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Thursday, January 25, 2001 By David Radin
If you think the power of the Internet is in all the great things that we can look up on the Web, think again. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
The real value of the Internet is when you use an Applications Service Provider, or ASP.
An application service provider is a company that provides you with a service over the Net that you might otherwise try to obtain by loading software on your own PC and running it locally.
There are already a number of ASPs that are becoming well known, such as Blue Mountain Arts.
This company allows you to log into its servers to select a greeting card and send it electronically to your friends.
However, as heavily used as Blue Mountain has become, it still is a fairly rudimentary model compared with what we'll be seeing in the future.
One of my favorites in recent months is Salesforce.com. This California-based company offers a full gamut of sales management services to companies around the globe.
Let's say your sales force has 30 sales reps in 10 cities. You use trade shows, advertising and other marketing programs to generate leads.
You distribute the leads to your sales reps according to their prospective territories. Each sales rep follows up the leads, looks for opportunities and if a lead becomes a real prospect, your rep tries to turn that prospect into a client.
Along the way, the rep interacts with various people in your organization, including his own sales manager, who assigns quotas, helps sell and reports on progress to the executives of your company.
Salesforce.com uses a central database on the Internet to help your sales reps manage the accounts, help your sales managers manage your reps, and help all involved in the sales process collaborate -- even if they are in separate locales.
It's a step beyond traditional contact management tools such as Act, Goldmine and Outlook.
Have a question for David Radin? Contact him at his Web site
This alone would be enough. But the real power is in the implementation. The database resides on a server on the Net, where any member of the team with appropriate privileges can log in using nothing more than a Web browser.
So sales reps can update data in real time while they're on the road, and managers can see the updates quickly.
Since the whole process is run on the Internet, the company doesn't need to load software on everybody's computer -- so there is no technical support or ongoing maintenance required.
In fact, upgrades are automatic because they happen on the server end. Your organization simply gets the upgrade without effort next time each person logs on.
Moreover, whether you have two sales reps or 200, you can use Salesforce.com. All you have to do is pay the company for the monthly fees, which vary according to how many reps use the system.
Q: My monitor seems to turn off for no reason. It usually happens after I haven't been at the system for a few minutes. How can I fix this?
A: Most computers and monitors sold over the last few years have Energy Star compliant features that are meant to reduce power consumption. Usually they're turned on only for laptops, but they also exist in many desktop systems. You've probably set your power save features for too short a time-out. To change your settings, right-click on a blank spot on your Windows desktop. Then select [Properties] from the resulting pop-up menu. When the [Display Properties] dialog box appears, click on the [Screen Saver] tab. Locate the energy saving features on that tab, and click on the [Settings...] button in that section.
Find the drop down box labeled "Turn off monitor" and set it to "Never."
David Radin is host of the nationally syndicated radio show "Internet Insider," a local version of which is aired on KDKA AM 1020 at noon Saturdays.
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