IT Management
Computerworld, 5/12/03: Get Over Yourself
The pervasiveness of IT may be making it strategically irrelevant.
By KATHLEEN MELYMUKA
Information technology has become a commodity. All that's left to do is mitigate risks and control costs. So states Nicholas G. Carr in this month's Harvard Business Review. Carr argues that IT, like railroads, electricity and other infrastructural revolutions that came before, has become so pervasive that companies can't live without it but that it now offers them little strategic advantage. Carr, HBR's editor at large, told Kathleen Melymuka why he thinks "IT management should, frankly, become boring."
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Computerworld, 5/19/03: IT Delivers
By FRANK HAYES
Does IT matter? By now you've surely heard about Nicholas G. Carr's article in the May 2003 issue of Harvard Business Review, "IT Doesn't Matter." Carr's thesis is simple: Now that the IT infrastructure has been built out, you can't get sustainable competitive advantage from IT, because anything you can buy, your competitors can buy too. So there's nothing left for IT managers to do but cut costs and manage risk.
Scary, isn't it? No, not about IT -- about Carr. Here's a big-deal business pundit who not only misunderstands IT's relationship to competitive advantage, but who also thinks he's discovered something new.
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Security
ZDNet, 5/19/03: Cisco pumps up security forces
By Robert Lemos
Lending new credence to the saying, "the more, the merrier," Cisco Systems plans to announce 14 security products and services on Tuesday.
The offers are part of the company's new aim to provide end-to-end security for its customers, including selling more software to an area that Cisco has rarely touched: the corporate desktop PC.
The updated and new products include three security management products, three hardware-based accelerators for the company's VPN (virtual private network) products, and five new components to its intrusion detection system, one of which protects desktop PCs from potential threats, and another that does the same for servers. Three others, including a new version of the company's VPN client for desktop PCs, are also due to be announced.
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Information Week, 5/19/03: Microsoft Launches Antivirus Information Site
It's teaming with antivirus vendors Network Associates and Trend Micro to share information about viruses and worms that target Microsoft software
By George V. Hulme
The timing couldn't have been better. The very day a new worm that targets Windows users is spreading throughout the Internet, Microsoft launched a new virus information center available at its Web site.
Microsoft has partnered with antivirus vendors Network Associates and Trend Micro to provide detailed information about significant viruses that target Windows products and operating systems. The company says it will use information from Network Associates' Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team and Trend Micro's TrendLabs to help its customers better combat viruses that affect Microsoft customers.
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Avnet
Infoworld, 5/19/03: Avnet accused of selling counterfeit parts in PCs
Age discrimination also alleged by former employee
By Tom Krazit
A former employee of PC distributor Avnet has filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that Avnet installed counterfeit components in PCs sold by the former Compaq Computer, according to a copy of the complaint.
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Press Release, 5/12/03: Avnet Hall-Mark Announces Agreement with Microsoft to Distribute Windows Server System Products
Avnet Hall-Mark to Distribute Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Other Business Server Solutions to the Mid-Market
TEMPE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 12, 2003-- Avnet Hall-Mark, a value-added distributor of enterprise servers, storage, software and services, today announced it has signed an agreement with Microsoft Corp. to be an authorized distributor with rights to integrate and distribute OEM versions of the Microsoft enterprise server platform solutions including Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Application Center 2000, BizTalk Server 2002, Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA), and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with the server hardware that Avnet distributes as well as distributes to other system builders who are assembling new servers. With the authorization to sell integrated OEM versions of enterprise server solutions, Avnet Hall-Mark now offers unique access to Microsoft technology through distribution.
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Microsoft
Infoworld, 5/20/03: Windows Server 2003 Backup Conflicts With Windows XP
By Paula Rooney and Steven Burke, CRN
A solution provider has discovered an incompatibility between Windows Server 2003's new backup features and Windows XP.
Terabyte Computers, Boone, N.C., is recommending that its customers hold off on deploying Windows Server 2003 because of problems restoring data from a backup tape created on Windows Server 2003 to Windows XP and, potentially, Windows 2000 Pro and Windows 2000 server.
The solution provider has developed a workaround for the problem but is awaiting a fix from Microsoft before rolling out Windows Server 2003, which shipped late last month. "My concern here is that a company may deploy 2003 Server and assume they can restore data on a 2000 Server or XP Pro box should the 2003 server fail. This is currently not the case," said Brian Bergin, president of Terabyte Computers. "This pretty much affects anyone using 2003 Server who may ever need to restore data to a XP/2000 system."
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Information Week, 5/19/03: Langa Letter: Microsoft's Problematic Updates
Windows Updates sometimes cause more harm than good. What's the best way to handle them?
By Fred Langa
There's good news, there's bad news, and then there's even worse news.
The good news is that Microsoft has an extremely active Windows Update service, delivering a steady stream of bug fixes, patches, and updates for Windows and its essential subsystems, such as Internet Explorer.
The bad news is that Microsoft needs this service to be extremely active, because there are a lot of problems in Windows software and because malicious hackers work harder to find exploitable security flaws in Windows than in any other type of software.
The worse news is that, sometimes, Microsoft patches and updates cause more trouble than the problem they're trying to remedy: The cure can be worse than the disease.
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EDS
New York Times, 5/20/03: In a Low Key, New E.D.S. Chief Hopes to Regain Skeptics' Trust
By SIMON ROMERO with BARNABY J. FEDER
PLANO, Tex., May 13 — It is no wonder that Michael H. Jordan, the new chief executive of Electronic Data Systems, seems to feel right at home at the company's headquarters, a futuristic compound known in this city north of Dallas as the God Pod.
After all, Mr. Jordan — sonce the chief financial officer of PepsiCo, whose Frito-Lay unit headquarters can be seen from E.D.S.'s executive suite in this home to many office parks — is a consummate Dallas insider. When he ran Westinghouse Electric from Pittsburgh and later New York in the 1990's, breaking up a venerable industrial conglomerate to create a media company built around CBS, Mr. Jordan kept his house in Dallas and often returned on weekends.
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