FITUG e.V.
Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft
FITUG e.V.Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft |
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http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/software000503.html
Keeping Up With the Software Joneses
By Alexander G. Higgins
The Associated Press
G E N E V A, May 3 — Some of the biggest names in computers and communications have asked the United Nations to help regulate a system they claim will ease the headache and cost of keeping up with software advances, spokesmen said today. A consortium including AT&T, IBM, Microsoft and about 460 other companies say software that runs on powerful computers accessed via the Internet — instead of loaded on each PC — will be widely available in two years from so-called application service providers.
ASPs Becoming Mainstream “A year ago when I talked about ASP I was from the moon,” said Traver Gruen-Kennedy, consortium chairman. “By this time next year, this will begin to feel mainstream. A year after that, we will look around and say, why didn’t we do this years a long, long time ago.” The corporations are working with the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization to set up a way of avoiding or settling contract disputes with customers. The group, called the Application Service Provider Industry Consortium, turned to WIPO earlier this year to help cope with legal complications stemming from the international nature of the Internet, said Gruen- Kennedy, an executive with Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,-based Citrix Systems Inc. Users may use a network server in one country, software in another and a data center in a third country, he said. Francis Gurry, director of the arbitration and mediation center at WIPO, said the U.N. agency, set up to protect copyrights and patents, already has experience in resolving Internet disputes — over the rights to trade marks in Web addresses. WIPO is looking to create a dispute settlement that is fair, quick and inexpensive, he said.
Two Forces Behind ASPs Two forces are driving the ASP idea. Software manufactures want to eliminate piracy of their word processing and other programs. Users are tired of the seemingly endless “treadmill” of buying new versions and ever more powerful computers.