Outsourcing
Meta, 7/1/03: Outsourcing Desk Reference
IT organizations outsource for various reasons and achieve a wide range of results. Best-practice leaders develop outsourcing strategies based on primary business objectives to drive decision making, vendor selection, and ongoing vendor relationship management.
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Giga, 7/3/03: IT Opportunities and Issues for Government: Unique Challenges for Government IT Help Desks
John Ragsdale
What unique challenges are faced by IT help desks operating in government agencies?
Government IT help desks are faced with unique challenges, including limited options for service automation software, internal firewalls blocking use of some agent productivity tools and lack of ownership for the departmental desktops supported. Help desk management in government agencies must understand any and all restrictions on software and software vendors prior to creating RFPs to avoid evaluating (or worse, purchasing) products that violate security policies or will not work in a secure environment.
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Giga, 7/7/03: Pros and Cons of Hosted Customer Service Applications
John Ragsdale
Are there any limitations if we go with a hosted customer service application? Do the cost savings outweigh he negatives?
Not all hosted applications and not all hosting contracts are created equal. In general, hosted applications offer faster implementations and less upfront costs, meaning faster “time to money” when automating a service/support organization. On the negative side, signing an extended hosting contract may prove more expensive in the long run than an owned implementation due to ongoing hosting fees, and with some hosted offerings there are limited customization and integration options.
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Mid-Size Enterprise and Tech Spending
Investor’s Business Daily, 7/3/03: Tech Vendors Taking Aim At The Middle
BY DOUG TSURUOKA
Big companies long drove tech spending. Then small gained beauty during the dot-com boom, as tech providers sold to mom and pops, and start-ups racing to get up on the Web.
And today? With big companies cutting spending and dot-coms crashing, it's the midsize era for sellers of tech goods and services.
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Mobility
Giga, 7/3/03: WLAN Quality of Service: Still No Standard
Stan Schatt
What is the status of QoS for wireless LANs? Is there a standard?
One dirty little secret about IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs is that nodes share bandwidth much the same way that users shared bandwidth on wired LANs that were built around hubs. The situation is much like planning a trip that requires use of busy freeways. It is impossible to estimate the time it will take because conditions are so variable.
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ZDNet, 7/8/03: Why bother with Wi-Fi when CDMA can do?
By David Berlind
I have a question about Wi-Fi (802.11) wireless LAN technologies: Why bother?
If you followed any of my recent trials or tribulations with Handspring's Treo 300, you know that I stumbled upon an application from June Fabrics called PDANet that allowed my notebook to get access to SprintPCS' 2.5G CDMA 1xRTT network at a throughput rate of about 70 to 80 kbps. From a hotel room in Washington, D.C, accessing my email actually worked faster via CDMA 1xRTT than it did via dial up. Can you imagine that? While 70 to 80 kbps doesn't sound like a lot, you'd be surprised at just how sufficient this is for 99 percent of what you do (unless all you do is watch streaming video).
If I can get 70-80 kbps and my hotspot is all of SprintPCS' and Verizon Wireless' coverage area and the "line" is secure (which it is, compared to Wi-Fi) and streaming media isn't a priority for me, why bother with Wi-Fi?
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Microsoft
Computerworld, 7/7/03: Microsoft Metadirectory Services Gets New Identity
Release adds automatic account provisioning, password management
By CAROL SLIWA
Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003, which was released to manufacturing last week, is more than just a name change for Microsoft Corp.'s Metadirectory Services software, the company said.
MIIS 2003 goes beyond the metadirectory by automating account provisioning and adding password management to its existing ability to integrate user identity information across multiple account stores running on different systems, said Michael Stephenson, a lead product manager at Microsoft.
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Desktop Management
Network World, 7/7/03: LANDesk punches up patch management suite
By Denise Dubie
Customers looking to automate the repetitive and tedious processes of updating security patches, rolling out new applications and simply managing desktops might want to consider LANDesk's offering due out later this year.
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