March 7, 2003 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- For small businesses that lack the comprehensive IT departments and development resources possessed by larger organizations, the process of developing applications for the Web can be a difficult, slow process as they deal with costly consultants or limiting off-the-shelf software.
According to Dror Matalon, president of year-old ASP Zapatec (Zapatec.com), small to medium-sized business market is underserved when it comes to tools for custom application development tools. Identifying that gap, he says, Zapatec has set out to simplify the application development process for SMBs.
Zapatec provides small businesses with a Web-based development environment, accessible through any browser without the need for plugins, or a custom development effort, along with application hosting services, eliminating the need for small businesses to employ development consultants or use pre-packaged development tools.
"Small businesses, at this point, have only a few options," says Matalon. "They can hire a consultant to buy the software, buy the hardware, configure things, write custom code, develop an application and then maintain the application. And they end up spending many thousands of dollars on developing an application similar to what they could get from us. Another option is to try to use something off-the-shelf. And in some cases, they may be restricted by an off-the-shelf solution developed for a certain process."
Matalon says Zapatec has helped to develop, and is hosting, a wide range of applications, including those for a customer that offers apartment listings online; a retail chain that wanted to be able to view its sales scene in real-time; a financial planning company that wanted to operate a customer suggestion database; a radio station with "scouts" traveling different routes that wanted to keep track of who was on what route; and an individual that wanted to create an online directory.
"What's common accross these applications?" he says. "Pretty much nothing. And that's where we shine, is providing solutions for which there is nothing off-the shelf."
Zapatec's solutions are built on a three-tier architecture. Data is stored in a SQL database and a Tomcat Web applications server context, which supports Java Servlets and JavaServer Pages, running under the Java Security Manager. The presentation level is based on JSP with XML and XSL. Zapatec's online forms allow customers to quickly develop simple database-driven Web applications, and more complex systems can be coded using Java Server Pages.
The company's online management tools allow customers with hosted solutions to manage user accounts, access control and permission levels as well as import and export data and generate reports.
"I think what we're doing is new," says Matalon. "A consultant can't get an application up as fast as we can. And a consultant probably couldn't do a project like this for less than a few thousand dollars. We start our pricing at $299. Some of the off-the-shelf stuff is good for specific solutions. But if you don't want to do exactly what their product offers, then you can't use it. I don't know of anyone else out there offering what we offer."
And while Zapatec applications are often incorporated into larger Web operations, Matalon says the company says it has no plans to expand into hosting any more than its own applications. He has, however considered combining Zapatec's offering with that of a traditional hosting company in an effort to provide additional value.
"One of the things we're looking at is partnering with Web hosting providers, because we're not interested in going into traditional Web hosting ourselves, but we do see ourselves adding to a web hosting provider by providing new features and more complex solutions."
