Packeteer jumps on ASP deals

Jan. 2, 2002 4:43 p.m. PT

2 min read

Packeteer, Inc. (Nasdaq: PKTR) shot up 15 percent Tuesday after the company announced a bevy of deals as part of its move into the ASP (application service provider) market.

Packeteer has signed technology and service integration agreements with Citrix Systems, Inc., (Nasdaq: CTXS), Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ), InfoVista and Portal Software Inc., (Nasdaq: PRSF), and a technology alliance with Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HWP), as part of its ASP initiative.

Shares in the recently public company were up 6 to 46 1/8. When the company had its IPO in July, its core business was making local networks business bandwidth management products for congested WAN, or wide area networks.

Packeteer's ASP Initiative plans to provide networked applications infrastructure for ASPs, in conjunction with the company's AppVantage system. Packeteer is expanding into the ASP market to enabling new business models and revenue opportunities for ASPs.

Under the agreements with its new partners, Packeteer will work with them to build new services enabled by the AppVantage system. Leading ASP application vendors such as Great Plains (Nasdaq: GPSI), Onyx Software (Nasdaq: ONXS) and SalesLogix (Nasdaq: SLGX) are also working with Packeteer to ensure that their applications are recognized within a hosted environment enabled by the AppVantage system. ASPs such as FutureLink Corp. (OTC BB: FTLK) and ESOFT Global plan to start trials with the AppVantage system in the fourth quarter.

AppVantage is a policy-based subscriber management system for the ASP market. The new system gives ASPs the ability to check the performance of the applications that they are hosting and presents reports that show that ASPs are meeting their obligations to their customers; provides a 'point of demarcation' that clearly delineates the ASP's responsibilities and the customer's responsibilities; and integrates billing.

Packeteer will build on its expertise in Internet and enterprise WANs for the ASP initiative, said Craig Elliott, president and CEO in a company statement. "As customers shift from internal to external hosted environments, their requirements for secure, measured and performance-assured applications remain the same," he added.