Outsourcing
Gartner, 4/9/03: Trust and Control: The Key to Optimal Outsourcing Relationships
Gartner's Confidence Index model enables enterprises to measure and track the confidence both parties have in a relationship. Start by assessing the components of trust and control, which underpin confidence.
Management Summary
In January 2002, Gartner Research set itself the challenge of measuring trust in IT outsourcing relationships. However, the findings went much further than that. The research discovered recognizable and predictable patterns of behavior that determine how the business-to-business relationships work. The research continues, and this report highlights the key findings from the project so far.
[more]
The McKinsey Quarterly, 2/03: Getting IT Spending Right This Time
Research suggests that to foster innovation rather than merely spawn systems that are quickly imitated or promote the wrong goals, companies should focus on two priorities. The first is to identify the productivity levers offering the greatest opportunity for competitive differentiation: targeting the few specific levers that could well create a competitive advantage produces results more reliably than striving for improvement everywhere. The most promising IT initiatives usually evolve along with related business processes and build on an organization’s operational strengths. When taking this route, companies should beware the siren song of IT success stories from other industries, since the levers that matter in one sector may be irrelevant in another.
[more]
Gartner, 4/8/03: IBM Global Services Joins IT Utility With Business Process
IBM once proudly accepted the role of the IT industry's plumber, the handy person with the toolkits and skills to fix and run any enterprise's internal IT operations. Now this plumber is turning in its overalls for a three-piece suit as IBM designs and builds an IT utility that can deliver "on demand" services. With this new infrastructure for IT outsourcing, IBM hopes to stride into its customers' boardrooms as the trusted partner that can optimize an enterprise's business processes for its vertical-industry requirements.
There's little doubt that IBM has already mastered the IT outsourcing market. The company has a commanding lead in market share for IT management on a global basis (14.4 percent compared with 10.6 percent for EDS) and in every region except North America, where EDS held a marginal lead based on 2001 revenue.
[more]
News.Com, 4/11/03: HP lines up outsourcing deals
By Sandeep Junnarkar
Hewlett-Packard on Friday announced that it is on the verge of scoring two major information technology outsourcing deals.
The company said that it plans to manage Procter & Gamble's IT infrastructure, including data centers, desktop and end-user support, and maintenance support for the consumer products giant's operations in 160 countries. The agreement still needs to be finalized, but the companies say it will be worth $3 billion over 10 years. The companies expect to reach a definitive agreement in May.
[more]
Desktop Management
Giga, 4/9/03: Desktop Lockdown Policies Should Be Balanced Against Business Requirements and Organizational Structure
David Friedlander
Are companies locking down the desktop? Is this a reasonable approach, or are there better ways to control the desktop environment?
Desktop lockdown, where users are prevented from installing any software or otherwise making any changes to the desktop, is rarely used and is unlikely to be successful. Such harsh restrictions are likely to harm user productivity by eliminating the flexibility to install even job-specific applications. Giga estimates that only 5 percent to 10 percent of firms have implemented a fully locked-down desktop environment. However, 30 percent to 40 percent of companies have some restrictions in place on the desktop.
[more]
Mobile
Computerworld, 4/10/03: After three years of Wi-Fi, hurdles remain
By Tom Krazit
The widespread adoption of the wireless Internet will change the way PCs, handhelds and Web sites are sold and will alter how computer users live, work and play, if the hype is to be believed.
That hype persists amid the lack of much else to cheer about in IT these days, with vendors offering a future vision of "hot spots" everywhere so that home computer users can move unencumbered from room to room while mobile workers keep plugging away from airports, restaurants and, according to Intel Corp.'s latest marketing blitz, football stadiums and swimming pools.
[more]
Microsoft
Computerworld, 4/10/03: Windows Server 2003: A Look Under the Hood
By Christopher Burry and Ace Swerling, Avanade Inc.
In a previous column, I discussed upgrading from Windows NT 4.0. Like an older car, it gets from point to point. But features such as air bags and traction control can't simply be bolted on. Eventually, one must decide whether to keep the old car or trade it in. The IT industry has reached such a point.
From experience with more than a dozen early-adopter customers, I have found that Windows Server 2003 addresses many companies' existing and future needs. Significant advances in core functions, security and integration markedly improve the operating system's reliability and flexibility for enterprise functions. This allows Windows Server 2003 to alleviate issues from older versions, reduce operating cost and enable new application scenarios. This isn't your father's — er — Windows (or Unix).
[more]
Computerworld, 4/10/03: Microsoft warns of vulnerabilities in virtual machine, proxy server
By Paul Roberts, IDG News Service
Microsoft Corp. warned users yesterday about two new security vulnerabilities affecting its Microsoft Virtual Machine, Microsoft Proxy Server 2.0 and Microsoft ISA Server 2000 products.
The Microsoft Virtual Machine (VM) contains a critical vulnerability that could allow a remote attacker to gain control of affected machines, according to Security Bulletin MS03-011.
The vulnerability, in code for a VM process called the ByteCode Verifier, could enable an attacker to use illegal sequences of byte codes to bypass security checks in the software, Microsoft said.
[more]
Business Week, 4/10/03: Is Small Biz Microsoft's Next Big Thing?
With new software and an army of resellers, Gates & Co., are launching a massive offensive to target 45 million businesses worldwide
Three years ago, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steven A. Ballmer huddled at the Renaissance Paris Hotel with then-sales chief Orlando Ayala and Group Vice-President Jeffrey S. Raikes. The goal: to come up with a big new growth market. And they aimed sky-high. Plotting into the wee hours, the trio hammered out a plan to sell run-the-business applications for small and midsize companies. With 45 million such businesses worldwide, this was perhaps the biggest untapped software market left. To unlock it, Microsoft would need to spend billions acquiring companies and hiring hundreds of new employees.
[more]
Tech Trends
Fortune, 4/10/03: The Five Biggest Trends in Tech
By David Kirkpatrick
Is the world getting better or worse? A colleague recently said that few could argue the positive case right now. I thought a minute and said, "I still can."
A vast preponderance of the world's problems today can be traced to the fundamental economic disparity of having a very small layer of rich people (that's us in the developed countries) living on the same planet as a vastly larger group of desperately poor people. What those people, many of them so alienated and angry, need most is the ability to raise their standard of living quickly to something more closely resembling ours. Despite all the suffering, war, distress, chaos, and fear in our world, the ongoing unstoppable trajectory of progress, particularly technological progress, continues to give me confidence that change will come.
[more]
Odd
Associated Press, 4/11/03: Apple May Buy Universal for $6B
LOS ANGELES - Apple Computer Inc. is in discussions about buying Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, for as much as $6 billion, according to a published report Friday.
Talks between Apple and Vivendi Universal, Universal Music Group's parent company, have been held secretly for months, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Apple may offer $5 billion to $6 billion for the music company before Vivendi's April 29 board meeting, the newspaper said, citing sources it did not identify.
[more]
8:32:16 AM 
|
