GTE Will Unveil Hosting, ASP Plans

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July 07, 1999 (12:00 AM EDT)

By Margie Semilof,

GTE next Tuesday will expand on its plans to reach into the applications-services business and will introduce some packaged applications to be offered in partnership with integrators and other service providers.

The Irving, Texas carrier, is expected to flesh out its hosting services, which will become more menu-like in their offering. The carrier will sell commerce applications in conjunction with independent software vendors partnerships.

GTE has about 1,000 to 1,200 Web-hosting customers and, like most carriers, has identified Web hosting as a business poised for high growth. GTE Internetworking, in Cambridge, Mass., was one of the first carriers to offer hosting. In the early days, many of its customers received custom services due to the newness of the service and the individual nature of each situation.

"That's not a scalable model," said one source, who declined to be identified. "You can't do business like that forever. They are lucrative, professional services, but not everyone will pay for that."

GTE recently lost the executive who built its Web-hosting business from scratch. Digex, an ISP and Web-hosting company based in Beltsville, Md., said Monday that Mark Shull, former GTE Internetworking vice president of network centric solutions, would become the carrier's new CEO.

GTE last month replaced Shull with John Puckett, who was formerly chief information officer at GTE Internetworking. Puckett is based in GTE's Cambridge offices.