large enterprises

More restructuring at IBM

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 06:59:59 -0500

There's an old saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." That is not always the case, especially with IT. IBM, for one, announced a new plan last week to improve company performance and deliver what customers want. Will it work? It may be the umpteenth time that this big company has revamped.

In IBM's case, it decided to realign its Systems and Technology group around types of clients. So, what is the big deal? The restructured division will focus and develop products based on customer needs in different segments. And the restructured division targets four segments--large enterprises; small-and-medium businesses; verticals; and microelectronics, which includes customers buying IBM's chips, according to IBM spokesman Tim Breuer. Will this deliver better service to you and other customers? Or is this a case of smoke and mirrors? We'd like to hear what you think and whether this helps the CIO trying to come up with the best way to operate and to do it more efficiently. Let us know.

For more on Big Blue and its changing structure:
- Read this InfoWorld article

IBM and Cisco get cozier in telecom, large enterprise space

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 20:01:38 -0400

Building on a strategic alliance first announced in 1999, IBM and Cisco Systems plan to release a jointly developed offering called the Cisco Assurance Management Solution, which integrates Cisco's Active Network Abstraction (ANA) device management and mediation technology with IBM's Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus and Netcool/Precision management software, Alan Ganek, chief technology officer at IBM Tivoli Software told CIO magazine. The companies expect the product to gain traction among telecom carriers and large enterprises looking for a better way to manage heterogeneous networks. "IBM's overall partnership with Cisco has largely been around the services area," Ganek said. "This new one really gets into our development teams in the software world." The first version of Cisco Assurance Management Solution will features network fault monitoring, trouble isolation and real-time service-level event management.

For the full story:
- see CIO for this article

IBM Targets SMBs with Blade Server System

Mon, 28 May 2007 20:01:38 -0400

IBM is jumping on the bandwagon, and is taking a closer look at small and medium sized companies. Last week, Big Blue said that it would begin building blade server systems for SMBs--companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. IBM, which currently sells BladeCenter chassis for large enterprises, says that it will start packaging modules for management, networking and storage for smaller firms.

For more information on the blade servers:
- see this article from CIO

U.S. IT spending closing in on $1 trillion

Thu, 24 May 2007 20:01:39 -0400

All the recent talk about tight IT budgets not withstanding, the trillion-dollar mark for nation-wide enterprise technology investments is on the horizon. Info-Tech Research Group's Indaba Division reports that annual U.S. enterprise spending on IT operations and acquisitions will reach $1.033 trillion in 2010. This will be driven mostly by acquisition spending on storage technology and software. Total non-consumer IT spending this year is expected to increase by 5.24 percent from $840 billion to $884 billion. The study says that the rise in spending is led by large enterprises that have freed up resources from reduced operational costs, as a result of offshore outsourcing.

Learn where IT execs are putting their money:
- read this article from Tekrati

Storage: knowledge is power

Thu, 17 May 2007 20:01:38 -0400

Do you know where your data is? Most CIOs really don't know where their companies' data is stored and managed (the data center?), but that knowledge is critical when it comes to compliance, security and privacy issues. Large enterprises in particular need the skills and tools to understand what they have and where. The pinnacle is getting to a holistic, end-to-end vision for delivering enterprise storage business solutions. Line-of-business insight is important, along with geographical and cost code breakdowns. Another important part is application information alignment; it's the applications that hold the real value to the business. One LOB uses some applications and another uses others; however, there are invariably interdependencies, and the degree to which these exist is not well documented.

Learn more about knowing your storage:
- read the article at IT-Director.com

ALSO:
- read this on small business storage woes
- and this on storage virtualization

The art of choosing an ERP system

Tue, 01 May 2007 20:01:38 -0400

For smaller companies in particular, the decision of which enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to buy can be daunting. There are a great variety of systems, both in terms of functionality and price. First, ask these questions: Which offers the proper fit of software to business processes? How fast is too fast when it comes to implementing a system? What effect will the Oracle vs. SAP battle have on my organization? For large enterprises, SAP continues to be the dominant enterprise resource planning player with Oracle running a close second, but once you move down the rungs, Microsoft Dynamics also is a popular choice. For SMBs, it almost always comes down to price, however.

Read more about choosing an ERP system:
- read the article at ComputerWeekly

ALSO:
- read this about how Microsoft Office integrates with ERP systems
- this about how ERP vendors are revamping their tools
- and this about how ERP makes business processes work

SPOTLIGHT: Don't count Cobol out just yet

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:01:34 -0500

Despite the continual spotlight on emerging programming languages such as Java, the death knell has not yet run for Cobol. The longtime favorite of large enterprises, it still runs approximately 70 percent of the transactional systems in both the U.S. and Europe. But modernization is bring some tweaks to the legacy environment. Article

SPOTLIGHT: Email infractions end in employee firings

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 20:01:34 -0400

Right on the heels of recent news about how companies are snooping on employee email comes a survey that the snooping is resulting in more staff firings. A survey by Proofpoint, a messaging vendor, found that one in three large enterprises have dumped an employee for breaking email policy. About half the companies acknowledge reprimanding employees for policy infractions. Seven percent of companies polled have fired employees for improper blogging. Experts say the rising number of companies taking action on such employee behavior indicates the growing concern over email and employee communications use. Article