iCan Marks Two Years With New Upgrade

The company, based here, weathered the tough business environment that followed the Sept. 11 attacks and signed on several enterprise clients last quarter, such as Alstom, a Fortune 500 provider of energy and transportation infrastructure, said Nancy Li, CEO of iCan SP, in an interview two weeks ago at the annual CA World conference in Orlando, Fla.

"Things are picking up again," she said. "We had a couple of months after Sept. 11 where there wasn't much happening." Li declined to disclose the company's revenue, but she did say iCan SP now has about 75 clients, up from 54 last October, and that the customer base is split evenly between domestic and international clients.

Although launched in August 2000 with the goal of providing service management software to ASPs, MSPs and other service providers, iCan SP now targets an additional group of customers: enterprise IT departments that provide services to in-house users.

Those accounts typically generate more revenue than standard service providers because big companies with IT departments tend to have deeper pockets, Li said. "But a large proportion [of our business is from large service providers because the notion of the internal service provider is still growing," she said.

Business service provider Outtask has been using iCan Provider Suite since the product launched in June 2001, said Thomas DePasquale, CEO and president of the Alexandria, Va.-based company. "We've had only good experiences with [iCan," he said. "The suite's well-integrated, and it runs well in a [Microsoft Windows environment,our environment of choice. And iCan [SP is a good company to work with."

Outtask uses the iCan suite to produce service performance reports, track service usage and generate invoices.

At CA World this month, iCan SP previewed version 2.0 of its suite, scheduled for release later this year. The upgrade includes enhanced provisioning capabilities, a workflow engine and additional billing and cost-allocation features, Li said. "You'll really be able to craft the whole [service process, from ordering to activation," she said.

The iCan Provider Suite is composed of five modules: iCanView provides Web-based administration; iCan Meter collects usage and performance data; iCan Assure performs service-level agreement management; iCan Provision automates service deployment; and iCan Bill provides flexible realtime billing options.

The company is looking to work with systems integrators to provide implementation services around its suite, Li said. "More and more we find ourselves working with partners in this indirect model, leveraging their expertise or their entrenchment in a market segment," she said.

ICan SP has wasted no time forging new alliances. At CA World, the company announced a partnership with CSK, a systems integrator in Tokyo.

Under the terms of the agreement, CSK will use iCan SP's technology to provide enterprise clients with Premium Operation Services, including service-level management, resource-utilization monitoring and IT cost allocation.

"Our clients want us to provide not just simple systems integration, but a full menu of services," said Teiichi Aruga, executive vice president of CSK.

ICan SP is also in talks with other systems integrators, including a large U.S. player that's planning to launch a service management practice, said Elliot Kass, director of marketing at iCan SP.

"We have a small direct-sales force. Their role is to go out and gather reference accounts in different industries and geographies to get the thing started," Kass said. "Then we turn it over to a partner to carry it forward."