Understanding Application Service Providers (ASP) Important distinctions to help evaluate ASPs

ASPs provide hardware, software and data center resources that allow a subscriber to run applications and access associated data via the Internet. All ASPs provide infrastructure and management (that’s the Service Provider part). It is the nature of the application delivery that differentiates ASPs, and whether or not the licensing of the application is included in the service price. An ASP might provide one or a combination of these delivery types:

Web-based Applications – Web-based applications run on web servers and are typically run in a browser (e.g., QuickBooks Online Edition).

Disk-based Applications – This is the term used for software which is designed to be installed and run on your PC and network drive.

Software-as-Service – SAS is widely used to describe ASPs who provide the management and the software as a combined service. Access to the application is rented and there is no ability to obtain the software for use on a local disk-based system. QuickBooks Online Edition fits this model, where the fee covers the use of the application as well as the management of the infrastructure.

Software Hosting – Hosting services include managing the application and the infrastructure, but typically hosting does not include the licensing of the application. An application hosting provider may offer delivery and management of both Web-based and disk-based software.

Web-based applications are built using different types of technologies than the disk-based software that is installed and used on desktops and file servers. The behavior of web-based applications can never really mimic desktop application behavior. This is a technical reality, not a failure in the development of the web-based application. As development tools and technologies evolve, the web-based applications will more closely match the way installed software looks and feels. However, certain benefits that installed (disk-based) software has over web-based applications will be difficult to overcome – primarily in the area of application integration.

For example, an accounting software may offer certain reports, and Microsoft Excel may be used to create other important reports from the accounting data. Without the ability to integrate the Excel application and functionality with the accounting system, the ease and accuracy of the reporting could be impacted. The software-hosting ASP model allows this type of integration, whereas the web-based ASP model cannot.

Moreover, many organizations recognize that the comprehensive functionality and features of disk-based software cannot be replicated with a fully web-based application. Therefore they use software-hosting ASPs as a means to “Internet-enable” access to these applications and their rich functionality.

Learn more about the benefits of an ASP

Flexibility for Hosting the Many Flavors of QuickBooks®

A software-hosting ASP has an advantage over an exclusively web-based ASP because it can host a wide variety of disk-based software. For users of Intuit QuickBooks®, this gives great flexibility since there are so many "flavors" or versions of QuickBooks®. Accountants who need easy, real-time access to client data and have clients that have any number of QuickBooks® versions find it imperative to use an application-hosting ASP. The list at right is an example of the variety of QuickBooks® packages that can be hosted in a managed services infrastructure. See other hosted applications that can integrate with each other on ASP platform

And many more!