Outsourcing
Reuters, 7/15/03: Outsourcing grows--competition heats up
BOMBAY--Offshore outsourcing is the fastest growing segment in the global tech sector but Indian firms, which have been the leaders in this business, are facing tougher competition, research firm Gartner said on Tuesday.
Outsourcing IT services, which comprise developing software applications for purposes like doing business on the Internet, automating business processes and maintaining computer networks, to offshore locations are seen growing at 29 percent annually over the next five years.
Business process outsourcing, which include accounting, payroll management, insurance claims processing, animation, engineering and Web design, to offshore sites is forecast to expand 68 percent each year over the same period, Gartner said in a statement.
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IT Management
TechWeb, 7/16/03: Gartner Recommends Chargebacks To Buffer IT Costs
IT chargebacks should be used to recover business unit IT costs, an analyst group recommended Tuesday in a report.
Because actual IT service usage and costs frequently exceed cost allocation calculations, a rigorous chargeback policy based on both departmental usage and IT governance policies can reduce costs by changing IT usage behavior patterns in over-budget departments and units, Gartner said.
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Customer Satisfaction
Sloan Management Review, Summer 2003: Avoiding the Customer Satisfaction Rut
Fredrik Dahlsten
Having received a great deal of attention for decades now, customer satisfaction (CS) practices have become one of the core prescriptions for managers and organizations. Indeed, for many companies, customer satisfaction has become the guiding principle, as they increasingly initiate all manner of strategies and processes under its banner. But more and more, says Fredrik Dahlsten, these practices are losing their effectiveness for companies and their customers alike.
Using qualitative research at Volvo Cars, the author illustrates how the interpretation of customer satisfaction can become skewed, employing rigorous and extensive CS measurements, but measuring the wrong variables and using the information in mainly reactive ways. Many companies have only an intrinsic CS focus — a product orientation based on attribute quality and a short-term internal perspective triggered by surveys and aimed at cost control. With an intrinsic focus, customer satisfaction is seen mostly as the absence of dissatisfaction. In contrast, an extrinsic CS focus emphasizes finding new ways to increase the positive, emotional aspects of the customer experience over time.
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Collaborative Technologies
The Wall Street Journal, 7/15/03: Instant Messaging Firms Back Different Standards
Technology Conflicts Could Hinder
Interoperability of Message Systems
By DANIEL NASAW
Imagine if Microsoft Outlook users could only send e-mail to other Outlook users, or Lotus Notes users to other Lotus Notes users. That was what e-mail was like until the mid-1990s, when the e-mail data protocol known as SMTP, (for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), came into universal use, allowing different vendors' e-mail servers to communicate with each other.
Now, with businesses embracing instant messaging in the office, big tech companies are taking sides in the battle to establish similar standards for messaging. A single, dominant standard for desktop messaging is the next step toward universal interoperability between different messaging systems -- which can't easily communicate with each other now. Standards will also hasten development of futuristic applications like desktop video conferencing and desktop-to-cellphone messaging.
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Infoworld, 7/16/03: MSN Messenger 6.0 launched amid confetti of cash
IM software touts new animated emoticons, Webcam service, expanded device integration
By Scarlet Pruitt
Microsoft released the final version of its MSN Messenger 6.0 instant messaging software Wednesday, touting its new animated emoticons, Webcam service, and expanded device integration amid a marketing campaign designed to elbow out rivals with cold, hard cash.
The Redmond, Wash., company released a public preview release of Messenger 6.0 on June 18, and said that it is celebrating the release of the final version with a "Fast Cash Friday" offer that gives randomly selected U.S. entrants $1,000.
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Security
C|net, 7/16/03: Study: Corporate P2P use is common
By John Borland
File-swapping applications are deeply entrenched inside corporate networks, according to a survey of computer systems by a Canadian network monitoring company.
In a study spanning 560 companies, ranging from 10 to 45,000 employees, Canadian company AssetMetrix found peer-to-peer software such as Kazaa and Morpheus installed at least once in 77 percent of companies. The survey found that every company in its sample with more than 500 employees had at least one installation of file-swapping software.
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ZDNet, 7/16/03: Viral marketing spreads nasty message
Internet security companies are warning about devious marketing tactics that have virus-like effects, but aren't actually viruses.
Antivirus company Sophos has warned that its Australian technical support have been receiving reports from people who receive an e-mail inviting them to visit a Web site--run by Avenue Media NV, based on Curacao in the Caribbean--containing free comic video clips, including on of Bill Gates copping a pie in the face.
Users who visit the site and view a video clip begin sending the e-mail invitation to their friends. The site achieves this because the video clip is not downloaded directly, but instead an ActiveX control is launched which not only displays the video, but also downloads and additional software component named "Internet Optimizer" onto the computer, which sends the e-mails.
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Mobile
cs|net, 7/15/03: RIM awaits key court ruling
By Richard Shim
A legal ruling is expected shortly that could decide whether Research In Motion can continue to sell its products in the United States, according to an attorney in the scase.
In late 2002, a jury found the Canadian wireless messaging developer guilty of infringing patents owned by holding company NTP and ordered it to pay $23 million in damages, a verdict that RIM has appealed. In the meantime, NTP asked for an injunction that could indefinitely lock the maker of the BlackBerry wireless device out of the United States, one of its biggest markets.
The decision could "come down at any time," said John Wyss, a partner with the law firm Wiley Rein & Fielding who represents NTP.
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Government
IDG, 7/15/03: U.S. gov't looks for IT cost savings
Grant Gross
The U.S. government's chief information officer has identified $3 billion that federal agencies can save by collaborating on IT purchasing, and that cost savings is apparently just the beginning of a White House effort to cut federal IT budgets.
Mark Forman, administrator of the Office of E-Government and Information Technology in the White House Office of Management and Budget, on Tuesday outlined ways for the U.S. government to save money by adopting an "enterprise" model of IT purchasing, with agencies banding together to purchase IT products, instead of the "stove-piped," single-agency purchasing approach that's been common in the past.
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