Outsourcing
Wall Street and Technology, 1/17/03: As the Market Goes Down, Outsourcing Goes Up
When it comes to managing IT systems, hedge fund Basswood Partners has tried a little bit of everything, says Marc Samit, chief financial officer.
The firm, which manages $500 million in two funds, started out in 1994 in New Jersey with a handful of employees and took care of the systems themselves, says Samit, noting that "We had no idea what we were doing."
As the firm grew, it outsourced the task to a computer-support firm but had a "lot of problems" because the vendor "didn't have expertise and contacts" in the capital markets. Basswood then brought somebody in-house, but that didn't work out. So when the firm, which had grown to 15 employees, relocated to Manhattan in the late 1990s, Samit needed an alternative solution.
That's when he decided to outsource the task to Richard Fleischman & Associates, Inc. (RFA), a Manhattan-based technology firm that services about 200 hedge funds.
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Gartner, 1/30/03: Measuring the Business Value of IT in BPO Engagements
No other IT service is more acutely impacted by the need to link tangible business value to service delivery than business process outsourcing (BPO). By its very nature, BPO is designed to deliver business value; it is sold to business buyers and involves the delegation of an entire business process to an external third party that has the responsibility of owning and managing the selected process directly. However, because of myriad potential opportunities, the variety of competitors and the vagueness of end-user goals for outsourcing, many BPO vendors approach buyers with ambiguous services definitions and vague descriptions of benefits for potential buyers. This lack of a specific, concrete value proposition with measurable results is a key obstacle to adoption of BPO solutions. Buyers and providers engaged in BPO contracts must learn to measure the business value of their outsourcing relationship throughout the life cycle of the engagement.
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IT Management
Infoworld, 2/3/03: CIO's expect budget increases, new PCs
Security tops spending priority list
By Tom Krazit February 03, 2003
Chief information officers expect their IT budgets to grow for 2003 over 2002, but at slower rates than the ones experienced in the late 1990s, according to the results of a monthly poll conducted by CIO Magazine.
The 369 CIOs who responded to the January survey estimated their IT budgets would grow by 5.2 percent in 2003, up from the 4.6 percent growth expected by CIOs in December, CIO Magazine said in a release Monday.
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Security
IDG News Service, 2/3/03: The Net Is Dangerous, Research Says
Attack rates decline, but worms and software flaws keep cyberspace hazardous, Symantec reports.
Paul Roberts, IDG News Service
Attacks on company networks decreased over the past six months, but the number of reported software vulnerabilities exploded during that time, creating the possibility of more serious Internet-borne mischief in the future, Symantec says.
The findings are in the latest Internet Security Threat Report, a semi-yearly report from the security vendor.
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Microsoft
Computerworld, 2/3/03: Microsoft Adds a Year to NT Server 4.0 Support
Users feeling upgrade pressure get a reprieve, but extension doesn't cover all support options
By CAROL SLIWA
Microsoft Corp.'s confirmation last week that it will extend key support provisions for Windows NT Server 4.0 through 2004 provided a reprieve for companies feeling pressure to move off the aging operating system.
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Privacy
Mother Jones, 2/3/03: Cognitive Dissident
John Perry Barlow, the man who popularized the term 'cyberspace', discusses the Total Information Awareness project, online activism, file sharing, and the prospect of a digital counterculture.
Interviewed by Tim Dickinson
MJ: Do you think the goal of preempting terrorism through data-mining is feasible, from a technological perspective?
JPB: The thing that spooks me about the Total Information Awareness program is that that it's inside DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]. And unlike the CIA or the NSA, DARPA has a great track record of actually going out and making big technology happen -- because they're small, they're light, they're anti-bureaucratic, they're engineering minded. And Poindexter may be a convicted felon but he's a very, very smart guy. So where while I'd like to say there's no way that this is going to happen under any other circumstances, I'm less assured of that at the moment.
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Futures
UCLA Center for Communications Policy, 2/03: Surveying the Digital Future
In 2000, the first report of the UCLA Internet Project created a baseline profile of behavior and attitudes about Internet use and non-use in five major subjects: who is online and who is not, media use and trust, consumer behavior, communication patterns, and social effects.
In 2001 and 2002, the UCLA Internet Project continued its year-to-year appraisal of more than 100 major issues, focusing on Internet users vs. non-users, as well as new users (less than one year of experience) compared to very experienced users (six or more years of experience).
Here are highlights of the five major areas in the Year Three of the UCLA Internet Project…
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