Thanks for the great WSJ article about ASPs. Here is an excerpt:
Some companies, such as TeleComputing Inc. and FutureLink Corp., already rent Office today. Most of these companies, known as ASPs, for application-service providers, have used terminal-emulation software from Citrix Systems Inc., which allows Windows programs to be run on Windows NT servers connected to desktop machines. Microsoft's Terminal Server is based on technology licensed from Citrix, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
"But Microsoft's licensing policies have hampered the growth of ASPs, which were forced to buy licenses to Microsoft Office up front and assign them to specific users at each customer. Though Microsoft hasn't set new licensing policies yet, industry executives assume that it will adopt schemes that could allow customers to rent Office programs for a month or less.
"This is good news for the ASP market," said Ed Iacobucci, Citrix's chairman. "The system is totally unworkable the way it is today."
This is indeed good news for CTXS.
There have been server problems at SI. It's not just you. I have a direct connection to Internet and my attempts to post timed out many times as well. |
