IT Management
Computerworld, 4/18/03: CFOs demanding detailed IT project info
By THOMAS HOFFMAN
Many chief financial officers are demanding that CIOs provide them with more detailed information about ongoing IT projects, including spending and status reports, to help satisfy a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
The act, which is aimed at giving investors more complete and accurate assessments of the financial condition of public companies, requires businesses to disclose "all material off-balance-sheet transactions" that may affect capital expenditures or other aspects of their finances.
Businesses need application integration services to link internal and outsourced processes. Gartner identifies a new class of services that will become the key to coordination between clients and outsourced suppliers.
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Newsfactor, 4/18/03: The 'Fast ROI' Lie
Larry Tuck
Every company fervently wants to see a return on its enterprise (news - web sites)-application investment as quickly as possible, and vendors typically promise that is exactly what they deliver. In most cases, though, responses to such claims run the gamut from prickly irritation to gigantic yawns.
The fact is, simplistic approaches to ROI do not serve the customer or the vendor in the long run. While many technology applications can pay off quickly, only careful, in-depth analysis will reveal how much a given project can benefit a company's bottom line, and how fast.
Marketing B.S.
"For a vendor to say generically that they can deliver rapid ROI on something like CRM is just marketing B.S." says Tim Hickernell, vice president of technology research services at Meta Group. Their promises are empty -- no one can predict ROI without a detailed study of the specifics of the project.
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PC Industry
Internet News.Com: It's HP By a Nose in the 'On-Demand' Race
By Erin Joyce
Among major systems and tech vendors rolling out "on demand" or "organic IT" versions of utility computing, who is off to the strongest start?
According to an analyst with Forrester Research, it's HP's utility data center offerings by a nose, with IBM (Quote, Company Info) on its heels, and Sun Microsystems (Quote, Company Info) running a distant third.
Only three systems vendors -- HP (Quote, Company Info), IBM, and Sun -- have the products, services, and expertise needed to play the role of an on-demand, or "organic IT" contractor, said Frank Gillett, principal analyst, infrastructure, for Forrester Research.
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ZDNet, 4/21/03: A less crashy Windows? MS is trying. Here's how
David Coursey,
If Microsoft could do them all over again, they'd probably do them differently.
I'm talking about drivers, those pieces of software that sit between Windows and your hardware. Bad drivers--and it's easier to write a bad driver than a good one--can play havoc with your computer system in all sorts of unexpected ways.
Take, for example, the driver than connects your network card to the Windows OS. It may work just fine on its own. But another piece of software, far removed from the network interface, could still somehow mess up that network driver and bring your computer to a halt.
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ZDNet, 4/18/03: HP launches PC trade-in program
By John G. Spooner
Hewlett-Packard is offering businesses a new trade-in and trade-up program for its desktop PCs.
Under the program, the company will allow its business customers to trade in older, brand-name desktops for a credit on a new HP desktop. Depending on the type of desktop traded, the customers will receive a discount of up to $220 on a new HP Evo D510 system, the company said in a statement.
Typically, companies have replaced their desktop PCs every three or four years. But because of the economic downturn that started in late 2000, many companies have been keeping their PCs longer, stretching out the normal replacement cycle.
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Microsoft
Information Week, 4/21/03: The 64-Bit Question
The introduction of Windows Server 2003 may well be a watershed for business computing, but uptake may be slow
By Aaron Ricadela
The atmosphere was supercharged in 1995 when Microsoft ushered in a new era of low-cost 32-bit computing with the introduction of Windows 95. Late-night star Jay Leno hosted the launch party, rock icons the Rolling Stones provided a theme song (for a reported $8 million), and computer stores around the country stayed open until midnight so eager techies could be the first on their block to try the new operating system.
The launch this week of Windows Server 2003, the first mass-market 64-bit operating system, is more low key. But it may prove to be a similar watershed event for the industry. Business-technology managers who don't want to pay premium prices for 64-bit RISC systems running Unix now have a lower-cost alternative. The 64-bit Enterprise and Datacenter editions of Windows Server 2003 provide more power and speed than 32-bit versions, run on Intel's Itanium chips, host 64-bit applications from Microsoft and key enterprise software vendors, and are priced at $999 and $3,999, respectively--the same as 32-bit versions of the operating system.
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