BT's ASP service a success!

Citrix iForum BT's ASP offering, ASP Enabler, is already a screaming success. What else could a hyped service with just one customer be?

Renting software over the Internet "will become the standard method of deploying software", said head of BT Ignite Peter Grimes, in between mumbling and stumbling.

Pete wanted us to know that his ASP software is available now - today! - and companies are already taking advantage of this next generation delivery method. Can you tell us who these existing customers are Pete and where they are based?

"Yes, of course. There's Asset House in the UK that is using our baseline service and er Data Analyst has been ASP'd by Decision Point Applications and er Benelux is looking at it in the Netherlands and Belgium..."

Don't worry is this makes no sense to you - we were there and we didn't get it either. Unfortunately, Peter disappeared shortly afterwards and so our attempts to find out whether Asset House was either part of fully owned by BT were thwarted.

And so while we've been living in ASP hell for two days, it still seems that no one is actually using the approach. Grimy was no less confused when he was asked why the service in the US used AT&T infrastructure and AT&T sales teams but was run under the BT Ignite name.

Why not Concert (you know, that company jointly set up by BT and AT&T)? If Pete did know what Concert was, he didn't let on. After a bit of floundering, he finally came up with the line: "Well I think it's better to get a product to market and then address integration problems."

Mr Grimes would like you all to know that Europe is rapidly catching up with the US in the ASP market.

Update: A fellow hack found BT and asked whether it had an interest in Asset House. The response? "Er, we don't know". A search for Asset House produced nothing. And interestingly, Assethouse.com is a UK company with - get this - one page with a naff logo, a phone number and a single email address. Is this BT's star customer? God help us.