Xevo Launches ASP Provisioning Platform

Xevo Monday (May 1st) launched the production version of its ASP service management infrastructure platform, ASP Workbench.

Aimed at enterprise ASPs servicing thousands of users, the product streamlines and automates the provisioning, metering, and packaging of complex applications.

Marlboro Mass.-based startup Xevo Corp. initially launched the product in a pilot version last September (see related ASPnews.com story, New technologies target ASPs, Sep 13th, 1999).

“One of the things experienced ASPs understand intimately is that there are many dozens of steps that need to be done to set up a user with a single application,” Xevo’s VP marketing, Greg Kee, told ASP News Review in a briefing last week.

ASP Workbench allows ASPs to automate that process across multiple users. It also includes metering technology that gives ASPs the freedom to implement alternative pricing methodologies, such as maximum concurrent users per month, while other features facilitate service level agreement (SLA) enforcement, clear audit trails and increased flexibility in service offerings.

Application vendors can use the metering capabilities to track how ASps are deploying applications, as well as providing an audit trail that allows them to verify usage for licensing purposes. “There’s a lot of interest [from vendors] in the management reporting,” said Kee.

Since the pilot launch last year, trials have been carried out involving application vendors Great Plains and Onyx Software, infrastructure vendors Cisco, hosting provider Verio, and ASPs Futurelink and Telecomputing. However Futurelink is the only ASP currently using the product, Kee admitted.

“This is a big product and implementing it is an extensive undertaking for an ASP,” he explained. “We are targeting relatively sophisticated ASPs. A good prospect for us is someone who has been doing application hosting for some while and has an understanding of how complex it is. To some degree we’ve been held back by the evolution of the market.”

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