IT Services
Gartner, 5/14/02: IT Services Suppliers: Case Studies of Excellence
Eight specific case studies showcase examples of excellence among IT services providers.
Gartner Dataquest finds that the trappings of excellence materialize within organizations as an offshoot of the need for innovative organizational development. Usually this need is the result of an externally driven requirement to change the “business as usual” approach of an organization. This Spotlight argues that excellence is characteristically a three-pronged navigational process:
• Vision in recognizing needed change
• Leadership in picking an optimal course
• Management in executing and holding the new path
Excellence is defined by an ability to change processes for the better.
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Outsourcing
The Net.Economy, 5/28/02: The Replacements
By Meg McGinity and Christine Zimmerman
When Millipore, a maker of purification filters, decided to use a managed service provider to handle some of its systems management tasks, the company's IT director found it wasn't just the corporate network that needed monitoring.
Feeling threatened by the outsourcing move, employees in Millipore's IT department started clustering near the water cooler debating whether their jobs were in jeopardy. The workers were quick to point out that they could handle whatever tasks Millipore was handing over to InteQ, its MSP.
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Microsoft
ZDNet, 5/21/02: MS licensing: Pay now or pay more later
By Joe Wilcox
Market researcher Gartner on Tuesday again warned corporate technology managers that they could pay more for their next Microsoft software upgrades if they fail to sign up for a controversial licensing plan before a July 31 deadline.
Microsoft introduced its Licensing 6 plan one year ago this month. The plan includes a controversial new program known as Software Assurance. Under the program, rather than simply being able to upgrade their software when they want to--and when their budgets allow--companies would need to commit to buying operating-system and application upgrades ahead of time through an annual fee.
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TechRepublic, 5/22/02: Microsoft: Are major consulting acquisitions coming?
By Thomas Bittman, Frances Karamouzis, Michele Cantara, and Bob Igou
In October 2001, during Gartner’s U.S. Symposium event, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Jennifer Beck, the head of Gartner’s IT Services group, that Microsoft had no plans to become a services company. In addition, in more recent interviews, Ballmer and other top Microsoft leaders have emphatically and unequivocally echoed this message. However, the reality is that services are a significant part of the equation that Microsoft must address. As a result, the service challenge is a critical one for Microsoft to tackle head-on. Microsoft services are increasingly becoming a larger and larger share of the company by necessity. The real question is whether Microsoft will take overt steps to grow proactively (e.g., acquisitions, joint ventures), continue to grow organically, or take more aggressive actions to create operationally excellent partnership channels.
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