WebCentral wins tax management ASP hosting deal

Stan Beer
Friday, 03 February 2006 00:41

IT Industry - Deals

Web hoster, WebCentral, has signed a deal with corporate tax management software developer, Allume Technology Partners, for a three year managed hosting service, which the company says demonstrates booming market demand for the ASP model.

WebCentral CEO, Andrew Spicer said, “Allume Technology Partners is a clear example of a company that has successfully transitioned its N-ABLE tax consolidation software to suit an ASP or ‘Software-as-a-Service’ model. During the past 12 months, we have seen strong growth in demand for our managed hosting services from a new batch of ASPs like Allume. We currently have as many as 45 ASP clients such as Allume, and this emerging segment of the industry represents more than 20% of our corporate sales pipe.”

Allume CEO, Duncan Lyon, said, “We have seen a groundswell of acceptance in the past 12 months for the ASP version of our N-ABLE tax management software.  More than 85% of the 260 large corporate tax returns lodged by our clients last year were prepared using our secure web solution hosted by WebCentral. Based on the current trend, within the next two to three years we expect most of our new clients to access our tax software over the web, rather than installing and maintaining the product internally.”

“Choosing a reputable hosting provider, like WebCentral, was a critical aspect of our technical planning when we decided to offer our tax consolidation software through an ASP model.  Our hosting evaluation criteria were strict; not only was security important, the N-ABLE tax management application handles sensitive financial information and had to meet Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Governance standards to allow us to cater for our multinational clients.”

Rapid deployment and seamless scalability were other key considerations for Allume, with their hosting solution recently expanding from three to seven servers to meet increased demand for the N-ABLE tax management application. 

WebCentral says it has spent the past six months enhancing its systems to better meet the requirements of its ASP or Software-as-a-Service clients. The company is investing $0.5m over the coming 12 months in developing systems to enhance the level of support provided to its ASP client base including improved integration between clients’ applications and WebCentral’s systems such as billing, identity management and support.