Desktop Outsourcing
Optimize, 11/03: The Ultimate CIO-Vendor Relationships
With the economic landscape on the verge of a shift, make sure your vendor relationships are ready, too
By Bill Gannon
The "do more with less" approach of the past few years is slowly giving way to something else. To be sure, it's not a return to the aggressive, speculative, and sometimes irrational IT spending of the late '90s. Instead, this new mood requires CIOs to "do more with a little more." To prepare for this shift, and to ensure they get the maximum value from their IT investments, CIOs are already preparing to shore up relationships with their most strategic vendors—and perhaps foster a few new partnerships.
Many companies are already changing some of their business practices and realizing benefits. A warmer attitude by business executives toward IT signals a major departure from the past three years, when the IT department, given the task of lashing together an enormous array of new systems, found itself choking as the global economy stalled and capital expenditures were slashed.
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Computerworld, 11/4/03: IBM aims for desktop outsourcing
Its IBM WorkPlace services will be rolled out globally in the next few months
Story by Juan Carlos Perez
NOVEMBER 04, 2003 ( IDG NEWS SERVICE ) - Having transformed itself into a services company through the widespread provision of data center outsourcing services over the past 14 years, IBM is now setting its sights on desktop services.
Convinced that companies have a weak handle on their desktop infrastructure management costs, IBM is bundling existing desktop services into a unified offering called IBM WorkPlace, the company announced today.
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Security
ZDnet, 11/6/03: PC security audits for businesses?
By Declan McCullagh
Publicly traded U.S. corporations would have to certify that they have conducted an annual computer security audit, according to a draft of long-awaited legislation the U.S. House of Representatives is preparing.
The audit must be conducted by an independent party and assess "the risk and magnitude of the harm that could result from the unauthorized access," alteration or destruction of company computers, says the draft, prepared by Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla. Putnam is chairman of a House technology subcommittee.
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Mobile
ZDNet, 11/7/03: As security concerns ease, businesses warm to Wi-Fi
By Richard Shim
Security fears have kept many large companies on the wireless-networking sidelines for the past two years, but new intrusion defenses are beginning to put the worst concerns to rest, opening the door to renewed corporate Wi-Fi spending.
Wi-Fi gained its reputation as an insecure protocol years ago, when hundreds of network access points were set up without basic security settings turned on. The result was a bonanza of free high-speed public Net access for anyone within range, and alarm on the part of businesses, who worried that such piggybacking pointed to the possibility of more serious breaches. Adding to the problem, Wi-Fi's original security standard used weak 40-bit encryption that's easily overcome by unsophisticated attacks, even when it's enabled.
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Otherwise
Wired News, 11/6/03: Matrix Imploded: Trouble in Zion
By Niall McKay
Directing duo Andy and Larry Wachowski created a masterpiece in The Matrix, where Neo (Keanu Reeves), a computer programmer, takes a little red pill and sees the world for what it is -- a sophisticated software program in which humans (enslaved by robots) play an insignificant part. It's what the likes of Timothy Leary have been saying for years.
The movie jumped the barrier from special-effects blockbuster to cult sci-fi classic, in part because it expressed the spiritual mood and philosophy of the 1990s -- that humans could do anything if they could free their minds, believe in themselves and see the world as simply software code -- ones and zeros. Of course, carrying a big gun and being really good at kung fu also helped.
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