A news release today from US-based web hosting business OpSource says it has agreed a strategic partnership with UK collaboration services provider Asite Solutions. Ignoring the hyperbole,* it appears OpSource On-Demand will now provide Asite’s hosting regime (OpSource has data centres in Virginia, London and Bangalore – London-based Asite also has an office in India).
This is the second collaboration hosting announcement this summer, Autodesk having last month announced the establishment of a new Buzzsaw hosting centre in Hong Kong.
(* On most normal metrics – size of user base, turnover, etc – no way is Asite “the leading global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for the construction industry”. And, at least where collaboration software is concerned, Asite was not “developing SaaS solutions even before they were being called SaaS”. The SaaS term was coined, according to Wikipedia, in late 2000/February 2001, a time when Asite was just about to be appointed a reseller of collaboration technologies from BIW [my employer; see April 2001 release] and Bidcom, after which it got into dispute with BIW for allegedly copying BIW’s application – see Building magazine story, Asite faces ‘passing off’ claim from software rival.)
Update (1 September): see also Rob Phillpot’s post Service and some Software.
