The ASP Industry Consortium on Thursday announced that it will begin accepting entries for its second annual ASPire Awards to showcase best practices in the ASP industry.
Consortium members may submit case studies until August 3, 2001, in one of six categories based on ASP functions. ASPire Awards winners will be announced during an awards ceremony held in Europe this Fall.
“Given the tremendous attention that last year’s ASPire Awards program received, the ASP Industry Consortium is looking forward to providing our members with another opportunity to demonstrate the hard work and high levels of performance that are helping to define the ASP delivery model,” said Paula Hunter, ASPIC chairman.
The six case study categories are Delivery and Enablement, Innovative Technology – “Wireless”, Integration, Management & Operations, Security, and Service Satisfaction.
Delivery and Enablement
Case study submission in the Delivery and Enablement category will represent the pioneering of unique delivery models in the ASP ecosystem, describing the speed of implementation and enablement that ultimately result in increased productivity for the customer.
Innovative Technology – “Wireless”
Case study submissions will focus on the application of wireless as an enabling technology in an ASP environment. This award is not necessarily for wireless applications, but rather for members involved with building out a wireless infrastructure as a mechanism for delivering a wireless ASP application. Criteria will be based on innovation and success that has resulted in improved productivity, customer satisfaction, increased revenue or lower costs.
Integration
The case study will focus on a solution resulting from the integration of multiple services or applications together. It may include both ASP-to-ASP integration and ASP-to-legacy or packaged software application integration. Integration of services can incorporate data integration, transactional integration, business process integration, single-sign-on across multiple applications, etc., resulting in a customer value that could not have been achieved without such integration.
Management & Operations
Recognizing innovation in providing outstanding operational support to customers, the case study will address issues such as Help Desk support, availability architecture, Service Level Agreement, etc. A winning case study will recognize a company that develops unique ways to deliver exemplary ASP service.
Security
Addressing both technical and business security concerns of the customer, the winner will demonstrate outstanding innovation in the delivery of security solutions or implementing security in an application delivered via the ASP mode, thus successfully mitigating the security concerns of the customer.
Service Satisfaction
Case studies in the Service Satisfaction category will express the endorsement by a customer citing excellent service and outstanding satisfaction in their ASP relationship. Submissions may be submitted by the service provider on behalf of their customer or by the customer endorsing their service provider.
Case studies will be reviewed by Evaluation Teams, comprised of the Consortium’s Best Practices Committee members, who will choose three finalists in each category. An Independent Review Board comprised of a team of industry experts from outside the Consortium will then anonymously review the three finalists and choose an ASPire Award winner in each category.
Last year’s winners were announced in November 2000. Verso Technologies won in the Enablement category, eTopware took the Integration award, Resonate was the Management & Operations winner, and LearningStation.com won in the delivery category.
The 2001 ASPire Awards program is open only to members of the Consortium. Case study submission template forms, guidelines, and criteria are available at the Consortium website. Members may choose to submit case studies in one or more categories that most closely reflect their company’s business model. All case studies must demonstrate how they meet each measure of performance for that category as defined by the Consortium’s Best Practices committee.
The ASP Industry Consortium is the global advocacy group formed to promote the application service provider industry. Its goals include educating the marketplace, promoting best practices, developing common definitions for the industry, as well as serving as a forum for discussion and sponsoring research. Based in Wakefield, Mass., the Consortium has grown from 25 companies in May 1999 to more than 600 member companies in 33 countries today.
Among the technology sectors represented among its membership are Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), Network Service Providers (NSPs), telecommunications companies, infrastructure providers, Application Service Providers (ASPs) and other sectors supporting the industry.
