Jennifer Mears

This week BackWeb Technologies will unveil the Proactive Portal Server at the Enterprise Web and Corporate Portal Show.

Canada

Hummingbird Ltd.

TeleComputing Inc., one of the first application service providers when it was founded in 1997, is unveiling a service this week aimed at bringing carriers into the fast-growing ASP market.

Carlos Alvarez, head of the Investment and Development Department of the Chilean Economic Development Agency, rolled out the red carpet to the application service provider industry on Wednesday, inviting members of the ASP Industry Consortium to use Chile as a "springboard" into a lucrative Latin American market.

The ASP Industry Consortium is taking direct aim at end users in 2001 hoping to educate business leaders about a software delivery model that consortium members say is here to stay.

While application service providers continue to make inroads on the way to an anticipated multibillion-dollar market, a key hurdle remains: the worry on the part of some IT managers that they and their staffs may ultimately be displaced if applications are shuttled to an outsourcer.

The worldwide application service provider market is expected to hit US$25 billion by the end of 2004, but analysts say not before an industry shakeout that will leave some ASPs in the dust and others partnering as a means of staying afloat.