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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JUNE 16, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 24
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Systems/Enterprise:
USi BRINGS GRID COMPUTING
RESOURCES TO LEADING ISVs
USi has announced the expansion of its Independent Software Vendor (ISV)
Enablement program, which allows ISVs to sell their software through an ASP
delivery channel without incurring the cost or complexity of in-house
application hosting and management. Leveraging USi's industry-leading AppHost
solution, the enhancements to the ISV Enablement program include a more
flexible architecture that reduces operating costs while delivering increased
scalability, as well as additional support for joint sales opportunities. The
company also announced that a number of its existing ISV clients, including
Documentum, Optum, and Saba, have recently extended or renewed their contracts
with USi.
"Working with USi has paid significant dividends," said Nan Silverman,
Hosted
Operations Manager for Documentum. "While retaining primary focus on our
industry-leading products and services as well as our global customers,
Documentum has leveraged the ASP channel to generate additional revenue for
the company and introduced our technology to a broader scope of users,
including a number that have become traditional licensees."
Leveraging recently enacted advances in infrastructure utilization
available
from USi's AppHost solution, the company's enhanced ISV Enablement program
reduces initial requirements for hosting and managing these enterprise
applications while adding new capabilities to dynamically respond in real-time
to shifts in customer demand. As a result, these organizations can minimize
their baseline commitments for system capacity with full assurances of their
ability to scale to meet future needs.
"In software delivery, a shift from software provided as a product to
software
provided as a service is occurring," said Amy Mizoras, program manager for
Software Pricing, Licensing and Delivery research at IDC. "This has strong
implications for software licensing, technology, and partnering. In general,
ISVs are seeing software licenses shrink as a proportion of their revenue mix,
forcing them to focus on software maintenance and to consider alternative
delivery models to build recurring revenue. As a result, many ISVs are now
looking to create a software as a service delivery channel, which leverages
the hosting and management expertise of a company such as an ASP. This
approach enables the ISV to offer service delivery of its software while
avoiding many of the infrastructure and management risks inherent in a
go-it-alone approach."
"Optum is delivering Fulfillment Management solutions around the world 24
hours a day. We partner with USi because USi provides us the global 'always
on' service that our customers demand," said Kevin Hart, Chief Operating
Officer, Optum Inc. "USi allows Optum to roll out our solutions in a more
efficient manner, which, in turn, gives our customers a faster and sustainable
ROI."
Supporting the program is USi's professional services organization, which
not
only helps ISV's architect their solution for mass deployment as a service,
but can also assist in the development of change management processes and
other best practices, such as comprehensive Service Level Agreements (SLA)
needed to successfully support these efforts. By combining this unmatched
application management expertise with more flexible architecture, the program
allows ISVs to quickly and easily introduce new services based on the ASP
delivery model that allow them to realize additional revenue streams from
clients seeking a hosted solution without undertaking the long-term
commitments that would otherwise prohibit these introductions.
"We've enhanced our ISV Enablement program with new cost and operational
flexibility to provide our clients and partners -- industry-leading software
developers -- with additional resources for capturing the growing interest
from end-users in utility computing," said Andrew Stern, Chairman and CEO,
USi. "This more flexible architecture allows ISVs to limit initial commitments
to these emerging markets with the assurance that increased demand can be
addressed in just hours as opposed to weeks through the use of our AppHost
solution. Not only can ISVs more closely match expenses with current revenue,
but they can also enjoy the unmatched performance, availability and security
that are the hallmarks of the USi brand."
ISV's participating in the program will also be able to take advantage of
specialized marketing programs and call upon USi resources to support their
sales force with qualified prospect engagements.
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