Asp net host

Redmond Banks On 'Rent-An-App' : Partners and local developer who helped forge Microsoft's ASP strategy reflect on .Net plan - Industry Trend or Event

When Microsoft Corp. recently revealed its roadmap for the future, a young entrepreneur was quietly beaming in Toronto. Erich Finkelstein was one of three founding members of the team which built the upcoming version of Office, aimed at taking advantage of the promised whiz-bang Internet features in the next generation Windows .Net platform.

Finkelstein left the company campus in Redmond, Wash., in April to head a startup, but was able to catch Microsoft's demo which provided a glimpse of what the new platform could bring.

Money is one of them -- Office .Net will be one of a number of new Microsoft-hosted applications pulling in revenue through subscriptions instead of licenses. Exactly how hasn't been worked out yet, but company officials insist the "rent-an-app" craze is coming.

In the future, Microsoft will offer to host the entire operation of small businesses on a subscription basis through its bCentral portal. The portal will offer services such as customer relationship management, and through partnerships customers will subscribe to various offerings.

Other Microsoft-developed services will allow firms to more easily collaborate across the Net through new scheduling and messaging features in Microsoft Outlook and Exchange.

"One of the things we always wanted to do is create an annuity model, where customers were constantly paying an ongoing contract or fee to get the latest version of Office, or components of it," said Finkelstein. The Web is an efficient way to deliver upgrades and fixes to desktops, he pointed out. A hosted Office could also smooth complaints about Microsoft's licensing policies, as well as the problem of Office's market saturation, he said.

Equally important to the company's plans, Finkelstein said, is that Microsoft-hosted apps can sweep in a lot of user data.

If your authorization, personal preferences and other material are stored on the Web, Microsoft can do some "neat stuff in terms of providing value to the user." For example, Finkelstein did research into the ability to detect patterns in the use of newsgroups. By comparing what co-workers are doing at work, for instance, Microsoft might be able to recommend other newsgroups to users.

For those who find that a bit unsettling, Microsoft officials said many of the .Net platform features will be available whether they are hosted by an application service provider (ASP) or an enterprise. Microsoft promised over the next three to five years users will see a multitude of new services available through new server and desktop versions of Windows.

For example, it promises Office .Net will seamlessly integrate Word documents, spreadsheets, e-mail and a browser into a "universal canvas." More important for developers committed to the Windows platform, Microsoft promised opportunities for third parties to build services and integrate applications for the new platform.

Given that so far Microsoft has few deliverables, companies are understandably cautious. Gord Breese, director of alliances for Pivotal Corp., a Vancouver-based Microsoft partner which makes eRelationship 2000 customer management software, called the roadmap consistent with its view of where the industry is going. But, he added, "that vision is far enough out that it would be difficult to comment on how we would be able to adapt the (Microsoft) services."

Similarly, George Brown, president of the Aston IT Group Inc. of Vancouver, the North American arm of a Danish integrator which designs Windows-based e-business solutions, said Microsoft .Net is going in the right direction. The ability to electronically pull people together from different companies for collaboration holds promise, he said. But, Brown added, "there's a ton of questions in what Microsoft has announced."

"Trust is built over time," said Jordan Chrysafidis, group manager for the Windows platform at Microsoft Canada Co., who added that a lot of information is already shared over the Internet.

If Microsoft's promises hold true, over the next couple of months some of the .Net-based product will be revealed. First, features will be added to bCentral which include customer relationship services. Sometime next year the new desktop version of Windows with .Net features will also appear. And it will be at least a year later before a server version emerges.

From the mid-town Toronto office of Conversagent Corp., Finkelstein and his co-founders are working on a "conversational engine" that will actually understand what you tell your computer. If it works, it could be a plug-in to the new Windows and the Office he helped shape.