Outsourcing
Gartner, 1/2/04: Developing SLAs to Demonstrate the Business Value of IT
The pressure on IS organizations to demonstrate their value creates the need for business-driven service-level agreements. The key is recasting technically oriented SLAs as business goals easily understood by the business units.
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SMB
eWeek, 1/2/04: IBM Expects SMB to Rev Up IT Spending in 2004
By Joel Shore, Ziff Davis Channel Zone
IBM channel exec Pam Kaplan sees big opportunities in the SMB market where more than a half million customers spend in excess of $300 billion a year on IT solutions.
IBM loves its business partners and in 2004 plans to continue providing them with a barrage of new offerings and sales support.
"About one-third of IBM's overall revenue is generated through its worldwide base of 90,000 business partners," says Pamela Kaplan, director of Worldwide Partner Marketing Programs, at IBM's Software Group. "In 2003, IBM invested more than $1 billion in partners worldwide, and we'll continue to do so."
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HP
Gartner, 12/30/03: Vendor Rating Update: HP Reaffirms Its SMB Focus
Hewlett-Packard is putting some stakes in the ground to focus and expand its “mind share” among small and midsize businesses, including a $750 million investment in SMB targeted R&D, marketing, sales programs and services.
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Collaborative Technologies
ZDNet, 1/2/03: The Future Of E-Mail
Gregg Keizer
E-mail is mutating, and within five years will both recede into a background of ubiquity and blend with an even wider range of collaborative functions, according to predictions made by a messaging research firm.
While e-mail is increasingly encompassing technologies once not associated with simple text messaging, it's also becoming fuzzy around the edges, said Jeff Ubois, an analyst with Ferris Research, which specializes in covering e-mail and collaborative markets.
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The New York Times, 1/3/04: That Parent-Child Conversation Is Becoming Instant, and Online
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Nina Gordon types out an instant message and sends it. The data travels some 500 miles, from the computer in her living room in Queens to America Online's servers in Northern Virginia, and then to her son Schuyler's computer, which just happens to be in the next room — about 20 feet away from where she is sitting.
you hungry for dinner?
After a little online banter over dining options, her son, a 17-year-old with a wicked sense of humor and no shortage of attitude, sends his request:
an insty pizza and a beer
don't push your luck, comes the reply.
Instant messaging, long a part of teenagers' lives, is working its way into the broader fabric of the American family. The technology "has really grown up in the last 18 months," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director at Jupiter Research. "It's certainly not just for kids anymore."
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