Meta Group’s view is that while ASP are gaining traction in the market for application rental – by claiming to remove burdens of lengthy integration and expensive employees – there are significant obstacles. One is simply upgrading and migrating rented applications. When a certain amount of control has been ceded to the ASP, a customer is likely to make less rather than more changes to refine its business processes.
Meta also believes the rental model will place more stress on already strained IT/line of business relationships. Meta thinks that ASPs will continue to make early inroads into messaging, e- commerce and other niches but that they will remain uneconomical for global 2000 companies. It does not believe that ASP is a natural fit for ERP/CRM applications, however it may be economically pragmatic for medium-sized companies.
