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Cruising
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Web
Site Pick Of The Month
By Pam Wegmann
More and more businesses
today, both large and small, are outsourcing their non-core functions.
They realize that their time is best spent “doing what they do best, and
hiring the rest.” Examples of outsourced functions have included
payroll tasks, accounting functions, and recruitment and hiring.
Did you know that you can now outsource your software related responsibilities?
Instead of buying, maintaining, troubleshooting and constantly dealing
with upgrading your software suites, your business can now lease its software,
have someone else handle upgrades and technical issues, and back up your
files.
The kinds of companies
that provide these services are called “application service providers”
(ASP) and you can find out more about what they can do for your business
at
http://www.protier.com
This is the Web site
of an ASP located in New Orleans, who specializes in leasing software to
small and medium size businesses through a monthly subscription fee.
Like all ASPs, they are a very new company, having launched only six months
ago.
The Web site is neat,
visually pleasing and uses minimal graphics which helps it to load quickly.
It has a consistent look throughout the site and contact information on
each page.
I’ve seen other ASP
sites who seem to try to impress the end user with their technical verbiage.
Even though ASPs provide very technical services, this site does a very
good job of taking a “techie” subject and explaining it in plain English.
The Home page explains
who they are, what they do and the benefits of renting your software, although
the About page seems a little redundant in content.
The Services page
lists the software that is hosted on their servers which their customers
can rent, such Office Suites from Microsoft and Word Perfect, e-mail applications
from Microsoft Outlook and Ecommunicator, financial suites such as Peachtree
and Great Plain, database management software such as Oracle 8i and Microsoft
SQL Server, and legal applications such as Timeslips and Paper Chaser for
document management.
There is a demo link
at the upper right corner which will give you a demo of how ASPs work,
however, it does require free registration and the inconvenience of downloading
software.
Technology will continue
its rapid pace of changing the way we all do business. This site
will help you understand a very new option for managing your office operations.
Knowledge is Power!
:-)
September 2000
Questions/Comments
can be sent to pam@info-matters.com
or faxed to 504.738.0016. You can also reach Ms. Wegmann at 504.738.0070.
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