USi to offer faster ASP service

USinternetworking (USi) is trying to boost the speed of delivering hosted applications to customers by implementing SightPath's content delivery packages as the basis of a new service.

The application service provider (ASP) said it would initially offer Broadvision's ecommerce packages under its new USiAccelerate scheme, followed by packages from Ariba, Lawson, Microsoft, Niku, PeopleSoft and Siebel. The prototype system will be operational from next month, but is not expected to go live until July.

David Goldschlag, USi's chief technology officer, said the applications would be located in the firm's existing Enterprise Data Centres and managed using its application monitoring software.

"We do this by moving the information to the edge of the network, where geography is important. It will remove the wait and improve productivity for business-to-business customers," he added.

Jim Ricotta, SightPath's president and chief executive, said the start-up's ContentDirector products would act as the foundation for USiAccelerate.

"USi will also integrate rich media such as streaming audio and video into its solutions. The solution will make it possible for USi to provide faster response times than is possible with basic caching because it will operate as a dynamic distributed network," he claimed.

SightPath's Self-Organizing Distributed Architecture delivers data from a distributed network of servers that are located near viewers, he added.

"This bypasses network congestion points and improves website performance and reliability. Content distributed networks are pushing the state of the art. The value of services generated is expected to reach about $6bn by 2004," said Ricotta.