Local effort sees Unisys put its ASP on the map

By ADAM GIFFORD

It's been talked about for more than a year - an ASP (application service provider) that delivers applications over the internet rather than from programs sitting in a desktop or within a server on a local area network.

But so far in terms of "apps on tap" little has been delivered here, both in terms of actual product or customers willing to take the risk.

The problem, according to Sean McDonald, Unisys Asia Pacific general manager for ASP services, is that despite the simplicity of the concept, a huge amount of skill, technology and infrastructure is needed to make it work.

Not to mention credibility and financial stability for companies to trust their data and key business processes to it.

The ASP announcement by Unisys last week goes someway towards showing an ASP service can be more than hype.

The company needs some good news. Its share price fell almost 40 per cent last week on news its second-quarter earnings could be less than half Wall St's expectations - due to delayed contracts, weak sales in the government and financial sectors, and currency fluctuations.

Unisys froze hiring in its services division and put tight controls on discretionary spending. Some underperforming units may also be sold.

"There's a fundamental transition going on in the market, that is affecting Unisys and many other providers of services and solutions," said chairman Lawrence Weinbach.

"The transition of course is to e-business. That transition is happening faster than we thought."

That the company's New Zealand office seems to be pointing the way ahead for the rest of the company is a result of the particular concentration of skills found here, and the influence of new blood in the organisation.

Mr McDonald joined last year after being New Zealand general manager of computer hardware company Sequent, which before it was bought by IBM, started exploring the ASP concept.

Unisys New Zealand manager Russell Stanners came to the job after spending the last three years of his 15- year career with IBM, running its global telecommunications solutions business.

Between them they convinced Unisys to make New Zealand the Unisys "centre for excellence" for ASP.

That has meant head office funding of $5 million so far and the secondment of the top brains needed for the project. A third of the 100 staff deployed on the project are from overseas.

Unisys partnered with Clear Communications to use its fibre option network as a "preferred platform."

Networking and business partners include Cisco, Citrix, Microsoft and Universal Business Directories (UBD).

Rather than work with the big names of application software, Unisys chose relatively unknown vendors - British firm QSP for its Web Finance Suite, New Zealand company Genie Systems for its OrderWare online procurement and supply chain management system, Stayinfront (formerly The Great Elk) with its Auckland-developed SplashNET and Web Works CRM systems.

For business information, ASP users can use UBD Insight to search the UBD database of more than 150,000 businesses throughout New Zealand. All those products will be accessed over the internet. Unisys is also offering the eEnterprise range of business applications from mid-tier vendor Great Plains.

"People are asking where's SAP, where's Siebel, where's Ariba, Commerce One, the big players?

"The fact is most of the big players don't fit the market model here," said Mr McDonald.

So far the ASP Direct programme has eight beta customers with 75 users in total. These include users within consulting firm SRD Group, Fuji Xerox Australia and Carter Holt Harvey.

Pricing varies according to the application and how much service is requested. A customer-configured use of SplashNET, Stayinfront's online CRM offering, costs $95 per user per month, while it will cost $195 a month if implementation services are required.

Plans are for Unisys ASP Services to turn over $2 million in its first year and attract at least 1000 users, rising to 3000 users and $6.5 million in revenue in year two. It plans to be making an operational profit in 18 months.

Users will get faster returns if the claimed total cost of ownership savings of 30 to 50 per cent are met.

Applications will be hosted on Unisys ES7000 servers at its Auckland data centre, mirrored to a Wellington site - currently running on the Windows NT operating system and a Microsoft SQL server database.

He said among Unisys' 55 staff in New Zealand there was enormous NT expertise.

"We will be exporting our knowledge to the rest of the world. It's a fabulous opportunity."

Now the programme is working here, about a third of the development team are off to Europe to set up a centre for excellence in Paris.

The Unisys InfraHost programme allows companies to offer the Unisys ASP solutions to customers under their own brand. It also allows emerging ASP and integration companies to enter the market with the backing of Unisys ASP Services.

Mr McDonald said he was already talking to some of the early pioneers of ASP here about coming in under this umbrella.

"It's about being an ASP for ASPs."

To make more applications ASP-ready, Unisys has started its e-@ccreditates programme which certifies an application as scalable and secure in an ASP environment.