Promoting the application service provision (ASP) model

This paper presents two projects promoting application service providers (ASPs) that are being driven by the Korean government. ASPs deliver application capabilities to multiple entities across the Internet. Although the ASP model has a number of problems, including customization, most experts agree that it still has practical commercial value. Recently, ASPs have been adopted as a new model for information technology (IT) delivery to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Moreover, through Web services, ASPs should satisfy various demands by tailoring services for specific business types in SMEs. To promote ASPs, it is important not only to continue to advance technologically but also to build a basis of privately initiated ASPs under government policy. In this context, we describe Korean projects that are organizing five consortia of ASP solutions with the government's financial support and strengthening the basis of Web Services by establishing related institutional systems. As a result, 370,000 SMEs in Korea were provided with ASP solutions by the end of 2004, and the government continues to strive for the informatization of one million SMEs with Web-services-based ASPs.