Outsourcing
Gartner, 10/7/03: A Step Toward the New Age of Outsourcing
Business process fusion will enable new forms of outsourcing for processes that cut across traditional enterprise boundaries.
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Gartner, 10/7/03: Developing and Setting an Outsourcing Strategy
Enterprises that are pushed by tactical problems, pulled by strategic trends and overwhelmed by sourcing complexity can find relief by developing a sourcing strategy.
The economic downturn and climate of uncertainty push enterprises toward outsourcing IT services for the tried-and-true need to cut costs and increase IT efficiencies. However, the decision to outsource is far more complex than that. Sourcing is moving toward becoming a strategic tool for enterprises to evolve into the connected economy. The two trends pushing sourcing to be strongly connected to the business strategy are:
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Outsourced Helpdesk
Giga, 10/9/03: How to Provide Customer Entitlement Data for Outsourced Technical Support Agents
John Ragsdale
When outsourcing level one technical support, how do we give the external agents access to our customer information in order for them to perform entitlement?
Performing entitlement for customers prior to providing support is critical to avoid supporting customers with no support contract or an expired warranty. When outsourcing level one technical support, allowing the outsourcer to perform customer entitlement means giving the outsourced agents access to the customer information stored in an internal customer relationship management (CRM) system or other contracts or warranty database.
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Security
InternetNews, 10/9/03: No More Weekly Microsoft Patches
By Ryan Naraine
Microsoft on Thursday announced it would no longer issue weekly software patches for security vulnerabilities as part of a major plan to avoid issuing updates on a "very unpredictable schedule."
Instead of software patches issued every Wednesday, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said the company would release monthly security patches except for emergency situations.
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Microsoft
C|net, 9/10/03: Linux inches up corporate IT priority list
By Alorie Gilbert
HALF MOON BAY, Calif.--The chief information officers of some major U.S. companies say more businesses are choosing the Linux operating system as they face pressure to reduce costs.
Speaking on a panel at a venture capital conference here Wednesday, the CIO of clothing retailer Gap and a tech executive from Bank of America said they are among the Linux converts.
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eWeek, 9/10/03: Microsoft: Opportunities Abound for Office Partners
By Peter Galli
NEW ORLEANS—When Jeff Raikes, Microsoft Corp.'s group vice president of productivity and business services, takes the stage here on Friday morning to deliver his keynote address at the Worldwide Partner Conference, he will highlight the opportunities the Office System family of products represents to Microsoft's partners.
Raikes will stress that there is a great number of opportunities available to the several thousand attendees, especially now that Office is no longer just a desktop productivity system but a far wider solution.
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Giga, 9/25/03: Deploying MS Windows Systems Resource Manager — Demystifying Its Use
Brad Day
When does deployment of WSRM makes sense, and when is it inappropriate?
While Microsoft has many projects under way to release catch-up technologies to the market that have bee a long-standing hallmark in enterprise Unix operating system designs (such as those technologies that address goal-based workload management, as well as host-based virtualization technology, e.g., fruit from the product assets of the Connectix acquisition), Giga IT client inquiries have revealed a significant amount of confusion regarding the best current deployment scenarios for Windows Systems Resource Manager (WSRM). Before discussing the good deployment fits, as well as limitations, of this technology, it is important to give a quick summary of WSRM.
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Otherwise
The Wall Street Journal, 10/10/03: Review of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Vol. 1
By JOE MORGENSTERN
Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" inflicts intolerable cruelty on its characters, and on its audience -- though I'd like to believe that there is no mainstream audience for what has already been described, quite correctly, as the most violent movie ever released by an American studio. (The perp is Miramax.) "Kill Bill" has also been described as Mr. Tarantino's loving homage to the martial-arts films that inflamed his imagination as a child, and then as an aspiring actor and video-shop clerk. Spare us the fruits of his love.
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