Outsourcing
Optimize, 6/03: Not Your Father's Outsourcing Deal
The current wave of offshore outsourcing includes business processes and administrative tasks. New management skills will be required, too.
By Mark Hodges
As never before, companies are being forced to examine the effectiveness of their business operations. They're struggling to determine where to invest scarce capital, talent, and management attention. They're constantly considering what to outsource next or whether to keep operations in-house.
The traditional question about outsourcing—what is core to the business—has grown murkier. In the past, the definition was simple: If the process or activity didn't create competitive advantage or a clear market differentiation, it was likely noncore. But many things once considered strictly core are now viable candidates for outsourcing—even offshore. They include processes that are business-critical, such as HR administration or the transactional elements of finance and accounting (F&A) that are just too labor-or cost-intensive to handle in-house. And the range of functions is broadening every day.
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Security
Computerworld, 6/9/03: IT Managers See Need for Risk Metrics
Pressure on to prove security effectiveness
By JAIKUMAR VIJAYAN
WASHINGTON -- Technology managers trying to justify and prioritize IT security spending are searching for some way to quantify the risk management benefits.
But a lack of standard processes and the wide variability of factors that affect risk are making it hard for companies to collect such metrics, users said last week at a conference here organized by Gartner Inc.
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Infoworld, 6/9/03: Microsoft still certifying leaky drivers
Study says company approving NICs that leak sensitive data
By Paul Roberts
Months after promising to tighten up its procedures for certifying third-party software drivers, Microsoft is still giving the green light to network interface card (NIC) drivers that leak sensitive user information from machines running Windows Server 2003, according to a prominent security company.
The allegations were made in an alert posted Monday by Next Generation Security Software (NGSSoftware) of Sutton, England.
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Backup / Restore
ZDNet, 6/9/03: Mobile backup--did we forget?
By Ron Coates
Laptops have brought a new focus to the great digital divide between those who back up and those who don't. And we all know that many who claim to do it daily are lucky if they manage it once a week.
It's a straightforward fact that mobile working and data integrity don't go well together. They are part of a recipe for disaster. Almost half of IT managers have no responsibility for mobile workers' data.
That is the finding of a Dynamic Markets survey of 850 IT managers in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. It found that IT managers are quite religious about backing up their installations and that 90 percent of them back up e-mail servers as a matter of course.
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Innovation
The New York Times, 6/10/03: Glass That Glows and Gives Stock Information
"We're going to increase the number of devices in your life but you won't think of them as devices," said David Rose, president of Ambient Devices.
David Rose's company, Ambient Devices, produces an orb that can be programmed to monitor data of a customer's choosing. For example, a sharp drop in the Dow Jones average may make the orb turn red.
By BARNABY J. FEDER
Hordes of entrepreneurs and giant companies compete to make consumer electronic devices faster, multifeatured and able to process mind-boggling amounts of data. But David Rose is betting there is money to be made heading against the crowd. His company, Ambient Devices, a start-up in Cambridge, Mass., is producing devices that display limited information in ways that can be understood with just a glance.
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