By Rajesh Jain, managing director, Netcore Solutions, Mumbai, India
My latest column in Business Standard:

Application Service Providers (ASPs) are set to make a comeback – in an avatar that is also being termed on-demand software or software-as-a-service (SaaS). Business Week wrote recently: "Companies like Salesforce.com, NetSuite, and newly public RightNow Technologies are reinventing the way customers buy software. They're all making basic corporate software to manage finances or a sales team, run a business or run a call center — not new stuff, and in many cases, with fewer features than existing products. But the innovation is in the business model. These companies deliver software over the Internet –- a Web service, if you will — and companies pay as they go with monthly fees. That means less costly integration, no hiring an in-house administrator, and no big up-front contracts. It's a considerably cheaper and easier approach that gives these software-as-a-service companies an entr