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25% ASPs lack security: IDC

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE: A recent IDC survey of 50 Application Service Providers (ASPs)

indicated that approximately 25 per cent had sub-standard security, lacking

fundamentals such as user authentication, virus protection, network security and

firewall services.

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These are integral elements of a security plan and quite necessary to be

considered a player in the market. Although the majority of respondents seem to

have the basics down, there are still ASPs offering customers access to

applications in an unprotected environment.

IDC considers this unacceptable and strongly recommends that ASPs do not

enter the market unprepared. A breach in security is highly visible and will set

back the industry as a whole. "Businesses understand that a breach in

security could result in severe financial losses, never mind the damage to the

company's reputation," said IDC’s ASP and Application Management Services

research program, program manager, Jessica Goepfert. "It’s up to the ASP

to stay on top of these security systems in order to simply stay in the

game."

The current ASP market is crowded and undergoing healthy consolidation, while

still welcoming new entrants. As evidenced in IDC’s survey data, these ASPs

are at different points in their life cycle and may each take unique approaches

to attack the market opportunity. Despite these disparities, they must all

understand that security is essential to winning new customers and propelling

mainstream adoption.

IDC believes that in order for ASP adoption to accelerate, vendors must

continue to educate the market about their security precautions and convince

prospects that they can better protect the application environment than an

internally deployed system.

"High-end ASPs that are rolling out enhanced security services are

setting a strong example and new entrants would be well served to observe,"

said Goepfert. "In fact, in recent months IDC has witnessed announcements

from leading ASPs that demonstrate this trend and commitment to providing

state-of-the-art security services."

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