08-11-2004 • VOLUME 7 • NUMBER 42 • £2.60
WWW.ITWEEK.CO.UK
32 CLIENT Suite links
mobiles to Outlook
37 NETWORK Foundry cuts
cost of 10 Gigabit Ethernet
44 MANAGEMENT Citrix’s
chief on IT access control
CONTENTS
ENTERPRISEWEEK
Sun details plan for Open Solaris 19
Security control suites advance 19
Fujitsu’s BX600 blades reviewed 22
INTERNETWEEK
Firms see cost of online threats 25
Better site navigation tools pay off 26
Security chief on laptop policies 26
CLIENTWEEK
Nokia backs corporate messaging 31
Bigger, cheaper, sharper monitors 32
Intel builds mobile security spec 34
NETWORKWEEK
BT introduces global guarantees 37
AirMagnet blocks rogue devices 38
UK corporates gear up for VoIP 41
MANAGEMENTWEEK
Is an IT skills gap harming firms? 43
Options grow to keep out spam 43
Microsoft’s
Project PC
Microsoft UK and
PC maker Scan
Computers are
offering a desktop
for project managers.The Micro Project PC has soft Project PC has
160GB of storage twin monitors, a
2.8GHz Pentium 4
and comes with Microsoft’s Project
2003 Standard. It costs £1,899 + VAT.
Comment, p20 www.scan.co.uk
Virtual tools bring savings
Roger Howorth
M
ore firms will be encouraged to try
server virtualisation after telecoms
giant Vodafone last week detailed how the
technology had unlocked substantial savings
– and could also improve control over apps
run on externally-hosted servers.
Vodafone project manager Doug Colvin
said his firm will deploy up to 300 new Wintel servers in 2005, and will manage most of
them with VMware virtualisation tools.
He added that in the longer term, virtualisation could let Vodafone outsource its
server operations. “Why not contract third-
parties such as HP to own and operate VMware server farms and pay them to host our
virtual server systems?” he said. This new
hosting scenario could make it easier for
firms to retain control of mission-critical
applications and speed
up the deployment of
new applications.
Vodafone’s research
found that virtualisation technology would
cut the maximum time to
Kusnetzky: app
licensing concerns
Hosts polish CRM services
David Neal and Mark Street
osted customer relationship management (CRM) advanced last
week as major vendors, led by
Salesforce.com, broadened their offerings.
However, analysts questioned whether
hosted services could make the leap from
serving mid-sized firms or remote offices
to serving larger corporates, because of
integration issues and legacy investments.
Salesforce.com released Winter 05 – a
new version of its hosted CRM offering that
includes stronger integration capabilities
and enhanced business intelligence.
Winter 05 includes better analytics, with
tools for historical sales trends; a more flexible API, called sForce 5.0; and a new customisation toolkit, called Customforce.com.
The company also supports a portal
through which customers can share best
practices, at CRMsuccess.com.
The new release follows Salesforce’s recently launched online contact centre and
customer support site, Supportforce.com.
Denise Mattby of the BOK financial
corporation said the problem with many
H
based CRM Mid-Market Edition (MME).
Open-source alternatives are also popping up. Startup SugarCRM will this week
launch Sugar On-Demand, a hosted service
based on open-source code.
The new generation of hosts are likely to
initially target remote offices and new projects. “The bulk of large enterprises already
have in-house CRM systems which have
cost them an arm and a leg and do not
work,” said Clive Longbottom of analyst
Quocirca. “These firms are more intent on
fixing what they have, but there may come
a time when they decide to rip it all out and
start all over again.” Many firms are also put
off by the integration challenges, he added.
Gary Smith, director of CRM consultancy Baltic, said hosted offerings could
reduce admin. Citing the 17 Salesforce
patches or updates since its first release,
TO HOST OR NOT TO HOST
he said, “To manage that internally
would be almost impossible.”
In-house
Hosted
Salesforce’s chief information offiCheaper after year 3
Cheaper upfront
Cost
cer, Jim Cavalieri, said, “Users just log
Easy to customise Flexibility More flexible
on to a patched and updated system.”
One administrator Support Business and IT staff
Easier to manage
Overall More control
Sage CRM, p6 Oracle, p10
Source: Forrester
More generous hosts, Leader, p14
CRM systems is that it is hard to persuade
staff to switch from their traditional applications, such as spreadsheets.
However, she added that the newer
releases are easier to use and could tempt
her to deploy the technology.“I like the flexibility of Salesforce, it’s very intuitive and
will simplify our training,” Mattby said.
RightNow Technologies, a fast-growing
US provider, will next week launch version
7.0 of its hosted CRM platform, its first UK
offering. The release extends capabilities
and features salesforce automation tools, a
customer service and support application,
and a marketing automation application.
Meanwhile, UK mid-market giant Sage is
the latest traditional software vendor to enter
the hosted sector, with the release of its web-
acquire and deploy a new server from 40
days to 32.5 days. It also found that upgrading a single site of 140 servers to run across
two sites using VMware’s ESX Server would
save £270,000 each year.
This approach would also give firms the
flexibility to move between server hosting
firms with minimal disruption, because virtualisation insulates applications or operating systems from server hardware.
However, Dan Kusnetzky of analyst
IDC said software licensing could cause
problems. “It would be very important for
hosts and customers to make sure that all
the software was licensed to run in this environment on the host’s machines,” he said.
Virtual virtues, Leader, p14
VMware, p20 Virtualisation benefits, p44
Intel rejects
core charge
Intel last week warned software vendors to alter their licensing to accommodate multi-core processors – or
risk losing customers to rivals.
The chip giant will follow competitors such as Sun and IBM by releasing
chips with two execution cores on
one piece of silicon next year.
Some software vendors, including
Oracle and IBM, treat each core as a
full processor and charge accordingly.
But Microsoft has said it will treat a
multi-core chip as one processor.
Alan Priestley of Intel’s enterprise
server group said,“I think vendors will
adjust as the market evolves. Microsoft
has made a start and I like to think we
will get a degree of consistency. If they
don’t change, customers will vote with
their feet.” Priestley also noted that
scaling in dual-core is not linear and a
dual-core chip will not offer double
the performance of a single-core chip,
making per-core pricing poor value.
Comment, p5 Intel sales, p10
NEWS INSIDE: LINUX Desktop, p4 • CHIPS 64bit, p5 • BROADBAND Wireless, p5 • SUPPLY CHAIN Strategy, p8 • SMARTPHONES Nokia, p8 • IP Video, p8