Outsourcing
Computerworld, 4/20/04: Sprint CEO Gary Forsee addresses outsourcing
His comments came during Sprint's annual meeting today
News Story by Matt Hamblen
Sprint Corp. Chairman and CEO Gary Forsee today defended the company's need to find the best suppliers and partners -- sometimes though outsourcing -- as he addressed concerns raised by some disgruntled employees and shareholders worried about potential job losses.
Forsee's comments came at Sprint's annual meeting here on the same day that rival MCI Inc. (formerly known as WorldCom Inc.) officially exited bankruptcy, potentially producing a more competitive telecommunications marketplace and one in which outsourcing or offshoring of Sprint jobs could play a more important role.
"Outsourcing allows Sprint to find suppliers with experience in certain areas," Forsee said, even as he acknowledged that outsourcing has become heavily "politicized" and expressed sympathy with the concerns of displaced workers.
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Darwin, 4/04: Avoiding the Five Pitfalls
For more than 400 years, managers have wrestled with the problem of how to realize the benefits of successful outsourcing.
BY JOHN NORCROSS
THE MANAGEMENT consultant of the 17th century (yes, you read that correctly) working for the English East India Company would have found this early multinational corporation facing many of the same management challenges that its modern-day corporate descendants face. Corporate ethics, good governance, sustainable labor practices, multiculturalism, cash-flow, corporate strategy, supply chain management and supplier relations, among others, would certainly appear on the list of things that kept that 17th-century executive up at night.
Although the English East India Company pioneered some of history's most reprehensible colonial practices, it does present some of the earliest evidence of outsourcing that would not be unfamiliar to a modern manager (e.g., contractors, offshore factories, intermediaries and brokers). Problems of information management (knowing what level of cash reserves is necessary to continue trading), management systems (systematic decision-making across geographies) and process management (ensuring the timely purchase of goods in foreign ports) are the same ones faced by the contemporary company that has outsourced a portion of its operations.
Outsourcing — the substitution of goods and services provided by suppliers for those previously provided internally — is therefore hardly a new concept. What is new, however, is the degree to which outsourcing is being deployed by companies as a competitive strategy. Some experts estimate business process outsourcing alone to grow to over $200 billion next year, along with the scale and global reach of outsourced operations. Add to this the Internet speed with which management information can be shared so that outsourced operations work, and you can see why many would think outsourcing is something new.
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IT Management
Silicon.Com, 4/21/04: IBM targets SMEs' spam and virus
by Richard Shim
Big Blue to Big Brother
A new IBM service is geared to help small and medium-size businesses reduce the productivity-draining effects of spam and viruses.
IBM will announce on Wednesday the launch of its Desktop Management Services suite, which includes antispam and virus software loaded on a central server. The suite allows IBM to manage customers' spam and virus problems remotely. The software is updated daily and the server is located at the customer's site. The company will sell the service to companies with 100 to 1,000 employees, and pricing will start at $40 per month per user. The service can work with any hardware certified for Windows XP.
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The Register, 4/21/04: Billions wasted due to IT skills deficit
By Tim Richardson
Lack of professionalism and the right skills among the UK's IT workers means that billions of pounds are wasted every year on new IT systems, according to a report by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Computer Society.
In a scathing assessment of the industry, the report, The Challenges of Complex IT Projects, claims that universities are failing to produce software engineers and managers with the necessary skills to commission and execute complex IT projects.
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Security
eWeek, 4/20/04: Flaw Leaves Internet Open to Attacks
By Dennis Fisher
A security researcher has developed a new attack for a well-known flaw in the TCP protocol that allows an attacker to effectively shut down targeted routers and terminate existing TCP sessions at will. The scenario has many security experts worried, given the ubiquity of TCP and the fact that there's an attack tool already circulating on the Internet.
The basic problem lies in the fact that existing TCP sessions can be reset by sending specially crafted RST (reset) or Syn (synchronization) packets to either of the machines involved in the session. This is in fact an intended feature of the protocol.
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ZDNet, 4/20/04: New hacking tool: Chocolate
By Munir Kotadia
A survey of office workers in London found that almost three quarters would reveal their network-access password in exchange for a bar of chocolate.
The survey was conducted by the organizers of Infosecurity Europe 2004, a security exhibition to be held in London next week. They offered 172 commuters at Liverpool Street Station a bar of chocolate if they would reveal their corporate password.
Surprisingly, 37 percent immediately agreed, while another 34 percent were persuaded to give up their secret access codes when the interviewer commented that it was most likely to be the name of their pet or their child.
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Computerworld, 4/20/04: The enemy within
Advice by Douglas Schweitzer
On March 23, 2004, an employee at an Anaheim, Calif.-based insurance company was indicted on federal wiretapping charges for allegedly installing an electronic device onto a company computer to record every keystroke made on one keyboard. According to the indictment and a criminal complaint filed earlier in the case, the accused installed a device called a "key katcher" on a computer connected to the Internet that was used by a secretary to the vice president of the insurance company.
This is believed to be the first case in the nation in which a defendant was charged with illegally using keystroke-logger hardware. Such a device is attached to a computer keyboard cable to record every key pressed on the keyboard. Parents use these to monitor the computers accessed by their children, but in this groundbreaking case, the device was used to record keystrokes pressed by company employees.
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Mobile
Infoworld, 4/21/04: RIM closes Motorola licensing deal
Agreement allows BlackBerry services to be accessed by some Motorola mobile phones
By Laura Rohde
Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) and Motorola Inc. have signed a licensing agreement allowing RIM's popular BlackBerry services to be accessed by some of Motorola's mobile phones, RIM announced Wednesday
Under the terms of the agreement, Motorola, located in Schaumburg, Illinois, will be able to connect specific mobile phones to BlackBerry services including support for both BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Web Client, Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM said in a statement.
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HIPAA
eWeek, 4/20/04: Panel Suggests Steps toward Electronic Medical Records
By Stacy Lawrence
More than 70 countries are already in the process of implementing electronic medical records. Among them are the United Kingdom and Canada, which are planning to roll out electronic medical record systems by 2010.
The United Kingdom already has committed $11 billion to transitioning patient records to an electronic system. During the past several months, the United States has also taken some initial steps to make electronic medical records a priority.
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Microsoft
C|net, 4/20/04: Novell touts Linux as force for innovation
By Graeme Wearden
Open-source technology will force software vendors to create better products, but will not be its downfall, according to a Novell executive.
Matt Asay, Novell's director of Linux business office, said Tuesday at the Linux User and Developer Expo 2004 in London that Linux threatened the proprietary software industry with innovation, rather than extinction, and accused companies such as Microsoft of failing to come up with exciting new applications.
"When was the last time that Microsoft Office got significantly better? It's been pretty much the same product for a while now," Asay said.
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