Monkey CRM, Monkey Do

Is Siebel the 900-pound gorilla of customer relationship management—or more like King Kong just before his fall? Siebel forged a profitable new business, helping large companies track their interactions with customers. Now, SAP, PeopleSoft and Microsoft want a piece of the action. Siebel says it’s unafraid. “We’re the leader in

Quiz: Should You (Mis)Trust Computers?

  TRUE FALSE We use e-mail to authorize purchase orders and other financial documents Our network supports many remote and mobile workers Employees carry highly confidential information on laptops Certain processes (e.g., approving salary increases) would ideally be restricted to specific workstations We frequently send confidential information to third parties

IBM Global Services: Tangled Up in Big Blue

It’s not as if IBM Global Services (IGS) is the underdog in the Linux market. Even though it wasn’t the first one out there, once the parent company made Linux a priority, IGS has been tailoring many of its offerings for the penguin set—while taking great pains not to step

Red Hat Professional Services: The RH Factor

When you’re a company that sells open-source code, it can be difficult to differentiate yourself from competitors. Recognizing this challenge, Red Hat launched its own professional services organization about a year-and-a-half ago to improve its value proposition. Today, Red Hat’s professional services organization is on track to bring in about

SCO Professional Services: SCO What?

Caldera Systems had been in the Linux enterprise business for years when it purchased two divisions of a Unix shop known as the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), in 2001. It quickly became clear, though, which side was really earning its keep—Linux represents barely 5% of current revenue. So Caldera rebranded

Bringing in Linux, for a Fee

Reader Survey: It wasn’t so long ago that you got funny looks from your CIO if you even talked about Linux. Times sure have changed. Now your CFO demands an explanation if you’re not already implementing it. Tell us at [email protected] about all the new places you’re putting the penguin.

Voice of Experience: Martin Armitage

Martin Armitage Unilever Senior VP & Head of Global Infrastructure Organization London, United Kingdom www.unilever.com Manager’s Profile: Responsible for maintaining information technology for 100,000 users at the global consumer-goods giant, Armitage oversees five I.T. centers and 2,000 staffers. Establishing Street Cred: “When we started using Unix in 1991,” Armitage says,

Project Primer: Taking Inventory of Your Assets

Not a company exists that doesn’t rely on words, numbers or pictures. The goal of asset management is to organize these items into electronic form—either directly or through metadata (see “What Is A Digital Asset“). Here are some of the kinds of information that more than likely exist in your

Roadblock: Creative Resistance

THE OBSTACLE Artists and designers “work different.” The people who create the images and designs that are turned into digital assets tend to be creative types, unused to following the conventions of the rest of the enterprise and using such nonstandard tools as Apple computers. “Mac people don’t use file