CenterBeam
CNBC, 12/3/03: 2:30p PT, Business Center
Estimated audience: 173,000
Reporter: “Outsourcing IT is another area of increased spending. There’s good news for one such company that provides services like that. CenterBeam says its business is suddenly jumping 30% and therefore, CenterBeam is increasing its own IT spending.”
Attention: This is a link to a video file. [more]
Gigatel, 12/2/03: Gigatel on Important IT Service Trends, Robert McNeill
“Among IT Outsourcers, CenterBeam offers a unique and compelling month-to-month contract.”
[Audio of teleconference is on order]
Gartner, 12/3/03: Outsourcing Weblog
Kevin Francis, CenterBeam CEO and President
BPO and Mid-Size Enterprise - Acquiring Perspective, in response to Gartner Analyst Robert H. Brown’s Posting
Mr. Brown makes some very astute observations about the dynamics of BPO in mid-enterprise. I'm suggesting there's one additional aspect of this dynamic worth mentioning: perspective. Let's illustrate the quality of perspective through the Myth of Sisyphus and the chore of patch management.
The myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus offends the ancient Greek gods and he’s condemned to rolling a heavy rock up a hill, watching it roll down again and then rolling the rock back up the hill again. Forever.
Patch management. Microsoft releases Office 2003. Two weeks later they issue the first "critical" patch for it. The rock rolls back down the hill.
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Outsourcing
Businessweek, 12/8/03: India And Silicon Valley: Now The R&D Flows Both Ways
The ravages of the dot-com bust are still evident at Andale Inc.'s Mountain View (Calif.) headquarters. Half the office space sits abandoned, one corner of it heaped with discarded cubicle dividers and file cabinets. But looks are deceptive. The four-year-old startup, which offers software and research tools for online auction buyers and sellers, has seen its workforce nearly quadruple in the past year -- with most of those jobs in Bangalore.
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Utility Computing
cnet, 12/4/03: Utility computing reaches HP PCs, printers
By Stephen Shankland
Hewlett-Packard announced several new hardware and software products Thursday that expand the utility computing idea for servers and extend the technology to printers and PCs.
In one change, HP Unix server customers now can set their machines to add or remove processors automatically to respond to changing demands, paying as they go for the power they use. In another, Unix customers using midrange models of HP's new Integrity line of Itanium-based servers will be able to use this pay-per-use method, beginning in January.
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Security
Computerworld, 12/4/03: Reporter's notebook: At the DHS National Cyber Security Summit
Officials urged the IT community to take the threat of cyberterrorism seriously
Story by Dan Verton
Flanked by two senior officials from the Department of Homeland Security, Amit Yoran, the newly appointed director of the National Cyber Security Division, made his first major policy address since joining the department less than three months ago.
Yoran made his much-anticipated remarks yesterday at the inaugural DHS National Cyber Security Summit, referred to jokingly by Tom Ridge, secretary of homeland security, and Robert Liscouski, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, as "Amit's coming out party."
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Optimism
Infoworld, 12/4/03: IDC predicts 'tech resurrection' in '04
But trends including off-shore outsourcing temper report
By Paul Roberts
An improving U.S. economy and pent-up demand after years of austerity will combine to fuel IT spending growth in 2004, research firm IDC predicts.
According to the report, "IDC Predictions 2004: New IT Growth Wave, New Game Plan," released Thursday, IT spending will grow by between 6 percent and 8 percent in 2004, creating a "tech resurrection" in a year that will also see a continuation of trends such as off-shore outsourcing of IT services, wireless technology adoption and brisk consumer spending on new media technologies.
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Otherwise
The New York Times, 12/5/03: From the Wild West to the Honorable East
By ELVIS MITCHELL
There is probably no director more obsessed with the complexity of patriotism — an unusual subject to plumb in mainstream films — than Edward Zwick, who is driven to question the imperatives of an America that his protagonists both love and detest. His latest movie, "The Last Samurai," falls squarely into the realm of the previous Zwick bedeviled-hero films, "Glory," "Courage Under Fire" and "The Siege."
And I do mean squarely. "Samurai" is a mythic western that combines a fish-out-of-water theme with an immersion in Japanese culture: John Ford's "Lost in Translation." It depicts phalanxes of troops moving with deliberate, terrifying fervor across the very wide screen.
And this time Tom Cruise, the can-do idol of millions, uses his polished-chrome smile mirthlessly. At least for the first hour, his grin looks like a faded tattoo. The uneven "Samurai" is a can-do movie that's far more effective at communicating emotion in bigger scenes than in more intimate ones.
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