Also know as application service provider, a company who provides its customers with computer based services including the software, hosting, maintenance and technical support. ASPs manage their own applications from their own central data center and make them available via the Web. Some ASPs provide their services for free and rely on advertising to generate revenue while others charge on a pay per use basis. Enlisting the services of an ASP frees users from the need to have their own server, the responsibilities of basic support tasks, licensing, and other software complexities- all of which can lead to huge costs for consumers.
There are different kinds of ASPs, each one offering varying services. A specialist ASP focuses on a single application, such as the Blogger website which offers blog software and hosting. A vertical market ASP targets customers in a specific industry while a volume ASP offers low cost prepackaged application services in volume such as Paypal. Other forms of ASPs are enterprise ASP, which delivers broad spectrum solutions and local ASP, which supplies a wide variety of application services to small business in a local area.
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