BSP (ASP, B2B, P2P...)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

     Do these acronyms crop up every single day, without end?  Just when you
thought Y2K was gone...
     From the NEW YORK POST, 1 August 2000, pg. 44, col. 1:

_Newest 'Net shakeout begins_
_ASPs are the latest online rage that crashes and burns_
By JOSEPH GALLIVAN

     (...)  ASPs, or Application Service Providers, have been the hot new
thing in the Internet space over the last three months.  An ASP firm
typically offers to take care remotely of a company's software needs, such as
payroll or inventory.
     (...) Many companies that reveled in the dot-com moniker in '99 changed
to a B2B (Business-to-Business) focus in early 1999, only to switch to
calling themselves ASPs when a chill wind ran through the Nasdaq in April.
     With the flap over Napster, the term P2P (Peer-to-Peer)("P2P" sounds
like this Popik's gotta go to me--ed.) has suddenly become hot.  Napster
users swap filed "peer-to-peer"--between each other directly--without much of
a middleman, but nobody's figured out how to make money from P2P yet.
     (Col. 3--ed.)  The supply of three-letter acronyms is not exhausted yet,
however.  Companies such as ClearCross of New York--which lets companies
calculate shipping tariffs and legal bills associated with import-export
activities and also lets them use its network of insurance companies, banks,
and freight carriers--have found the ASP has bad associations.  They've
started calling themselves BSPs, Business Solution Providers.
     BSPs offer customers the chance to outsource pracitcally everything.