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InformationWeek.com October 2, 2000
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Redback Taps ASP To Host Financial And CRM Apps

Five-year deal with Qwest Cyber.Solutions will let company focus on network equipment

By Jennifer Maselli

More on ASPs:

  • ASPs Can Free IT Managers From Tangle Of Wireless Data (9/25/00)

  • The Software Factory (9/25/00)

  • VarBusiness: Today's ASP: Who Are You (9/18/00)


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    A pplication service providers get most of their business from small companies that have little or no internal IT infrastructure. But an $18 million deal that Qwest Cyber.Solutions got from with Redback Networks Inc. last week indicates that some larger companies are starting to use ASPs to manage complex business processes involving hundreds of employees and customers.

    The five-year deal with Redback calls for Qwest Cyber.Solutions to serve up financial and manufacturing applications from Oracle, and customer-relationship management applications from Siebel Systems Inc. ęWe didnęt want to support the applications because we want to focus on our own core competencyęnetwork equipment,ę Redback CFO Craig Gentner says.

    Redback recently purchased licenses for the Oracle and Siebel software to replace enterprise resource planning and CRM systems from Baan Co. that didnęt support Redbackęs plan to offer customers an online purchasing capability, Gentner says. Redback expects revenue to jump to $230 milion this year from $64 million in 1999, and its workforce has grown from 300 to 800 people in the past year. ęSince the business was growing at such a dramatic pace, we needed a way to make it easier for the customer to place orders with us and track that order once itęs placed,ę Gentner says.

    Redback tapped KPMG Consulting LLC to implement the apps, which Qwest Cyber.Solutions will host from its data centers. All employees can access the apps using a virtual private network connection. When the implementation is complete in six months, salespeople using a connection to Redbackęs in-house manufacturing inventory application should be able to better track the manufacturing and shipment of products that customers have ordered.

    Redback plans to let customers purchase and configure products online within a year.

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