CenterBeam
IT Business Edge, 12/9/03: The Canadian News: Outsourcing Pays Here
With Kevin Francis, CEO of CenterBeam, a San Jose, Calif., outsourcing firm that just opened a tech center in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. Francis, a native Canadian and former CEO of Xerox Canada, championed the move to the city of 125,000 on Canada's Atlantic coast.
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Outsourcing
VUNet, 12/12/03: IT directors warm to outsourcing
By Rachel Fielding
Survey finds greater acceptance, but doubts still remain
IT directors are warming to the concept of outsourcing, but are still concerned about losing vital knowledge and managing such huge projects.
A survey of 700 IT directors and managers commissioned by IT services company Synstar found that respondents have an ambiguous relationship with outsourcing.
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Giga, 12/16/03: Use Caution With Price Benchmarking Clauses in Outsourcing
Julie Giera
Question
We are signing a seven-year outsourcing contract, and want to know if benchmarking is a good tool to use to make sure we are getting a fair price over such a long contract.
Answer
The pressure on CIOs to reduce the cost of IT has prompted many to look toward outsourcing as a way to accomplish that goal. The very best outsourcing terms are usually found in longer, broader contracts since outsourcers will trade a lower price for a longer contract every time. Although customers are signing longer, broader outsourcing contracts, there is a fear that if they sign a seven-year deal, the customer will not get the best pricing in latter years of the contract.
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Support
Gartner, 12/5/03: Predicts 2004: Customer Service, From Function to Process
The view of customer service as a separate business function will evolve into a view of service as an integral part of key business processes.
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SMB
Computerworld, 12/10/03: IT strategies at small firms seen differing from big companies
They tend to buy technology only when needed and want a quick ROI
Story by Thomas Hoffman
Small and medium-size businesses have much different IT strategies than larger enterprises.
Technology purchases by small-to-midsize businesses are often dominated by cash-flow issues. In addition, such businesses are more likely to tap value-added resellers and other vendor partners to fill technical skills gaps -- and they usually buy IT for immediate fixes to problems, according to analysts who spoke yesterday at The Yankee Group's 2003 SMB Forum in Waltham, Mass.
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Infoworld, 12/10/03: Windows 98 still in use despite imminent end of support
Survey finds 80% of businesses still using at least one Windows 95 or 98 machine
By Joris Evers
Many North American businesses still have computers running on Windows 98, even though support for the operating system is set to end on Jan. 16, according to a study released Thursday.
AssetMetrix Inc., an Ottawa-based IT asset analysis tool vendor, collected data on over 370,000 PCs from 670 businesses in the U.S. and Canada. It found that 80 percent of those companies have at least one PC running either Windows 95 or Windows 98. The older operating systems accounted for about 27 percent of operating systems found.
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Gartner, 12/5/03: Top Three Networking Questions for Midsize Business CIOs
The top three network questions on the minds of CIOs are cost, technology and outsourcing. Solutions to each of these three issues should be considered and evaluated by midsize enterprises.
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Security
C|net, 12/10/03: IE bug lets fake sites look real
By Paul Festa
Microsoft on Tuesday said it was looking into reports of a potential bug in its Web browser that could help malicious hackers design convincing Web site spoofs.
The bug, according to security alerts by a bug hunter and a Danish security company, Secunia, could let hackers use a technique to display a false Web address on a fake site.
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Computer Weekly, 12/11/03: 2004 will bring more cyberattacks, warn experts
Security experts have warned the new year will offer weary network administrators little respite from a new generation of internet worms, viruses and targeted hacks that appeared in 2003.
In 2004, malicious hackers will continue to take advantage of security weaknesses in popular communications protocols such as Remote Procedure Call (RPC), while improvements in hacker tools will shorten the time that technology suppliers and their customers have to respond to new vulnerabilities, warned leading security researchers and corporate security experts at the InfoSecurity 2003 Conference and Exhibition.
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Giga, 12/8/03: Recovering Property from Terminating Employees
Craig Symons
Question
What are the best practices for recovering property from terminating employees?
Answer
When an employee leaves a company for any reason either voluntarily or involuntarily, they may be in possession of significant amounts of company-owned assets. The table below is not intended to be completely inclusive of all potential company assets that may be controlled by an employee but it is representative of the most popular items.
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Computerworld, 12/10/03: Wi-Fi gets more secure
Story by Dennis O'Reilly
Tools and services to help wireless technology get down to business were among the highlights of new product announcements at the Wi-Fi Planet Conference and Expo in San Jose, Calif., last week.
While home users have embraced wireless networks, businesses of all sizes are wary because of stability and security issues, many exhibitors noted. Products designed to make wireless networks safer and more stable took center stage among the new offerings.
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Mobile
The Wall Street Journal, 12/11/03: Microsoft Introduces Two Smart Phones That Are a Little Slow
I've been testing the first two U.S. phones to use this new Microsoft software: the Motorola MPx200, offered by AT&T Wireless, and the Samsung i600, offered by Verizon Wireless.
Neither phone is anywhere near as good as the Treo 600. Unlike the Treo, they lack keyboards for entering large amounts of text, so I can't recommend them for serious e-mail users.
They're really not even in the Treo's category.
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Optimism
C|net, 12/10/03: Cisco chief says IT spending will rise
By Ben Charny
Cisco Systems chief executive John Chambers on Wednesday gave an upbeat assessment of information technology spending next year, saying Cisco customers are "beginning to get their foot off the brake."
"For the first times in years," major telephone companies and tens of thousands of corporations that do business with Cisco are increasing their capital expense budgets in 2004 in the "low single-digit percentage," Chambers told the financial community attending the Cisco Systems Worldwide Analyst Conference 2003.
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Collaborative Technologies
The Wall Street Journal, 12/11/03: Friend Frenzy
Call them the networks of the future. Networking sites and mobile technologies may cause a broad shift in the shape of your social circle.
By JENNIFER SARANOW
Janeen Levin has a well-connected social life.
When the 34-year-old project manager from Pacifica, Calif., wants to jazz up her offline activities, she turns online. She recently doubled the size of her book club to 40 by putting up a post on Craigslist, frequently turns to Citysearch to find out where to eat and what's going on, and regularly sends out online invitations via Evite.
She joined Friendster as soon as it launched earlier this year and uses it to connect with old friends. Not to mention that she met her current boyfriend -- and her prior two exes -- through online dating.
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