Says Sony's Tanikawa: "One of our key criteria in using an ASP is thatit must be a trusted ASP, which means that we must be able to trustits integrity in maintaining the confidentiality of our sensitivecorporate and customer information. We evaluated and felt thatCrimsonLogic's 12-year track record in managing sensitive data on anASP basis was good.

"On top of that, we require a good service level and high availabilityfor our mission-critical applications. Our assessment of the vendor'strack record and customer base in the ASP arena also gave us goodassurance that their service levels and availabilities wouldbe good."

Sony Logistics has also been using CrimsonLogic's e-procurement andelectronic inventory visibility services for the past few years, so atrustworthy relationship had already been established. "We have beensatisfied with their performance in linking up all our suppliers,"says Tanikawa.

Similarly, Fairex chose NCS, SingTel and NTT based on their solidreputations. "We also look at the strength of the party in systemsco-location. But it isn't always the case to choose a big name - wehave to look at the service level agreement and the cost,"says Yap.

ASPs like CrimsonLogic know that earning the trust and credibility oftheir customers is paramount. Mathivanan says of his facility inSingapore's Science Park 2: "We are not an office in the sky. We haveinvested heavily in our data centre and 24-hour call centre. We arenot a three-man show, and we have banks to back us."