[ Thanks to Dan Orzech
for this link. ]
“Aspiring application service provider (ASP) NetLedger Inc.,
faced a key question as it prepared to launch its services in the
spring of 1999: What platform should it select to support its
services? The San Mateo, Calif.-based start-up, which provides
accounting services to companies with 50 employees or less, looked
at Linux, Solaris, and Windows NT. “We determined Linux offered us
the best combination of high performance and low pricing,” says
Dave Durkee, chief information officer at NetLedger, which now has
500 servers from VA Linux Systems Inc. running Red Hat’s Linux
distribution.”
“Moving from one to 500 servers in less than year is a
common occurrence for hyperactive ASPs, who run firms’ Internet and
business applications. Analysts expect this emerging space to
grow rapidly: the total U.S. ASP market should top $48 billion by
2003, according to Deloitte Consulting.”
“Start-up Ensim Corp., of Sunnyvale, Calif. has designed
products to solve the one-customer, one-server problem. The firm’s
software sits on top of an operating system and lets an ASP divide
it into distinct segments for each customer. “We tested the
software and found it can support as many as 800 partitions,” says
Vikram Mehta, vice president of marketing at the company. Linux was
the first operating system the firm chose for its products. “As a
start-up, we had to watch our costs as we tried to prove that our
software would work and Linux was easily the least expensive
platform for us to work with,” explained Mehta.”