Baan supply chain and CRM suite to be offered as pay as you go ASP

The iBaan extended enterprise software suite is now to be offered as a fully hosted, low cost pay-per-user-per-month service to small to mid size manufacturers (SMEs) in the UK – and to their suppliers – by application service provider (ASP) The Hub. Following an agreement between Baan, part of UK controls giant Invensys, The Hub and BSP, Baan’s UK implementation consulting partner, users can elect to take the service on dedicated networks or the Internet, with hosting and full application management provided at the Hub’s data centre in Lutterworth, Leicestershire. The Hub says it will package the iBaan software with other third party software to provide solutions all the way up to standard licensed B2B collaborative commerce solutions. For existing Hub managed service companies, adding Baan will cost around £150 per user per month. It looks more interesting than some supposed ASPs to date. Tim van Oerle, Baan’s alliances manager, says: “Because The Hub is an end-to-end solution service provider, they are in a position to offer SMEs the whole package – from installing a mouse to managing complete data systems.” Says Andrew Knight, The Hub’s managing director: “This new ASP hosted model enables SMEs to benefit from the level of functionality that has previously only been viable to large corporates. We have already experienced success with our ASP model with other applications, and believe the time is right for SMEs to benefit from iBaan’s integration and collaboration capabilities.”