Application Service Provisioning as a Strategic Network

In this paper, we analyse Application Service Provisioning (ASP) by means of a framework derived from the strategic network approach presented in the management strategy literature. Our ex-post analysis focuses on a failed ASP project, in which a small software company and a large telecommunications operator formed an alliance in order to launch an innovative ASP software offering in the market. The objective of the paper is to operationalize the new strategic network oriented concepts in order to better understand and manage problems in developing integrated ASP offerings.Our results from both conceptual and empirical work indicate that several important new issues can be raised if the ASP integration is examined as a strategic network (a kind of software ecosystem). We propose a framework that identifies these factors and test its power to predict success or failure in our case. On the basis of our analyses, we propose practical guidelines to be followed when moving from the management of products and services to the management of an ASP partnership network.