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Centralizing IT gives rise to bureaucracy When you're having problems with your enterprise laptop or workstation, who do you call? Is your IT staff just down the hall, or are they on the other side of the globe? IBM sets up infrastructure services operation in India for SMBs IBM has set up a services delivery operation in India that will focus on infrastructure services to its clients worldwide. August 23, 5:48 a.m. PDT Wipro to acquire US services provider Infocrossing Indian outsourcer Wipro plans to acquire U.S. IT services provider Infocrossing for about $600 million, to fill gaps in its portfolio in hosted and managed IT infrastructure services and network operations centers. August 6, 9:15 a.m. PDT AT&T, IBM among winners of $50B federal deal The U.S. government has selected 29 companies, including AT&T, IBM, and EDS, for its massive 10-year, $50 billion IT services deal known as Alliant. One network service provider that didn't make the cut was Verizon Business, which bid on Alliant but wasn't awarded a contract. August 1, 9:18 a.m. PDT Strong iPhone sales boost AT&T earnings Profit and sales jumped in the second quarter at AT&T as the U.S. communications giant signed up more wireless customers, including new iPhone users, and sold more Internet services to enterprises. July 24, 7:13 a.m. PDT HP Services led by the other John McCain Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Services division deploys some 70,000 people, half the company's total work force, to advise on IT management and to maintain HP and other equipment in data centers for customers. John McCain is the HP senior vice president charged with running that division, which contributes 17 percent of HP's revenue, US$15.6 billion in fiscal 2006, and 20 percent of its operating profit. April 19, 10:09 a.m. PDT CSC announces $1.2B in US government contracts Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) announced Monday that it had signed US$1.28 billion in previously undisclosed U.S. government agency contracts during the first quarter of 2007. April 3, 4:16 a.m. PDT Software, services to carry European IT Demand for software and IT services will continue to grow steadily in Europe this year, but sluggish performance in the telecommunications sector will dampen the reasons to celebrate, according to a forecast released Thursday ahead of the Cebit trade show. March 8, 9:14 a.m. PST Cleversafe dreams of distributed mass storage service Cleversafe is one of the few enterprise storage technologies that began life as an open source project, but that's not the only thing that makes the company unusual. The organizations interested in Cleversafe's open source storage software aren't dealing with mere gigabytes of data -- they're storing terabytes, petabytes, or even more. According to CEO Chris Gladwin, Cleversafe's long-term goal is nothing less than to store all of the world's data. And with an aim that lofty, he says, open source is the only way to go.  January 8, 3:00 a.m. PST IT as a revenue center When the Security Benefit Group’s IT department hit the streets in 2004 to try selling a homegrown service to external customers, there was skepticism in the ranks. “I can’t say anybody believed we would actually make a sale,” CTO Brent Littleton says. December 4, 3:00 a.m. PST How to know when to keep great ideas in-house or launch a startup At the height of the Internet bubble, the rationale for spinoffs was that Internet businesses needed to be independent and scrappy to succeed. Today, the pros and cons of spinoffs may be more linked to the specific circumstances of the business. December 4, 3:00 a.m. PST Ripple effect of court cases means new rules for IT If you work for a large corporation -- in any department, not just IT -- you’re probably aware of the new FRCP (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) that go into effect on Dec. 1. The new FRCP outlines the “how, what, and wherefore” of electronic document retention and disposal. But you may not be familiar with the two cases that made the changes necessary. November 17, 3:00 a.m. PST Will IT certifications pay off in the long run? A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the U.S. is losing momentum in IT certifications growth, compared with emerging markets such as Eastern Europe, India, and Latin America. November 17, 3:00 a.m. PST Wave of spin-offs puts Keane to the test Think you have a lot on your plate? Consider Bob Atwell, senior vice president of Keane, the $1 billion IT services provider. November 13, 3:00 a.m. PST Which country boasts the biggest IT brains? Back in the 1800s, many educated people became practitioners of the bogus, bigoted “science” of phrenology, which used skull measurements to determine the capabilities of one’s brain and the quality of one’s character. You may remember — if you were born in the 1800s or watch a lot of Discovery Channel — seeing those phrenological drawings of folks’ skulls divided into little compartments that specified the function of the parts of the brain within. October 13, 3:00 a.m. PDT IBM begins major revamp of services business IBM is taking the first step toward a major overhaul of how it packages and sells global services. September 26, 4:17 a.m. PDT Update: Amazon readies fulfillment service for SMBs Amazon.com Inc. is now offering to host small and medium-size businesses' (SMBs) online stores and handle their order fulfillment process. September 19, 3:21 p.m. PDT Targeted training keeps IT workers sharp Dimension Data’s IP telephony services were growing at more than 100 percent per year. But instead of hiring the 30 to 40 new IPT engineers it needed to keep up with demand, the $2.7 billion IT solutions provider decided to invest in training programs to get more out of the people it already had. September 18, 3:00 a.m. PDT Become your own IT career coach “Be your own brand.”It’s good advice. It would be even better if it helped clarify how to go about it. But brand management is the province of marketing, not IT. So other than adding a “New and improved!” sticker to your résumé, you might not be sure about the fine points. September 18, 3:00 a.m. PDT Nailing the interview: A headhunter tells how You can ace your job interview by remembering one simple fact: The company interviewing you isn’t in business to hire people. It’s in business to produce profit. That’s why all those interview books are wrong: Success in a job interview is not about answering questions. It’s about managing your meeting so that you can show how you will deliver profit. Unless you get that, you have no business in the job interview to begin with -- in Silicon Valley or any other tech mecca. September 18, 3:00 a.m. PDT Strategic IT talent: Offshoring is not the answer It’s been a common refrain for years, growing to a chorus in the election year of 2004. As technology workers rail against the exporting of IT jobs to India, China, the Philippines, and beyond, their would-be bosses bemoan an ever-shrinking IT talent pool. September 18, 3:00 a.m. PDT How to get a job at Google Attention, job hunters. Google is hiring. In fact, it’s having a problem finding enough people with the right talent and skills to fill all its openings. September 18, 3:00 a.m. PDT Executive order: Attract and retain top IT talent It was a sweltering June night at the Middle East Club in Cambridge, Mass., and Joe Turner & the Seven Levels were about to take the stage. But this was no ordinary battle of the bands, and the alt-rockers were vying to win more than merely the crowd’s affection. September 18, 3:00 a.m. PDT Standing tall among giants I made a quick stop at the Gartner Financial Services Technology conference in Boston last week, en route to a long weekend in Rhode Island, where I consumed more lobster than previously thought physically possible — we don’t get lobster on the West Coast, and don’t even get me started about the clam chowder! September 15, 3:00 a.m. PDT Improving IT through mentoring I always knew this day would come. I’d be talking to somebody and they’d say: “Hey, did you hear, Maynard Ferguson died this week?” I knew I’d go home, crack open a beer, crank up the stereo, and retreat into the pure raw energy of a jazz trumpet legend, one of my lifelong heroes. September 8, 3:00 a.m. PDT Sybase to buy messaging vendor Mobile 365 Sybase is adding to its mobile portfolio, grabbing messaging service provider Mobile 365 for about $425 million in cash. September 6, 4:30 a.m. PDT Sun integrates StorageTek service Sun Microsystems on Tuesday announced it has combined its service offerings with that of StorageTek, the storage vendor it acquired one year ago for $4.1 billion. August 29, 4:40 a.m. PDT Gartner’s high-tech hype radar Gartner, the 900-pound gorilla of IT research firms, has something to say about seemingly everything. With 1,200 analysts and 3,700 associates, Gartner pretty much covers the waterfront. But in sifting through its carefully qualified predictions and oh-so-nuanced magic quadrants, my eyes usually glaze over. August 18, 3:00 a.m. PDT Indian outsourcer Satyam's profits soar 78.5 percent Indian outsourcer Satyam Computer Services reported Friday strong growth in revenue and profits for the quarter ended June 30, as business volumes grew and it moved more of its services delivery offshore to India. July 21, 4:32 a.m. PDT Dell improves IT services with Google Maps Dell launched an IT services plan Wednesday that extends big-company perks to midrange businesses and allows system administrators to track server problems by plotting them on Google Maps. June 28, 8:46 a.m. PDT The tech worker’s contract to nowhere An ugly truth about the IT job market is that opportunists too often dominate it. Honest employers and job candidates suffer because they’re forced to compete with cutthroats. Black hat employers see workers through the lens of the recession -- as property to be loaded, spent, and replaced like rounds in a Gatling gun. Black hat workers see themselves through the lens of the dot-com heyday -- demigods who could write their own tickets with junior college skills. June 28, 3:00 a.m. PDT In Brief: BT, KDDI form managed services venture BT Group and KDDI have agreed to form a joint venture to promote global managed services to Japanese multinational companies, they said Monday. June 26, 6:31 a.m. PDT Tech careers are on the wrong track I admit to frequently harboring unrealistic expectations. With that in mind, here’s my early take on why hiring managers are having a hard time finding good tech workers in the United States. June 21, 3:00 a.m. PDT Salary survey: IT management misperceptions Click for larger view. June 12, 3:00 a.m. PDT Salary survey: IT reliance on outsourcing remains Click for larger view. June 12, 3:00 a.m. PDT Salary survey: IT challenges on the horizon Click for larger view. June 12, 3:00 a.m. PDT Salary survey: IT employment opportunities Click for larger view. June 12, 3:00 a.m. PDT Salary survey: Myriad factors fuel IT salary increases Click for larger view. June 12, 3:00 a.m. PDT Salary survey: Bonuses for all in IT Click for larger view. June 12, 3:00 a.m. PDT Salary survey: Reasons why IT workers fear the ax Click for larger view. June 12, 3:00 a.m. PDT Salary survey: IT jobs by the numbers Click for larger view. June 12, 3:00 a.m. PDT 2006 InfoWorld Compensation Survey: IT salaries are back on track and headed north A near-forgotten term is back in the lexicon of IT compensation: opportunity. And tech workers are making the most of it. Salaries are on the rise. Promotions are not just title changes in lieu of a raise. Surfing the want ads is more than an exercise in disgust. Plus, the good news extends beyond the job market. Tech pros are pushing out more products and surpassing milestones to make good on an economy on the mend. Getting by with less is steadily giving way to creating competitive advantage with whatever you’ve got. June 12, 3:00 a.m. PDT Outsourcing vs. shared services There are two current trends in IT with diametrically opposed points of view that are worth looking at. The first is shared services, wherein the IT organization becomes the internal service provider to the rest of the company. The second is combined business process and IT outsourcing all done under one roof -- although, of course, that roof is somewhere other than at the company. May 30, 3:00 a.m. PDT Tech jobs take stress to whole new levels Attention all you laid-back IT professionals: a new study claims that IT is the most stressful occupation, ahead of engineering, sales, finance, HR, and pretty much everything else. May 26, 3:00 a.m. PDT Five technology skills for the global economy IT pros hoping to climb the corporate ladder need to understand how technology integrates with core business functions such as finance, marketing, operations, and compliance issues. To get ahead in the emerging global economy, new expertise will also be needed. Here are five key skills to master. May 22, 3:00 a.m. PDT High-tech MBAs target the IT pro With 16 years’ experience doing everything from coding to systems management, Scott Nease thought he was ready to step up to the big chair. But when he enrolled in a six-month executive education program geared for teaching business skills to IT pros, his worldview changed. May 22, 3:00 a.m. PDT Developing your IT staff demands new thinking Forward-thinking IT leaders recognize how important it is for employees to have broad and deep technical and business knowledge, and not just a list of skills that looks good on a resume. They need employees who show good judgment as well as technical ability. May 22, 3:00 a.m. PDT Ericsson CEO sketches strategy for growth Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson will continue to see softer margins in its second quarter, but the Swedish company expects margins and growth to improve in the second half of the year, Ericsson Chief Executive Officer Carl-Henric Svanberg said Wednesday. May 11, 4:29 a.m. PDT Technology workers are the future “How much love are we giving them?” I overheard this the other day from a woman -- undoubtedly a sales exec -- on her cell phone on the escalator at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Don’t ask why, but I’d taken a flyer and spent two hours at ad:tech, an interactive marketing conference that has little to do with enterprise IT. Because there’s no real technology differentiation in interactive marketing, from what I can tell, the Internet advertising business is all about the love. May 5, 3:00 a.m. PDT GCI sets up shop in Brazil, China IT services company Global Consultants Inc. (GCI) plans to set up shop in Brazil and China to service the operations in those countries of its multinational customers, according to an executive of the company. May 4, 5:39 a.m. PDT Dumping your technology vendor? Let reason prevail 5 GOOD REASONS TO FIRE YOUR VENDOR 1. It can’t provide the service you need When it takes three phone calls to get a response or three repairs to get something working right, it’s time to get out, says the Uptime Group’s Patty Laushman. “If you’re paying the vendor, they should know what they’re doing. You shouldn’t have to call three times to fix the same problem.” April 27, 3:00 a.m. PDT Tips on how to divorce your technology vendor Sure, hooking up with a new service provider is all cigars and handshakes at first. Promises are made and stars glimmer in your eyes as you sign the contract. The future looks bright. April 27, 3:00 a.m. PDT Resources for resolving vendor disputes American Arbitration Association The uber-organization for dispute resolution provides access to more than 8,000 neutral parties who handle all manner of disputes, including commercial ones. The site is packed with FAQs, guidelines, and forms you can submit to commence arbitration proceedings. April 27, 3:00 a.m. PDT NetCustomer offers migration services to Ingres NetCustomer, which provides support services to users of PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards enterprise applications, will offer customers migration services to the Ingres 2006 open-source database, the company announced Monday. April 25, 4:07 a.m. PDT Are your software services compliant? In case you haven’t noticed, just about every part of the IT infrastructure must comply with some regulation or other. April 25, 3:00 a.m. PDT Is extreme outsourcing and consolidation worth it? Last week, Accenture signed a seven-year applications outsourcing deal with Unilever to run all of Unilever’s application development, implementation, and support. Unilever believes it can save approximately $700,000 in the first year. April 18, 3:00 a.m. PDT MIT simulation suggests avian flu outbreak can shred supply chain At first, the reports from your supplier in China seem innocent enough: an assembly line worker has become very ill and is hospitalized with flu-like symptoms. Before you know it, workers are dying, the government has quarantined your factory and its contents, your supply chain is in ruins, and reporters are camped out at your company headquarters with a fleet of satellite news trucks. April 14, 2:00 p.m. PDT Mergers and other IT disruptions don’t have to spell chaos When mortgage lender Master Financial moved from a traditional PBX switch to a Sphere Communications VoIP system in 2002, it did so for three reasons: “Cost, cost, and cost,” says then-CIO Chris Mullins. April 10, 3:00 a.m. PDT 10 tips for easing IT change management Whether you’re shifting to a new technology framework or outsourcing key IT functions, implementing change can be unsettling for everyone -- and not just those who may find themselves in a new job when the dust settles. Here’s how to survive and even thrive in the midst of disruption. April 10, 3:00 a.m. PDT Unisys sells stake in Japanese unit, begins layoffs Unisys has sold most of its stake in its Japanese affiliate, Nihon Unisys, and will use the proceeds to fund the first phase of a move to lay off around 3,600 employees worldwide, the company said in a statement. March 21, 4:19 a.m. PST Homeland Security probes L-1 visa abuses In the course of my research for a column on misuse of the L-1A and L-1B visa program for temporary workers in the United States, I was alerted to the Inspector General’s report published in January of this year by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), titled “Review of Vulnerabilities and Potential Abuses of the L-1 Visa Program." March 21, 3:00 a.m. PST Cisco to let partner software, services bloom Cisco Systems wants its channel partners to run off with everything it learns about providing professional services. March 15, 4:11 a.m. PST Update: HP revenue rises in Q1 Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday reported net revenue of $22.7 billion for its fiscal first quarter of 2006, ended Jan. 31, a 6 percent increase from the year-earlier period. February 16, 4:01 a.m. PST Bringing software development back in-house I’ve written so many columns about offshore outsourcing that I never thought I’d do another. Then I met Mike Fields, the new CEO at CRM vendor Kana Software, and I changed my mind. This time I want to talk about what Fields calls “backshoring.” February 7, 3:00 a.m. PST Insourcing through thick and thin Outsourcing desktop management doesn’t make sense in every organization. For one thing, you may already have an efficient, top-flight group in charge, and the flexibility of doing it all in-house can outweigh the predictability of SLAs. But there’s another way to reduce or eliminate PC headaches: Switch to thin clients. February 6, 3:00 a.m. PST Outsourcing the desktop In 2003, New York City consolidated 32 autonomous community school districts under a unified Department of Education, creating a vast organization of 130,000 employees serving 1.1 million students. The reorg also brought under one IT roof approximately half a million pieces of computing equipment, including about 300,000 desktops and notebooks. According to the Department’s CIO, Irwin Kroot, no one at the time really knew how many assets the system had. So Kroot’s predecessor outsourced an inventory survey to a division of Dell. “They went door to door,” Kroot says, to all of the district’s 1,200 buildings, to inventory the equipment for an asset-management database. February 6, 3:00 a.m. PST Dream of telecommuting may become more elusive Telecommuting, a perennial dream of the technorati, has been back in the news recently, sparked by bird flu fears, high gas prices, hurricanes, transit strikes, volcanoes -- you name it. The good news is that telecommuting is having a pretty good run, with knowledge workers leading the way. AT&T and IBM, for example, allow many of their people to work from wherever they happen to live. JetBlue is using home-based service reps. February 3, 3:00 a.m. PST Europe faces further consolidation in IT services The European market for companies providing IT services to enterprises is ripe for consolidation, according to a senior executive at the IT services arm of German telecommunications operator Deutsche Telekom AG. February 2, 12:59 a.m. PST SAP steps into the software-as-a-service arena It’s as momentous as when the Union Pacific met the Central Pacific and the final, golden, spike was driven at Promontory Summit, Utah, completing the transcontinental railroad -- not that in high tech anyone would notice an event as significant. I can’t even predict for you all the innovations that will be generated from the recent developments, but I will give you my thoughts. January 31, 3:00 a.m. PST Is standardization helping to drive corporate mergers? It’s mating season again in the corporate world (come to think of it, when is it ever not?). Pixar and Disney are dancing the tango, Verizon and SBC have just gobbled up MCI and AT&T, and Guidant is in the final throes of being torn between two lovers -- Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson. January 27, 3:00 a.m. PST Software as a service: Pay as you build, but at what cost? See correction below January 24, 3:00 a.m. PST EMC beefs up services team with acquisition Storage titan EMC has strengthened its professional services team with the acquisition of Internosis, a specialist in Microsoft systems and applications. January 9, 8:16 a.m. PST A channel play for SaaS in 2006 Microsoft’s competitors are ridiculing what they claim is Redmond’s half-hearted entry into the world of SaaS (software as a service) with CRM 3.0. In numerous conversations I’ve been told, “It shouldn’t even be called SaaS. They’re not even hosting it. They are just reselling their solution to VARs.” January 3, 3:00 a.m. PST Spanish bank extends EDS deal valued at $240M Spanish bank La Caixa has extended its agreement with Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) to provide IT and business process outsourcing services for four more years in a deal valued at €200 million (US$240 million). December 21, 3:12 a.m. PST Perot offers infrastructure services from India Perot Systems Corp. announced Tuesday that it is offering infrastructure services to its customers worldwide from its Indian centers in Noida and Bangalore. The company also announced that its staff in India would make up one-third of the company's staff worldwide in the next several months. December 20, 4:43 a.m. PST General Dynamics buys services company for $2.2 billion General Dynamics has agreed to acquire Anteon International in a move to beef up its IT services offering to defense, intelligence, and security customers. December 14, 5:53 a.m. PST How will Dell offset the loss of Intel’s generosity? By now, we should be enjoying a true commodity market in which the pricing trends of x86 CPUs track those of other PC components and semiconductors. Today, we’re celebrating the $500 PC, even though economic forces should have that price closer to $200. With chip manufacturing capacity and yields being as high as they are, all but the most advanced x86 processors should be readily affordable. They should be as cheap as light bulbs. Well, designer store light bulbs. December 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Do-it-yourself software services? If you’re a regular reader of my column, you know that I’ve been looking closely at the pluses and minuses of the SaaS (software as a service) model recently. SaaS solutions let you easily deploy standard functionality across a wide spectrum of users cheaply, as opposed to best-of-breed, on-premises applications, which cost more but offer product and competitive differentiation. December 13, 3:00 a.m. PST NTT America offers IPV6 managed firewall service Enterprises grappling with implementing IPV6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) can now at least hand off one job -- the firewalls -- to a service provider. December 8, 4:13 a.m. PST MCI launches security risk management service MCI is introducing a security risk management service to help enterprises take proactive action against systems threats and vulnerabilities, the company announced Tuesday. December 6, 5:05 a.m. PST The coming software revolution If Marc Benioff, CEO and founder of Salesforce.com, is the biggest spokesperson for SaaS (software as a service), then Greg Gianforte, CEO and founder of SaaS CRM competitor RightNow Technologies, is in the avant-garde of that software revolution, adding open source to the war on packaged apps. The difference between the two may offer us a peek into the future of IT infrastructures. December 6, 3:00 a.m. PST EMC suggested EDS create Agility Alliance Storage giant EMC was the prime mover behind Electronic Data Systems (EDS) developing its Agility Alliance partners program, according to the head of the IT services company. December 1, 9:01 a.m. PST Software as a service moves beyond the sales force There’s no denying that SaaS (software as a service) and Salesforce.com have together reshaped the CRM segment of enterprise software. I’ve written about the pluses and minuses of SaaS before. This time I thought I would look at some other software categories where SaaS will have a major impact, including PLM (product lifecycle management) and project/portfolio management. November 29, 3:00 a.m. PST No. 10: Predictive patching You arrive at work on Monday only to learn that a bunch of desktops are hung or that the performance of a critical application has slowed to a crawl. After investigating, you determine that a patch that was applied over the weekend is the cause. November 28, 3:00 a.m. PST CollabNet expanding in Asia with new datacenter CollabNet plans to expand in Asia with a new datacenter and other investments, as demand picks up in the region for its collaborative software development platform, according to an executive of the company. November 21, 3:45 a.m. PST Is it time to scrap your Big Iron? See correction at end of article November 17, 3:00 a.m. PST The true value of software as a service With respect to Johnny Carson and Carnac the Magnificent, the answer is “yes and no.” The question: Is SaaS (software as a service) an overhyped idea that is not much good for anything beyond application delivery? November 15, 3:00 a.m. PST Coldwell Banker Elite connects with buyers In the realty game, where a missed call can mean losing a million-dollar sale, communications is everything. So when Coldwell Banker Elite looked to converge voice and video over IP, it was determined not to get locked into a proprietary system. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST American Express eases business travel Business travelers seeking the fastest routes to their destinations can now hop aboard the TravelBahnSM Gateway , a new Web-based reservations system from American Express. Instead of navigating arcane commands for five different computerized reservation systems, Amex travel counselors can use the Gateway to reserve flights, hotel rooms, and rental cars quickly and easily for the agency’s 5 million business travelers. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Bowne takes pioneering role in XBRL In April, the Securities Exchange Commission commenced a voluntary pilot program to test the data tagging technology known as XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language). Someone had to be first up to the plate. As it happened, Bowne Financial Print, a division of Bowne & Co., was already evaluating XBRL-based solutions that would ease the tagging process aimed at improving the usefulness of business and financial data. And timing is everything. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Essent retools processes to boost profits Essent Energie had two big problems. First, the company’s gas portfolio was expanding faster than conventional reporting tools could record the details. This led to the second problem: The portfolio consistently underperformed, as energy traders were flying blind. It often took a week to figure out if a deal actually made money. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Iconix finds a cure in AJAX Data integration is a major challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. The daunting task of analyzing volumes of information that span several databases often stymies companies involved in creating drugs. To address this problem, Iconix Pharmaceuticals developed DrugMatrix, a single-source database of insights collected from across multiple data domains using the disciplines of chemistry and genomics. DrugMatrix is built on a three-tiered architecture consisting of a data warehouse, an application server, and a sophisticated Web UI created using Tibco General Interface, an AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) toolkit. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Starwood aims for enterprise Valhalla When you operate more than 750 hotels -- including the Sheraton, St. Regis, W, and Westin brands -- your guests naturally expect great service. They also expect equally good service when they book their rooms on the Web, through a call center, or a travel agent. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Span-Alaska freezes out legacy supply-chain system Imagine hundreds of 18-wheelers rolling into Span-Alaska's warehouse every week, each carrying as much as 28 tons of cargo from hundreds of different shippers. Each trailer must be off-loaded, and every manifest must be sent to the back office, where it is logged in and rated before goods are reloaded onto containers. And the job doesn't end there. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST EDS puts the match to arsonists If you’re designing a national database for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, it’s got to be, well, bulletproof. That’s why the ATF hired the EDS team to redesign its BATS (Bomb Arson Tracking System), which houses data on incidents involving arson or explosives. The new BATS combines data from the FBI’s automated incident reporting system and local law enforcement, making it one of the first Web-based data-sharing initiatives accessible to local, state, and federal agencies. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST CACI brings order to paperwork chaos The only thing harder than buying for the Department of Defense is selling to it. Although the department's own buy-side processes are largely automated and standardized, providing the same degree of integration to the vendor side was more challenging. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Prudential widens retirement options In 2000, Prudential Financial realized it could no longer manage complex 21st-century retirement schemes, a system built for handling employee pension plans of the 1960s and ‘70s. So it retired its legacy system and headed to PARIS (Plan Accounting and Reporting Information System), a Java-based application built from the ground up by Prudential’s team of in-house developers. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Brigham and Women's Hospital goes mobile Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a 720-bed facility with more than 6,000 admissions per year, ambitiously created its eMAR (Electronic Medication Administration Record) system, a wide-reaching, entirely mobile application. The initiative is credited with yielding a more efficient, reliable method for positively identifying both the health care worker and patient, while ensuring that the dispensation of drugs is rigorously checked against the patient’s profile. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Lehman Brothers puts identity in a vise grip All it takes is one disgruntled former employee with access to sensitive customer data to wreak costly havoc. To counter this risk, the investment bank Lehman Brothers recently implemented TAC (Total Access Control), a companywide user-access rights-provisioning system and enterprise identity management system. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST The IRS goes electronic -- for real this time You may have been able to file your 1040 forms electronically for quite some time now, but until recently corporations had to do it the old-fashioned way -- submitting reams of paper. Complex corporate tax forms are too unwieldy for the IRS’s dedicated dial-up connections. Meanwhile third-party documents such as property appraisals were not supported and had to be submitted via the U.S. mail. November 14, 3:00 a.m. PST > Professional services |
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