP) community which it will unveil in the fall. IBM knows its approach to the ASPs has been fairly low-key but promises it's working on new terms, conditions and revenue models that will set it apart from the competition supplying those vendors. It's currently in talks with USInternetworking about a strategic arrangement.

Although it claims to be first in e-business mindshare and marketshare (it says it has 18,000 e-business customers), it has been been rather quiet about how it builds out its e-business technologies versus the outpourings from Microsoft, Sun and HP. That means it's got some flag waving to do, admits VP E-business applications Peter Tarrant. While portals, ASPs and other new business paradigms are important, he says IBM's overriding concern is that it not compete with its customers.

He explains that that the strategy, at least from a software point of view, is three-pronged. Its application framework defines sets of technologies it can support, including but not limited to Java, XML, HTML and other building blocks. Second, it is creating a set of design patterns or templates that customers can use. It's got two done and says it will have a dozen others finished by year-end. Third are the products. The most important of which are Websphere, Domino and DB2, supported by middleware, Tivoli management and SecureWay security services.

Microsoft, Tarrant observes, competes with its customers. Hewlett-Packard's E-services and E-Speak efforts are "leftfield" while Sun will be challenged to put a cohesive software portfolio together given its lack of experience in the market. Both HP and Sun are trying to emulate IBM's e-business success, Tarrant claims.