IT Services
Forrester, 7/2/03: Key IT Outsourcing Lessons From Reference Clients
Firms outsource to improve their business operations, but even outsourcers’ premier clients often fail to get these desired results. To fix this, firms need to align selection criteria with goals and incorporate business improvement metrics into contract.
[more]
Forrester, 12/16/03: Outlook for 2004 Services Spending
Forrester spoke with decision –makers at 818 North American firms with at least $500 million in revenues about their 2004 spending pans for outside IT services. On average, they plan to spend 8% of their IT budget on consultants and systems integrators and 13% on outsourcing services.
[more]
Forrester, 4/03: Can Outsourcers Really Transform IT?
IT outsourcing lowers costs but often fails to provide additional value-added enhancements. We evaluated the transformational capabilities of 13 outsourcers, and most had good skills that clients need to tap into.
[more]
Server-Based Computing
Giga, 12/29/03: IT Trends 2004: Server-Based Computing
David Friedlander
What are the current key drivers and trends in the server-based computing market?
The core server-based computing (SBC) market has reached maturity, and the vast majority of enterprises have deployed at least some applications on Citrix MetaFrame and/or Terminal Server. However, Giga expects the market to grow slowly during the next two to three years. Most of growth will occur within existing deployments or in the small business market, which will primarily deploy Terminal Server as a stand-alone product. Giga expects the market for SBC software to grow from approximately $1.4 billion in 2003 to $1.5 billion in 2004.
[more]
Storage
Giga, 12/29/03: Criteria for Selection: Storage Service Providers
Bob Zimmerman
The storage services market appeared to die when the last of the pure storage service providers (SSPs) closed its doors in 2003; there proved to be no profit in merely offering off-site, long-term storage capacity. Although the worldwide market for storage has undergone significant technology and vendor alignment change during the past three years, the SSP market is still kicking.
[more]
Microsoft
Internetnews.com, 12/31/03: Some Microsoft IE Digital Certificates Near Expiration
By Susan Kuchinskas
The digital certificate for Internet Explorer's Java 2 Runtime Environment has expired, while several more are set to lapse January 7.
Digital certificates from vendors like VeriSign (Quote, Chart) let online users verify that they're dealing with real companies or persons. They also can secure all communications to and from the Web server where they're installed, via public key (define) encryption.
Depending on who you ask, the discovery is an oversight that will cause only a minor inconvenience to IE users, or a signal that Microsoft has all but ceased browser development efforts and pays little attention to security details.
[more]
Productivity
eWeek, 12/30/03: Microsoft, Industry Leaders Look to Measure Productivity
By Mary Jo Foley
Microsoft Corp.'s brass has committed to doubling productivity in the coming decade from the levels achieved in the 1990s. But such a promise begs the questions: How (and why) do you measure productivity? And is measuring productivity as subjective as measuring total cost of ownership?
Microsoft and other industry partners, including Cisco Systems Inc., Xerox Corp. and McKinsey & Co., are gearing up to answer these questions—at least in part.
[more]
8:12:02 AM 
|
