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As the realisation dawns that x86 server virtualisation is a key component of a modern infrastructure stack, and not just an operating system feature, the major software vendors have rushed into this billion dollar market to stake out their claim1. While this will result in significantly increased levels of vendor FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) over the next 18 months, it will also significan...

A monthly review of all of the sourcing activity, upcoming tenders and news items.

Recent research has concluded that Australia is far removed from the popularly held view of a casual, laid back sunburned country with a “she’ll be right” attitude to business and life in general. Now it appears that Australians are the second hardest working nation in the world with 22% of the labour force working in excess of 50 hours a week and 30% regularly working weekends.

Over the last 20 years data management has typically focused on structured data, and as a result most IT organisations now do a good job managing structured data and turning it into useful information that supports the business. However, many IT organisations have reached a tipping point where more than half of all their electronic data is unstructured, and the very high growth rates for u...

IT due diligence is primarily undertaken to understand the target business IT systems with a view to establishing the resources and costs involved in integrating them into the acquirer’s IT systems, the possibility of the target business having a more suitable IT infrastructure already in place should not be ignored. The IT due diligence exercise must be exhaustive and particular emp...

Rather than developing their own systems, many Australasian organisations are adopting commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) to implement or enhance their business applications. So strong are the perceived COTS benefits that US government agencies (including Defence agencies), in line with the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, are now mandating COTS to take advantage of the significant procurement, im...

There is never a good time to break the legacy cycle. A significant number of the core systems used in large corporations today have a history that extends over two or three decades. New applications, implemented in modern technologies, often still require additional functionality to be added to legacy back-end systems. But new is not necessarily better, and an educational deficit in the IT...

With a degree of inevitability the Web 2.0 bandwagon has reached CRM. And the reason is obvious: with so many Web 2.0 applications and media moving users to be engaged in some way, either by posting to blogs, or video and creating their own mashups, the engagement is interpreted as a sign of reinvigorated possibilities through CRM channels. Such diverse and disparate potential is however unl...

Since the announcement by VMware of the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) initiative there has been a strong resurgence in interest in Thin Desktops. While there is a business case for a Thin Desktop, the benefits are often overhyped and it is not the universal panacea for desktop deployment as portrayed by some vendors. While nearly every organisation uses Citrix Presentation S...

When an organisation needs to trigger its Business Continuity Plan (BCP), and: it does not exist, or is untested, or is non viable, or it fails when activated..... the results are likely to be catastrophic. It is probable that its operations will not recover smoothly, if at all, and the business will be severely impacted, possibly unable to continue operations.