NaviSite Emphasizes Apps in Cloud Services Debut
At a time when cloud providers look for ways to stand out, NaviSite Inc. is hanging its hat on applications. The company on Monday took the wraps off cloud-based managed infrastructure, applications, and messaging services for enterprise customers in North America. The lineup includes NaviCloud Managed Application Services, an offering that supports Oracle e-Business, PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD Edwards, Hyperion Microsoft Dynamics, and SAP applications. Here are some early details.
Among the key efforts: NaviCloud Managed Infrastructure Services, which the company said will focus on Web hosting, server management, storage, database, network and security management, and disaster recovery. NaviCloud Managed Messaging Services, meanwhile, will provide hosted Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, Lotus Domino, mobile messaging, and e-mail archiving services.
“Our key difference is the application and application management space,” noted Claudine Bianchi, chief marketing officer at NaviSite.
Bianchi said the company’s cloud services are in limited availability mode until June 1 when they will become generally available in North America. Thus far, eight customers are deployed on NaviSite’s cloud. NaviSite’s London data center is slated to become cloud enabled in September.
NaviSite’s cloud services are layered atop the company’s NaviCloud infrastructure, announced in October.
With its cloud services, NaviSite provides service level guarantees at the infrastructure and application layers. As for pricing, the company offers pure usage and commit-and-burst options. Pure usage, the company says, requires no base-level commitment but lacks a volume discount. In commit and burst, the pricing is set according to base-level commitments and can scale up or down. NaviSite’s commit and burst option includes discounts for higher commit levels.
A customer’s resource utilization during its first 90 days of service determines the base workload. After that, the commit level could be changed on a monthly basis, according to NaviSite.
Overall, NaviSite’s cloud moves are in keeping with its upmarket direction.
Bianchi said the company has refined its strategy over the past year to pursue mid-market and enterprise customers in the $250 million to $2 billion-plus revenue range. She pointed to the sale of NaviSite’s colocation data centers and Lawson/Kronos Application Services business as recent moves reflecting the enterprise emphasis. Bianchi said NaviSite no longer focuses on the SMB segment, with the exception of ISVs and SaaS enablement.
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