CenterBeam
CBS MarketWatch, 8/19/03: CenterBeam Introduces 'Total Satisfaction Guaranteed,' a Revolutionary Pricing Model for IT Services
SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug 19, 2003 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Today, CenterBeam introduced a new contract model for IT services. Building on the unprecedented levels of customer satisfaction resulting from CenterBeam's innovative approach to IT services, CenterBeam has introduced a fully flexible month-to-month agreement. This new type of financial agreement aligns pricing of IT services to the utility model.
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VARBusiness, 8/18/03: How To Build a Profitable Midsize Customer Business
By Steven Lang
If you want to reach deep into the hearts, minds... and pockets of the midsize customer, then it's time to shape your business around the fact that they're driven by two burning imperatives: to pay less and get more.
…
Right off the bat, the smartest thing you can do is offer your midmarket customers great services and products they can't get elsewhere. Then offer it to them at a competitive, if not unbeatable, price. Difficult, but possible. Look at how Kevin Francis, president and CEO of San Jose, Calif.-based CenterBeam, handled the challenge.
"The best way to maximize profit is through application of industrial processes and technological innovation," Francis says. "We've learned that midmarket customers can't benefit from economies of scale so... we aggregate their needs [to] serve them more efficiently.
Francis points to Hewlett-Packard's OpenView as an example.
"Most of our customers have neither the time nor the expertise to install OpenView. And the size of their networks aren't such that they demand OpenView. But they do want the benefits of OpenView, which is a tightly managed environment," he says. "CenterBeam delivers the benefit, hides the complexity through application of our expertise, and this delights our customers."
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Security
Computerworld, 8/18/03: New variant of Blaster worm 'fixes' infected systems
Story by Paul Roberts
AUGUST 18, 2003 ( IDG NEWS SERVICE ) - Microsoft Corp. Windows users whose systems were infected last week by the W32.Blaster worm might appreciate the attention of a new version of that worm that cleans corrupted systems and then installs a software patch to prevent future infections.
The worm, variously referred to as Worm_MSBLAST.D and Nachi, appeared today and spreads by exploiting the same Windows security hole as the original Blaster worm, according to advisories published by leading antivirus companies.
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The Wall Street Journal, 8/19/03: Spam's 'Easy Target'
Floods of Unsolicited E-Mail Handicap Small Businesses
By ANDREW BLACKMAN
Bruce Goldberg's life sounds like an Internet success story. He started selling T-shirts depicting rock and pop-music groups when he was in college, posted his catalog on the Web as early as 1991 and, by the end of the 1990s, had built his business into a top-ranked Internet vendor with $600,000 in annual sales.
But now the Internet is driving Mr. Goldberg crazy. His small business is flooded with as many as 500 spam messages -- unsolicited commercial e-mail -- every day, and his frustration rises with every unwanted invitation to double his income, attract women instantly or refinance his mortgage. Recently his Dallas-based company, Weathermen Records, was featured as the No. 1 link at online-payment service PayPal, but his joy soon dissipated as the publicity led to a new deluge of spam.
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Collaborative Technologies
The New York Times, 8/19/03: A Web Master of Ceremonies
By JUDY TONG
AFTER Richard M. Nixon faced John F. Kennedy in televised debates, people said television had changed campaigns forever. Forty-three years later, some people have begun saying the same thing about Meetup.com.
The site, a free online service for arranging off-line gatherings, has been credited with giving a boost to the presidential campaign of Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont. Now other Democratic presidential candidates, like Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, have hopped onto the virtual bandwagon and are using the site as a grass-roots tool.
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Optimism
TechWeb, 8/18/03: Spending Uptick Points To Turnaround In IT Demand
By Antone Gonsalves, TechWeb News
Early signs that IT spending will strengthen in the second half of the year point to a possible turnaround in IT demand next year, a market research firm said Monday.
A poll of IT decision makers taken from a pool of 20,000 executives in small, midsize and large businesses shows that organizations spent more of their monthly IT budget in July than in the four previous months, Gartner Inc. said.
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Canadian Rockers
The New York Times, 8/19/03: Mapping a Town in Neil Young Land
By NEIL STRAUSS
Musicians tend to judge themselves by different criteria than their audience does. When a guitarist breaks a string in the middle of a concert, for example, and perseveres in playing a hit with a missing G string, he may leave the stage upset and disappointed. But to the audience, watching the drama and spontaneity onstage may make it a better and more interesting performance than one perfectly played.
Neil Young has always understood this: when he breaks a string live, he usually treats it as an opportunity to improvise all sorts of new noises. Perfection has never been his forte, but a faithfulness to the overall concept and integrity of his vision, wherever it may lead him, has been a defining attribute. Rarely has this been more evident than on his new album with Crazy Horse, "Greendale," his first rock opera (for lack of a better name), released today on Reprise RecordsVivendi Universal.
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