Outsourcing
Giga, 3/31/03: The Growth of Outsourcing in European IT Budgets Means Higher Maturity
Richard Peynot
What is the significance of the growth in outsourcing budgets claimed by European companies?
While European IT budgets will likely remain stable in 2003 (see IdeaByte, European IT Budgets for 2003 Generally Still Flat, but a Few Signs of Growth, Andrew Bartels), more than half of the companies have announced a significant increase in the section of the budget dedicated to application outsourcing and hosting; the remaining companies expect that budget sector to remain stable. Giga believes the relative growth of outsourcing in IT budgets is not a temporary phenomenon, but a durable trend. The major players in the outsourcing market have experience and credibility, and their offerings are structured, dependable and attractive.
[more]
Giga, 3/27/03: Choosing Between a Capacity-Based or SLA-Based Offshore Outsourcing Relationship
William Martorelli
How should customers structure their offshore outsourcing relationships for maintenance and enhancement activities?
Given the desire to cut IT costs via offshore outsourcing, it is natural for IT organizations to focus on billing rates and headcount (normally expressed as a function of full-time equivalents, or FTEs) while formulating their offshore outsourcing programs. However, that does not mean that customers should necessarily use FTE counts and billing rates as the sole building blocks of their offshore outsourcing relationships.
[more]
Giga, 3/27/03: Issues in Scaling Offshore Outsourcing Engagements
William Martorelli
What are the principal issues in scaling an offshore outsourcing engagement?
Organizations anxious to reap the cost-cutting benefits of offshore outsourcing are accelerating their use of offshore resources significantly. In some cases, ambitious IT organizations have scaled up to hundreds of offshore full-time employees (FTEs) within a nine- or 12-month time frame. This rapid scaling, of course, introduces new challenges in maintaining effective oversight. Among the principal challenges during this period of ramp-up include the following:
[more]
Giga, 3/27/03: What Constitutes an ‘On Demand’ Outsourcing Transaction?
William Martorelli
What does it mean when IBM announces an “On Demand” outsourcing transaction?
Beginning with its outsourcing relationship with American Express, announced in early 2002, IBM began heralding a number of outsourcing wins that it has characterized as “On Demand” in nature, including recent transactions with JPMorganChase, Fluor and Axa. But what does such a characterization mean? It certainly does not mean that the outsourcing customer has made an abrupt transition to a purely utility-based service and billing structure. Rather, it represents the beginnings of a lengthy transformational journey in which at least a portion of the customer’s IT infrastructure will operate on a variable-cost basis using any of several mechanisms, both technological and contractual in nature, that IBM will introduce.
[more]
Giga, 3/10/03: Best Practices for Outsource Desktop Image Installation and Migration
Robert McNeill
What are best practices regarding creation, maintenance and installation of corporate PC build? We need advice concerning the best way to handle standard “images” containing the operating system and core software such as Microsoft Office, plus standard line-of-business applications installed on both new or existing PCs in a standard configuration. What should be outsourced?
Best practice today is to avoid the practice of imaging in-house all together. This is a practice that has its roots in DOS and was fine when systems were relatively simple. But in today’s world, where a BIOS patch can blue screen even Windows XP, it is an increasingly dangerous and expensive practice. Best practice remains to accept the machines with the vendor-based software image designed and tested on the box and apply the key applications either through a vendor preload service or via server download (which can be scripted or otherwise automated).
[more]
Asset Management
Giga, 3/31/03: IT Asset Management: Start With Asset Discovery
David Friedlander
Has IT asset management been implemented successfully by a significant number of global firms?
Most organizations do not have a good handle on IT asset management (ITAM). By Giga’s estimates, only 60 percent of companies have implemented some sort of asset tracking, inventory or management software. Most of the companies that have started to tackle ITAM are focused on simply tracking IT assets and have not done much more than identify hardware and software for internal audits. Only 5 to 10 percent of firms have integrated ITAM processes that automatically link physical information about the assets with contractual and financial information and tie in to back-office financial, human resources and other systems.
[more]
IT Management
Gartner, 3/21/03: Worst-Case IT Spending Scenario Gets Worse
Early market indicators provide some compelling reasons for considering a worst-case scenario where global IT spending stays almost flat until 2005.
By Roger Fulton and Kathryn Hale
Recommendations
- Plan to put enough business flexibility in place to operate profitability in each of the three scenarios.
- Establish at least one set of business objectives that assume overall global IT product and skill-based service spending remains flat through 2005.
- Anticipate that competitive conditions and user buying behavior may have been fundamentally altered during this continued downturn.
- Watch for signs that this worst-case scenario is or is not actually playing out.
[more]
News.Com, 4/3/03: IBM draws self-management blueprint
By Martin LaMonica
IBM on Friday will attempt to establish industry guidelines for the emerging field of highly automated computing systems.
Big Blue will publish a blueprint that describes how information technology companies can make hardware and software more self-managing. IBM also will provide software that addresses the most important components of autonomic computing, the company’s term for systems that need little human intervention to run or to be maintained.
[more]
TechWeb, 4/3/03: Taking Stock: Downturn Hits IT Services Hard
The pain of downsizing is likely to continue as sales remain weak
By William Schaff
Even after March 24's market tumble, when investors became aware that war rarely goes as predicted, the Goldman Sachs technology index was still up 3.2% so far this year. The best-performing segment was Internet-related companies, up 16.9% year to date; the laggard was services, down 9.8% for the same period.
People still trade at eBay and buy at Amazon.com, even in anxious times like these. But Goldman Sachs' networking, semiconductor, and hardware segments were no slouches either, up 9.7%, 8.2%, and 7.0%, respectively. Software was flat for the year. This month has brought news from Oracle of a difficult earnings outlook and warnings of weak results ahead from some other software companies, so that should come as no surprise.
[more]
Security
ZDNet, 4/3/03: Worms grow in first part of 2003
By Robert Lemos
The number of security events detected by companies in the first quarter of 2003 jumped nearly 84 percent over the preceding three months, according to a report that network-protection firm Internet Security Systems plans to release Monday.
The increase in events, which can include minor probes for holes in network security as well as major attacks, stems mainly from an increase in worms and automated attack software, the company said in a summary of the report, which was seen by CNET News.com.
[more]
The Wall Street Journal, 4/3/03: Ex-Hacker Mitnick Details Danger to Financial Data
WASHINGTON -- Convicted computer hacker Kevin Mitnick told lawmakers Thursday that many attacks on companies that hold consumer financial information go undetected because of poor security.
"The bad guys are going to look for the weakest link in the security chain," said Mr. Mitnick, who served five years in federal prison for stealing software and altering data at Motorola, Novell, Nokia, Sun Microsystems and the University of Southern California. He now runs a business to help companies guard against computer attacks.
[more]
8:41:02 AM 
|
