Outsourcing
Network Computing, 7/22/02: Hire Authorities
By Jonathan Feldman
There's an old story about a company that calls in a consultant because a critical assembly line machine is down, and it's costing the company bigger bucks by the hour. The consultant arrives, looks the machine up and down, then whacks it with a hammer. Amazingly, it starts working as good as new; the assembly line springs to life, and the day is saved. Soon, the consultant's bill arrives: $10,000. Outraged, the foreman demands an itemized account, which the consultant gladly provides: "Hitting machine with hammer: $1. Knowing where to hit machine: $9,999."
Nowadays, knowing when to call in a consultant, choosing the right one, managing the relationship and making sure you get the most for your money are priceless. To offer you the best strategies, we've spent the past few months grilling consulting companies, analysts, industry groups and end users for their experiences, tips and lessons learned.
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ZDNet, 7/29/02: Outsourcing 101: Who's happy with the process?
By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia
Many companies that have outsourced their IT are dissatisfied with the service provided by outsourcers, but few are likely to stop the practice altogether, opting instead to renegotiate current contracts.
Simon Pollard, managing director of Asia Pacific operations for Technology Partners International (TPI), a major IT outsourcing firm, told a conference on outsourcing conducted by the Institute for International Research (IIR) last week that most deals were renegotiated during the initial term, but only about 20 percent switch suppliers and even fewer take IT back in-house.
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IT Management
Information Week, 7/29/02: Network Managers Find Smaller Is Simpler
Companies turn away from big vendors to save money, reduce complexity
By Martin J. Garvey
If IT executives were to pick a theme song about network and systems management, Neil Young's "Like A Hurricane" would be perfect.
Network and systems management has never been easy. In the 1970s, security, provisioning, monitoring, and fixes were manual and time-consuming. In the '80s, single-function products automated processes, but nothing tied those products together. Then the big management vendors developed frameworks, but those frameworks could cost millions and take years to implement, leaving many customers with only partial installations.
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PC Market
Giga, 7/29/02: GigaWorld IT Forum Survey: PC Market Remains Sluggish
The survey responses on desktop and mobile were consistent with what we have been saying for well over a year now. The market places relatively low value on these products and recovery for the segment will depend on several things: improvement in the overall financial health of the purchasing companies, a better value proposition than one based on simply buying the fastest system and a much lower cost of deploying this technology.
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