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2004 2003200220012000 |
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By Mark Watson The Commercial Appeal Freeliant Offers Something New in Tough Network Services Field MEMPHIS, TN (December 14, 2000) - As application service provider pioneers such as HotOffice and Pandesic crash, Memphis's new entrant into the ASP industry, Freeliant, is booting up quickly. For a fee, an application service provider houses another company's data and software in its own network operations center, saving the client company the cost of buying and maintaining a network on its own. Other advantages include keeping the data always on the latest software version and avoiding the cost of recruiting and keeping information technology personnel. But HotOffice, based in Boca Raton, Fla., recently announced it would cease operations on Dec. 19 because it had failed to secure the funding it needed to keep going, ASPnews reports. HotOffice began existence in 1995, long before the term ASP became common in information technology circles. Pandesic, a joint venture formed in 1997 by Intel and SAP and based in Sunnyvale, Calif., died on July 31, the same month Freeliant launched its service in Memphis. Freeliant has just moved into new space at 3800 Forest Hill-Irene, and it offered a tour of the facilities Tuesday for the Memphis Area High Technology Council's last Talking Technology event for 2000. Since July, Freeliant has merged with Stone Fort Technologies, a Chattanooga ASP, and the company now has about 1,000 client companies served by offices in Roanoke, VA, Atlanta and Nashville. Freeliant plans to open data centers in 37 new markets around the country by the end of 2001. The company employs about 30 people, and 21 of these are in Memphis. "Any negative publicity about an ASP has the potential to hurt another ASP, but we believe our business model is different, and it will show profitability sooner than any other ASP out there," said Eddie Williams, Freeliant's vice president for business development. Most other ASPs are trying to persuade clients to use the Internet to access software and data, and clients tend to distrust the reliability and security of the Internet for these services, Williams said. Instead, Freeliant uses dedicated frame relay access lines to provide its services to clients. The costs typically range from $150 to $300 per user per month, Williams said. "The whole concept of ASPs is very powerful," said Gregory J. Lane, chief operating officer of Gmotion.com, a Memphis Internet consulting, Web design and hosting firm. "It really allows small and medium-sized businesses to gain the advantages larger companies have always had access to, without all of the up-front expenses." Memphis computer consultant Jim McGee said he believes the ASP offers an advantage to businesses that have geographically distributed operations, but he thinks an ASP that can offer a wireless connection would be more useful. Williams said his company is pursuing the possibility of offering wireless connectivity. "We want to take the work out of network," Williams said. Contact: Darren Metz Freeliant.com 901-309-3900 Don Mundie Delta Capital Management LLC 901-755-0949 |
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