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.
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."