Outsourcing
Baseline, 7/04: P&G-HP Pact: Slow and Steady
By Larry Dignan
Procter & Gamble chose a simple strategy for the first year of its $3 billion technology services outsourcing pact with Hewlett-Packard: Don't screw it up.
No major restructuring of services or staff out of the gate. No high-cost implementations of new services or software. And, in particular, no interruption or degradation of the technology for supporting call centers and for managing its networks.
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Offshoring
Gartner, 8/11/04: Management Update: Integrate Your Management of Multiple Outsourcers
Even when external service providers deliver your IT services, you still must manage the providers. Address Gartner’s nine management responsibilities when outsourcing.
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Gartner, 8/11/04: Management Update: Myths and Realities of Offshore Services
A common perception regarding the sourcing of services offshore is analyzed, namely, that such outsourcing causes a loss of IT services jobs in the United States.
Offshore services are a controversial topic and one that will likely feature prominently in elections in developed economies during the next few years. The debate about offshore services has polarized opinions. Some people hold strong views that all forms of offshore services are harmful and are yet another sign of corporate greed and a lack of executive morality. That view is set passionately against supporters who adhere to economic theories based on data and historical precedent.
In the midst of this public discussion, a number of statements are made as if they are accepted and are true, casting issues in terms of extremes — black and white. However, the issues that surround offshore services are actually many shades of gray — a mix of myth, reality, complexity and the unknown.
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Personal Computers
Gartner, 7/21/04: Management Update: Enterprise Desktop Recommendations
For the rest of 2004, enterprise customers should stay the course on their current PC configurations, and ignore (for now) recent changes introduced by Intel.
For the past two years, Gartner has remained fairly consistent with the PC industry in its recommendations for PC configurations targeted at enterprise customers. Gartner now deviates from this industry-aligned guidance for the remainder of 2004. Intel has announced its next desktop platform, which has strong technical merit. Gartner believes, however, that customers should wait on adoption.
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Economy
C|net, 8/18/04: Better times for techies?
By Ed Frauenheim
Unemployment is down and optimism is up for some tech professionals, according to federal statistics and a recent independent survey. But the numbers may be hiding ongoing troubles for U.S. techies.
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Microsoft
C|net, 8/18/04: A brighter Outlook?
By David Becker
You Software hopes there's big money in making little improvements to Microsoft products.
The start-up company made its retail debut Wednesday with You Perform, a collection of more than a dozen add-ons for Outlook, the widely used e-mail and calendar application included in Microsoft Office.
Barnes figures it's a pretty safe bet to base a business model on Microsoft not achieving perfection.
The add-ons include a number of small but handy attachments for managing e-mail and other tasks, the kind of tweaks that normally might be sold as $10-a-piece shareware. You Software CEO Craig Barnes says that by bundling a bunch of such tools in an easily managed package, You Software can offer more value.
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Otherwise
Release 1.0, 8/2004: Politics on the Net: A Three-Way Digital Divide
It’s a presidential election year in the US, and the hot topic at dinner tables, on the front pages of newspapers and on television and weblogs is politics.Among the technology set, however, the hot topic is not only politics; it’s how to use the efficiencies, communication capabilities and distributed power of software and the Net to implement and ultimately affect the political process in a useful way.
“Useful” is the important – and tricky – part.
Thanks to blogging software and a variety ofWeb-based tools that support online and offline meetings and political activity, individual participation in politics has become easier than in the past. In addition, the decentralized strategy of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, the adoption of Meetup by political activists and the emergence of activist organizations such as MoveOn have galvanized a growing number of voters.Add to all that a politically polarized population and an upcoming presidential election that is expected to be as close as the year-2000 edition. . .and a flurry of IT business and political activity results.
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The Wall Street Journal, 8/18/04: E-Mail Rejection
Attention, ladies: If that guy hitting on you just won't quit until you surrender your e-mail address, feel free to call upon Paper Napkin. Billed as an e-mail rejection service, Paper Napkin will tell your persistent suitor to buzz off when he comes calling electronically. Here's how it works: Give out any e-mail address with "PaperNapkin.net" after the "@" sign. You don't need to register the address ahead of time. When your suitor tries to contact you for a date, he'll instead receive a form letter stating in part, "Maybe you're just out of your league here."
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The New York Times, 8/19/04: Elmer Bernstein, Film Composer, Dies at 82
LOS ANGELES (AP)-- Elmer Bernstein, the versatile, Oscar-winning composer who scored such movie classics as ``The Ten Commandments,'' ``The Magnificent Seven,'' ``To Kill a Mockingbird,'' ``The Great Escape'' and ``True Grit,'' died Wednesday. He was 82.
Bernstein died in his sleep at his Ojai home, said his publicist, Cathy Mouton. She said Bernstein had been in failing health for some time.
Bernstein was nominated for the Academy Award 14 times, most recently in 2002 for ``Far From Heaven.''
Oddly enough, his only win was for the 1967 film ``Thoroughly Modern Millie,'' one of his weaker works.
Among his more notable efforts were the scores for ``Some Came Running,'' ``Birdman of Alcatraz,'' ``The Great Escape,'' ``Hawaii,'' ``The Great Santini,'' ``Cast a Giant Shadow,'' ``My Left Foot,'' ``A River Runs Through It,'' ``Devil in a Blue Dress'' and ``The Age of Innocence.'' He also composed several works for symphony orchestras.
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