IT Services
Gartner, 11/5/02: Predicts 2003: IT Services
Only innovators will survive the current IT services industrywide malaise. As 2002 rushes to its conclusion, few glasses will be raised to celebrate the year — most people will probably say good riddance. The economic rebound never happened, new opportunities were hard to spot, and pink slips were liberally scattered among the smallest and largest players. Perhaps the most notable element of the market’s mood in 2002 was the dawning realization that the slowdown was not just some temporary aberration but was the result of a much more fundamental gestalt in the market’s attitude toward IT. Consequently, simply sitting tight and waiting for the storm to abate was not going to work.
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IT Management
Infoworld, 1/3/03: The backup mantra
By Scott Tyler Shafer and Mario Apicella
NOT ONLY ARE we interested in the concept of pervasive computing here at InfoWorld, we're also confident that it's only a matter of time before it becomes a reality in every enterprise. At that point, pervasive computing will become a huge network and security headache, but for now it is mainly a storage issue.
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Giga, 1/3/03: GigaWeb Survey Highlights Linux Desktop Benefits and Challenges
Stacey Quandt
A recent Giga survey question asked clients to rank, in order of importance, their reasons for considering a Linux desktop, and to name their greatest concerns about using a Linux desktop. The survey, which polled Giga’s client base about the state of desktop upgrade and migration plans within the next two years, represented nearly 1.2 million desktops, and the majority of respondents were from North America. As shown in the figure below, cost savings was the No. 1 reason for migrating to a Linux desktop (80 percent of participants). At a distant second was the ability to focus on standards (13 percent of participants). Even fewer considered the ability choose from multiple desktop OS vendors a priority (7 percent of participants).
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Utility Computing
Giga, 11/19/03: Utility Computing: Understanding the Limitations and Sorting Out the Value
November 19, 2002
“Utility computing, with its many flavors, has recently emerged as the ‘next big
thing’ for 2003.”
Lead Analyst: Thomas Mendel
In response to deepening concerns about over-provisioning and over-spending, a number of major product vendors and service providers (e.g., IBM, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Sun Microsystems, EDS) have separately proposed the concept of utility computing. Utility computing architectures (UCAs) promise to significantly reduce inefficiencies of current resource configurations through deployment of cross-domain resource allocation optimization. IT organizations typically have to deal with four fundamental resource pools: networks, storage, systems and application infrastructures, with a given application allotted a certain percentage of each of these resource pools. While it has become easier to adjust these percentages, crossdomain optimization has been elusive.
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PC Market
Giga, 1/3/03: PC Market Update: Disappointing Holiday Season and IT Surveys Slip Recovery to 2004/2005
Rob Enderle
The chances for a 2003 recovery are becoming increasingly remote. The buying season, which started strongly, did not maintain that strength, and recent IT surveys have indicated that budgets are being cut from 2002 levels or remaining static. This combination of events further strengthens Giga’s existing position that recovery, if and when it occurs, will be in the late 2004 to 2005 buying time frame. This is providing a much longer time in service for personal computing hardware than was anticipated at purchase, and much of this equipment will fail before it is removed from service.
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Government
Gartner, 1/6/03: Government Insights: Possible IT Budget Cuts
In tough economic times, government leaders pressure CIOs to reduce IT budgets. Although IT investments should help cut overall operating costs, CIOs can take actions to reduce the cost of the supporting infrastructure.
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Enterprise Network Outsourcing
Gartner, 1/3/03: Enterprise Network Services Outsourcing in the U.S.
Outsourcing within the IT and telecommunications industries has had a long history, stretching back to facilities management, service bureaus and managed network services. At a basic level, it is attractive to corporations wishing to concentrate on core competencies and willing to offload increasingly complex infrastructure management issues to companies specializing in those areas. Network services have become an increasingly important part of IT infrastructure, and network services outsourcing has generally been difficult to separate from other infrastructure components.
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Broadband
The Wall Street Journal, 1/8/03: After Internet's Big Bust, Broadband Shift Went On
Disney and Others Try to Cash In
With Paid Multimedia Offerings
By PETER GRANT and BRUCE ORWALL
Working at Walt Disney Co.'s Internet unit wasn't much fun after the Internet economy collapsed. Disney largely shut down its ambitious portal project, Go.com, took about $900 million in charges and ultimately slashed its Internet work force by half to about 1,000 employees. To the survivors, Disney gave strict marching orders: Cut costs and eke out profits without creating glitzy new content.
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Microsoft
Internet Week, 1/8/03: Exchange And Internet Information Server
Gregg Keizer, InternetWeek
Responding to increasingly sophisticated attacks on server security, Microsoft beefed up defenses in its Exchange and IIS servers on Tuesday by unveiling Feature Pack 1 for Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 (ISA).
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Because You Want to Read a Story That Combines Computer Viruses with Avril Lavigne
ZDNet, 1/7/03: Lirva worm attaches to Avril Lavigne
By Robert Vamosi
The popularity of singer Avril Lavigne has spread to the world of computer viruses.
Lirva (w32.Lirva@mm), also known as Naith, is a mass-mailing worm that is UPX-compressed to a file size of 32,766 and arrives via e-mail either announcing a new Microsoft patch or offering fan access to Avril Lavigne. Once active, Lirva will attempt to e-mail copies of itself to all contacts on an infected system, shut down all antivirus and firewall programs, and launch a Web browser to open the Avril Lavigne Web site on an infected user's desktop.
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