Exploring Application Service Provision - Adoption of the ASP concept for provision of ICTs in SMEs

The paper provides an exploratory empirical survey of Application Service Providers (ASPs) and their clients. The research question is: what do Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) base their decision on when adopting the ASP concept? The concept, ASP, consists of software vendors, and an ASP enterprise, which act as a third part firm in a business model. For its clients it forms a strategy to “buy -in” applications and organize maintenance for their Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The ASPs report cost control and lower cost as motives for SME’s decision to adopt the ASP concept. The clients do not emphasize these reasons. However, a closer examination of the decision shows that the cost perspective is secondary to SMEs. The study identifies three main reasons for clients to adopt the ASP concept: core competence, a lack of skilled personnel and the organizations