ASPs to jam with Jamcracker

SUNNYVALE, CALIF. - Jamcracker is teaming with multiple application service providers (ASP) to offer customers a range of applications that can be accessed via a single portal Web site, called Jamcracker Central.

Instead of rolling out its own application servers, start-up Jamcracker last week said it would team with ASPs that specialize in specific software technology. Jamcracker's services allow customers to easily access a multitude of applications from a single, secure Web site, which eliminates the need to support multiple clients on each PC.

Jamcracker has established partnerships with ASPs to offer business users e-mail, collaboration, human resources, customer relationship management (CRM) and financial applications.

The first ASP to partner with Jamcracker is Employease, which specializes in human resources application rental services. Jamcracker has also partnered with Ipass, an ISP that offers Internet access via local dial-up numbers around the world. Ipass offers a secure dial-up service that Jamcracker customers can use to access Jamcracker Central, but customers are not limited to using only Ipass services.

Jamcracker is focusing on customer management and monitoring tools, says K.B. Chandrasekhar, company CEO, chairman and co-founder. Chandrasekhar is also the former CEO and current chairman of Exodus Communications.

"Jamcracker provides users with a single sign-on portal for all of their applications," he says. "We will not touch an application, or an ASP that will not fit this model."

Jamcracker has set up dedicated private lines between its data centers - which are collocated at Exodus hubs - where the firm manages customer accounts and monitors its ASP servers, Chandrasekhar says. In some cases, Jamcracker has also collocated management servers within partners' data centers, he says.

When customers log on to Jamcracker Central, they can not only access the applications to which their company subscribes, but they also can access pages that detail the performance of their application servers, view monthly billing information, fill out trouble tickets and check on the status of existing trouble tickets.

The combination of multiple ASP services and Jamcracker's management tools is a complex model that will raise questions about who is responsible for users' applications, analysts say.

That's because Jamcracker doesn't own and operate the actual application servers, says Eric Klein, senior analyst at The Yankee Group, a Boston consulting firm. Jamcracker will not only have to monitor the performance of multiple application servers, but also will have to tend to the relationships with its multiple ASP partners.

"But Jamcracker is offering a unique feature," Klein says, explaining that business users who buy services from one ASP that offers e-mail, enterprise relationship planning (ERP), CRM or financial applications are not accessing these applications using one interface.

Some users may prefer to rent all their applications from a single ASP because they know the ASP has ultimate control over all their application servers.

But most ASPs are not yet offering business users detailed monitoring tools with which they can easily check the status of their servers or applications.

Potential customer Documentum is considering outsourcing to an ASP and will meet with Jamcracker soon, says Stuart Robbins, an IT executive at the Pleasanton, Calif., software company. The idea of integrating all the company's customer information onto a single application that's accessed through the Web makes sense, he says.

When asked if he has concerns about Jamcracker maintaining multiple relationships with ASPs in order to provide its application rental services, Robbins says business users would have similar concerns if they were rolling out a large CRM or ERP application in-house.

"Internal or external, there is an important need for strong partnerships that result in the delivery of reliable services," he says.

Jamcracker's services are available now and priced on a monthly per-seat flat rate. The per-user rate is based on the number of applications to which a company subscribes and the number of users accessing the applications.