In last years Tech Outlook 2003 special report, the outlook was pretty grim. The eWEEK Corporate Partners who participated in a roundtable discussion for that report were looking to make the most of existing products and personnel.
During a roundtable discussion held earlier this month for the Tech Outlook 2004 report and moderated by eWEEK Technology Editor Peter Coffee, the mood was decidedly more upbeat—if still guarded.
There was one big fly in the ointment: patches. The scourge of enterprises last year, patches look to be an issue next year as well. The CPs have implemented patch management systems and, in one case, added personnel to get in front of the problems.
The following is a condensed version of the conversation.
What is the climate right now? Are things getting better than they were when we talked this time last year?
Brorson: The investment cycle is back on track. Companies are beginning to again take a look at the technologies they have in place and to not only upgrade but also look at alternative technologies that will allow them to more broadly deploy some of the e-business technologies, particularly CRM [customer relationship management].
|
Is the investment cycle getting back to normal for the rest of you?
Baradet: Were right in the middle of our budget year, so were staying the course for right now. One of the things were struggling with is, What are the appropriate levels of technology for places that have never had it before?
On the mobile front, were working out some of the kinks of our new mobile system. As far as mobile devices, were kind of waiting until we get Exchange Server 2003 rolled out. That will really provide better support for the people who are running Pocket PC and some of the Palm stuff, so they can get better integration with mail. Were switching our test system over to Exchange Server 2003 right now, and within the next week or two, well be running our internal technology peoples mailboxes off it so we can see what it looks like.
Wilson: [The climate is] industry-specific and different between the large corporations and the small corporations. As a large company in the energy sector, were in a down market, if you will. … Were doing the patches, were doing what we can, but the investment doors are not really opening back up yet. Were in such a transformation age that I think were going to have to exit this stage before people are willing to commit to anything.
Calabrese: Weve put off some of our more aggressive initiatives to work on some major themes. Weve had a significant effort around patch management and version control, and weve accelerated our move toward globalizing all of this so that were working on a single core image.
Were also working toward value management as a way of assessing technology and the pace of technology change.
Is that provoking discussion of alternatives to your current IT providers?
Calabrese: I wouldnt go in that direction. Id make that statement more toward your prior question about the climate. Were looking at appropriate purchases. Were looking at purchases that add value. We will make that large purchase, provided its very justifiable or that it prevents other costs down the road. Can we make a single capital investment that reduces lots and lots of repeated expense-type investments over time? Were looking at that very, very closely.
Benincasa: We never saw in our location a reduction in investment during the last few years. Were a military-related site, and, for obvious reasons, the business has been pretty hefty. Our big challenge was to make sure we met customer needs.
As far as major projects, a lot of people have been talking security, and were no different. We implemented [Microsoft Corp.s Software Update Services] for operating system patches, and we brought on a person specifically to work security. We didnt have a dedicated resource before, but we do now. A number of patches have come out, and were patching the patches. A patch comes out, and they say, Oh, the other patch was no good—patch again. Its just become unmanageable, and we had to have a resource to handle it.
And youve actually increased head count to that end.
Benincasa: Yes, sir. … We know whats happening, were watching whats happening and were making appropriate decisions to protect the business. We wanted to increase our focus. Weve always had the network-standing tools, the firewalls, weve always had that. But we want to do a better job at intrusion detection, log management, to be able to proactively find if youre getting some hits.
Sigler: The patches [and viruses] are driving us nuts, particularly because, as you would imagine, the students bring them in with them. And, of course, any time you have anything for security, it becomes something of a challenge for students.
Michael, whats the outlook into next year for AdSpace Networks?
Skaff: Were taking a conservative approach to spending. Although a little more is opening up, which is nice, were spending a little more strategically. During the down economy, we had to be extra careful, being a small company. I think things are starting to warm up a little bit.
We are very interested in wireless right now, so we are taking a close look at all the upcoming wireless technologies. Were looking at mesh networks very closely and are also very interested in broadband becoming more pervasive as well. We are still having issues finding broadband connectivity for some of our clients.
2
Whats driving the interest in wireless? Is it that costs are coming down or that opportunities are on the rise?
Skaff: Id say both.
Do you think at this point that wireless is a vanilla commodity, and you can go around and shop for it without a lot of worry about interoperability issues?
Skaff: Oh, I wouldnt say that yet.
Security is still an important focus for us. I also think well start to see some Linux deployments in 2004. Were sticking with Microsoft for mail and things like that, but we are evaluating Linux for possible vertical application deployments.
OK, how about you, David. Whats going on at Lockheed Martin?
Milkovich: My day-to-day visibility and contact is with the Air Force. We do a variety of things, but primarily … the visibility to the average Air Force member is the Air Force portal, which runs on BroadVision [Inc. portal technology].
Our program develops, deploys, maintains the whole Air Force portal. There are 1.3 million potential Air Force users, and that same portal actually has the run-time environment for all the apps that are on the portal. So its more of a true portal than just a Web site.
Is the platform defined in terms of Sun Microsystems Inc.s Solaris or Microsoft Windows?
Milkovich: No, it originally was pretty well touted as a J2EE [Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition]—If thou develop, thou shall develop Java apps. That attitude has slung to a more moderate stance that says more that if youre going to exchange data, youre going to use this XML document structure.
Whether or not youre a Java app or a .Net app, we dont really care, as long as youre abiding by these rules. We have levels of compliance, and that basically says that at the minimum level, youre just using our security layer. At the deepest level, youre fully in production in our environment and youre written as this type of application using these services.
What about you, Bob? Whats going on at the institute?
Rosen: The thing Im still interested in—and that I still havent found—is the silver heterogeneous storage bullet. Ive got [storage area networks] from a couple of different vendors, and they take different support and operate differently. It would be nice to have some software or whatever that I could use to treat storage as one, unified object. There are some vendors out there, but they dont really seem to be there yet.
How are things like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, affecting the members of this group?
Sigler: HIPAA, obviously big-time, because of our medical center campus and some of our human resources initiatives. The Patriot Act is also affecting us—not only our students, because we have students in aviation, but also because theyre really wanting to capture some information about people walking on the campus and using the computers in the computer courtyard.
Whats the resource impact?
Sigler: Its very big.
Weve had to do a much more sophisticated guest setup than ever before, and were working with our legal department now to see how long we have to keep information from guests [coming on campus].
Rosen: HIPAA obviously affects us, and some aspects of the Patriot Act because of all the foreign people we have in research here. It affects any kind of database stuff, which now has to be considered in terms of controlling access and what data can and cannot be collected.
Are you able to use existing products to deal with these issues?
Rosen: Right now, were still able to use existing products.
For more information on the Corporate Partner program or to inquire about becoming a Corporate Partner, contact eWEEK Labs Executive Editor Debra Donston at debra_donston@ziffdavis.com.