Technology (A Special Report): The Providers --- Playing the New Order: Stocks to watch as software meets the Internet
When the software's for rent, what can investors buy?</br></br>The abbreviation ASP is suddenly as much of a stock-market buzzword as e-commerce and dot-com once were. And just as with the earlier manias, some traders already have made a bundle while others have lost their shirts.</br></br>ASP, or application service provider, is technology lingo for a company that rents out access to computer software and hardware to business customers, often providing the access over the Internet.</br></br>Bullish investors believe that ASP is the Next Big Thing and that it will revolutionize how small and medium-size companies approach technology. Before long, the theory goes, everybody from mom-and-pop retailers to steel warehouses will embrace the notion of outsourcing complicated stuff such as accounting programs and productivity software, saving themselves time and money -- and creating stock-market winners among the ASP providers.</br></br>Such beliefs already have created wild rides in the stock market. As investors have caught outsourcing fever, ASP firms such as the pioneering company USinternetworking Inc. and, more recently, Breakaway Solutions Inc. have enjoyed wildly popular initial public offerings.