January 25, 2010
MSPs a Solution for Video Conferencing
Network World
Robin Gareiss writes about video conferencing opportunities for managed service providers.
“High definition video conferencing is an expensive proposition. For this reason, nearly one-third of organizations turn to a managed service provider to provide their video conferencing, Nemertes’ research shows. Should video recording become part of the providers service there will need to be coordination between the MSP and organization’s legal departments to work out the logistics of e-discovery ahead of an e-discovery request.”
Microsoft partners with Intuit to shore up Redmond’s small-business cloud play
ZD Net
Mary Jo Foley writes about Microsoft’s partnership with Intuit.
“Microsoft is partnering with rival Intuit with the shared goal of getting more developers to write cloud-hosted applications targeted at small businesses. The pair announced they’re releasing a beta of a new software development kit (SDK) for Azure, and that Intuit will be recommending to its partners and customers Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud operating system as a ‘preferred platform’ for hosted small-business applications. The SDK is a set of tools, code samples and services aimed at enabling Azure-hosted apps to federate them with Intuit’s Partner Platform (IPP) and sell them in Intuit’s App Center marketplace. The final Version 1 of the SDK is slated for February 2010.”
Another view: Why IT should not be run as a business
ZD Net
Joe McKendrick shares Bob Lewis, of InfoWorld’s thoughts on why the IT department shouldn’t be “run as a business.”
“Bob Lewis, writing in InfoWorld, says the information technology department should not be run as as a business – in fact, he regards the practice as ‘a train wreck waiting to happen.’ Why? Because unlike an outside vendor, IT is too heavily vested and tied into the day-to-day operations of the overall business, he says. He refutes the idea – promulgated by analysts, consultants, and ITIL – that CIOs should run IT as a business, serving internal ‘customers.’”