ASPs (Application Services Providers) are mostly dead having died in the collapse of the Bubble. Well, OK, many are living happy lives at the moment but have eliminated from their names and marketing collateral the term ASP as a way of describing central server-based applications sold on a services model. The new term is SaaS: Software as a Service. Is DRM a candidate for a successful SaaS offering? Maybe. Maybe not. eWeek has an article on SaaSs that addresses this possibility. Snippets:
But the SaaS concept is an idea that has strong potential "and not just for the short term but for the long term" because it promises to provides large-scale efficiencies to customers, said Gregory Gronowski, vice president of sales and software commerce at Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd.
Aladdin, based in Arlington Heights, Ill., markets products for DRM (digital rights management), user authentication and data security. Aladdin doesn't currently offer its products on a SaaS model. But Gronowski said he could see the potential of SaaS in the digital rights management and software security fields.
