InformationWeek SMB TechEncyclopedia

(1) (Application Service Provider) An organization that hosts software applications within its own facilities. Customers rent the use of the application and access it over the Internet or via a private line connection. Also called a "commercial service provider." The Web browser, acting as a universal client interface, has fueled this "on-demand software" market. Also called "cloud computing." See cloud computing, SaaS, Web application and service bureau.

(2) (Active Server Page) A Web server technology from Microsoft that allows for the creation of dynamic, interactive sessions with the user. An ASP is a Web page that contains HTML and embedded programming code written in VBScript or Jscript. It was introduced with Version 3.0 of Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS). When IIS encounters an ASP page requested by the browser, it executes the embedded program. ASPs are Microsoft's alternative to CGI scripts and JavaServer Pages (JSPs), which allow Web pages to interact with databases and other programs. Third- party products add ASP capability to non-Microsoft Web servers. The Active Server Page technology is an ISAPI program and ASP documents use an .ASP extension.

ASP.NET/ASP+
ASP.NET, also known as ASP+, is an enhanced version of ASP for the .NET platform. It supports executable programs compiled from C#, C++ and other languages and is not backward compatible with regular ASP code. ASP.NET pages are always compiled rather than interpreted as are ASP pages. See CGI script, JSP and ISAPI.

(3) (Association of Shareware Professionals, Muskegon, MI, www.asp-shareware.org) A trade organization for shareware founded in 1987. Author members submit products to ASP, which are approved, virus checked and distributed monthly via CD to member vendors. CDs are periodically made available to the public.

(4) (Analog Signal Processing) Processing signals completely within the analog domain. Contrast with DSP.

(5) (Average Selling Price) The sum of all the prices of a group of products divided by the number of products used in the list.