The Beginning of The ASP Evolution | Payment Gateways | Milinx Global Services

We had come far with a focus and a vision. We had built hardware, OS and databases from scratch. A shared application server, user network protocol, shared user profile and shared data with custom application.

Myself, Maynard L. Dokken, Tim Berners-Lee, Marc Andreesen, Scott McNealy, Jim Clark and Larry Ellison were leading development of the pieces to make this happen. There were many other engineers, developers and entrepreneurs pushing technology, networking and software ever farther. Too many to list. I was so grateful to all.

I had a big picture view, a commercial application service through a network. Sun Microsystems Javabeans, Netscape Crossware and Oracle Cobra were coming clearer into view as solutions to a Universal Application Platform called Milinx. The vision never changed from 1987 to 2002 and we continued our journey to implementation.

The Beginning of The ASP Evolution

The next stage was understanding the corporate marketplace and the weaknesses. It was obvious to me enterprise architecture and applications had security and availability issues. We needed to understand how these enterprises were approaching technology and the market.

As I was working on the plan going forward for our application services I printed boxes of valuable information from Fitch Ratings, S&P & Moody’s. I had notified them by email I was downloading. I learned more than I could have ever anticipated and this was the reason we created AssuredCard to deliver a solution for consumer credit stress. More on that later.

We saw things slightly differently. At this time the players working on this solution were SuccessInc, Netscape, Sun Microsystem, and Oracle. We saw delivery of applications through a network and needed to be able to scale both systems and network.

Many things were happening at once:

• Corporate marketplace research
• Technology analysis of weaknesses in the current platforms and who was creating solutions we were not building
• Review release of the Information Security Management Handbook 1992
• Legal and Corporate structure for AssuredCard
• Creating a new database schema and framework for Online CRM & Accounting Applications
• Following the development of C to C++ Classes and new technologies to create API & SDK's for ASP applications

We were the only one looking at the ASP picture including delivering the framework and kits for developers to build applications using our backend service. At that time API (Application Development Interface) and SDK’s (Software Development Kits) with C Client Libraries. We would build the backend service and let developers build their own apps. Later we discovered developers wanted a template so we had to build the beta applications as well.

We had our hands full and more. So we needed to divide our focus into two: SuccessInc (which became Milinx) creation of Beta CRM and accounting applications; and the AssuredCard corporation legal and technology framework for a new credit product.

As we were doing our market research we discovered enterprises including rating agencies had huge security risks and data leaks. There were glaring weakness in the NSFNET wide-area packet switched networks. These enterprises were sharing ports for bandwidth. LAN networks switches were being adopted by network providers without network wide assurance. We needed security for our new company and customers.

To avoid these weaknesses or exploits the AssuredCard network was divided into two segregated systems: Windows NT for corporate communications; and Novell Netware for customer records. It was a temporary solution. We needed a long term solution. That was when AssuredCredit was born to create online security solutions including public user account access. As well SuccessInc had been building ASP CRM and accounting apps to update AssuredCard technology which became useful as Beta Applications for Milinx.

During the development of SuccessInc a pivot was required to have a viable market for our platform that could pay monthly fees to cover T1 Network costs. In that process we realized the credit market seemed to be out of balance. We also had found a weakness in security of credit agencies and notified them we were able to download from their portal all the reports internal and public. It was two discoveries in one.

As a result AssuredCard was launched in "1994-1999" as a service to reduce credit stress related to payments and over the limit fees. We were very cognizant of security issues for customers even though at that time the applications came in by mail. We knew we needed to create a secure backend for registration as well payments. Initially we had implemented what was the best possible structure for security using two separate networks. One with newly released Windows NT which had access to the internet and the other using Novell NetWare which was used for customer accounts accessible by a separate department. We needed to link the two together in a secure manner for updating accounts online to make the operation efficient. AssuredCredit was created for that purpose.

The AssuredCredit Web Portal was developed in 1997 as an Intranet and launched in 1998 as the Web Portal for AssuredCard operations including the original ASP CRM and Accounting applications of 1994. It was a  testing ground for the Origins of the Online Payment Gateway released Dec 1998 and launched early 1999.

The successor "Hosted" technology used Netscape Crossware and Oracle COBRA technology for the front-end UI. The backend framework and database schema were replicated within the Milinx ASP applications and updated for the new Milinx ASP hosted architecture using SunMicrosystems, Oracle, Cisco and Netscape.

Relational and meta database functionality were added for Milinx miCRM, miCollaboration (sometimes referred to SocialCollab) and the eCommerce application suite using the Oracle Netscape Javabeans architecture and database engine.

The portal was again re-engineered for the Suite of Commerce Applications under Milinx miPortal which included Advanced Search & Merchant Payment Gateway Management within miPay, miBilling and miStore. The new portal also included access to the network, wireless, mobile, and storage applications through the integrated Milinx ASPConnect authorization engine and gateway.

It was developed with the Oracle 8i database engine for hosted services and Javabeans updated layer. The ASP miPortal included 9i updates with a Universal API and toolkit for ASP applications using the Universal Hosted Desktop framework.

The Hosted Data Center Global Architecture enabled 300,000 concurrent connections with 24/7 fail over and 99% uptime guarantee. It also had the highest industry level data and connection security for users and administrators.