Not the experts
Ken Anderberg
December 1, 2008
I get a little on edge when I see editors and writers being set up as experts - or touting themselves as experts in their articles. This came to a head recently when an e-mail came to my desk promoting yet another webinar, or eSeminar as it was called. The topic was how to create a green data center, but the difference for this event was that there were no actual experts making the presentations. The presenters were two editorial staff members of the publication that was offering the webinar. (Actually, the webinar was paid for by a technology vendor.)
Editors typically are used in webinars to add credibility (As in, "If the editor is leading this webinar then it must be non-promotional and useful."). Those webinars, however, generally are advertising shrouded as information sharing. The editors are, in essence, endorsing the vendor's products or services by participating.
Editors have long served as moderators for trade show seminars, where a group of vendors and third-party experts will speak and the editor acts as a moderator. The other panelists are the experts, not the editor. Such a role does not impact the credibility of the editor and often enhances the standing of his or her publication. No problem there.
But webinars are different. To put it another way, should an editor be included in a vendor's print ad? A webinar basically is an online advertisement.
And don't even get me started about editorial staff inserting their views or biases in their articles. Journalists should be presenting the facts, not setting themselves up as experts who know better than their readers what products or services are best or worst. And they should not be "endorsing" vendors by participating in paid-for webinar discussions.
For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com
Pink cables?
Ken Anderberg
October 24, 2008
Do you really want a pink cable in your data center? Probably not
- unless it's for a good cause.
Cxtec, a global provider of new and certified pre-owned networking and technology equipment, has some pink cables for you, if you're interested.
The Syracuse, N.Y.-based company is in the midst of its 6th annual
Cables for a Cure campaign in support of the
American Cancer Society's breast cancer awareness effort. Cxtex is donating up to 50 cents to the Society's campaign for specified products purchased in October. Any customer making a qualifying purchase this month receives a pink ribbon cable pin to wear.
Or, you can purchase the pin at
www.cxtec.com/cure for $5. So, actually, you won't be installing pink cable in the data center. Just as well. Who needs the ribbing?
For comments please email: kanderberg@comnews.com
Cabling choices
Ken Anderberg
September 30, 2008
Performance, not price, is the leading
factor for enterprises considering cabling
purchases for their IT and voice-over-IP
networks-by a wide margin. In a recent
survey by
General Cable of 380 IT managers
who subscribe to
Communications News, performance
issues were rated most important by at least
50 percent across all vertical industry
segments. Financial enterprises (64 percent)
and government agencies (61 percent) rated
performance highest in their selection
process.
Only 13 percent of financial
organizations rated price considerations as
the most important factor when selecting
cabling solutions. Educational institutions
are the most concerned about prices (24
percent). Interestingly, the cabling brand
was most important to only 3 percent of
those surveyed.
Nearly three-fourths (74 percent) of
those surveyed have
10/100 Gigabit Ethernet
speeds in their horizontal cabling to the
desktop; 24 percent have gigabit and only 2
percent have adopted 10-Gigabit Ethernet.
Five years from now, 18 percent of
respondents expect their to-the-desktop
cabling to consist of 10GigE. That number
goes up to 35 percent by 2018.
Currently, 61 percent of those polled
have
Category 5e cabling installed for their
desktop drops, with 41 percent still using
Category 5, 43 percent
Category 6 and only 4
percent Category 6a. By 2013, 11 percent
expect to be using Category 6a and 52
percent Category 6.
Asked how they view wireless within their
LANs, 81 percent of those surveyed see
wireless as an overlay to their wired
network, while only 5 percent are replacing
or plan to replace their current wired LANs
with wireless.
Asked to single out their largest cause
of downtime or problems with their cabling
networks, 53 percent tabbed human error as
the culprit, while connectivity issues were
cited by 24 percent and patch cords by 20
percent. Problems with horizontal cabling
were mentioned by just 1 percent of
respondents.
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
Lost in the clouds
Ken Anderberg
August 28, 2008
The two recent crashes of Google Gmail
and Google Apps are sure to have a chilling
effect on the
software-as-a-service (SaaS)
model. Google Gmail and Google Apps went
down for 15 hours Aug. 6 and 7. On Aug. 11,
Gmail went down for two hours.
Not that
cloud computing has taken off
as yet. There is still significant
reluctance by organizations, particularly
large enterprises, to using Web-based
services. Other major Web outages at
Amazon Web Services and
Apple's MobileMe do not inspire
confidence either.
Of course, the analysts weighed in that
such outages are mere blips on the screen,
that such hiccups are to be expected and
that the technology will be improved over
time. Never mind that these same analysts
have been cheerleading the SaaS and cloud
computing "trends" as the future of
enterprise networks and therefore may not be
impartial observers.
IDC says SaaS adoption is on
the rise, with 5.1% of small firms and 15.2%
of medium-sized firms planning to move
forward with a SaaS solution in the near
future. IDC senior research analyst
Merle Sandler says, however,
"SMBs have not been adopting SaaS as quickly
as originally anticipated." Small and
midsize businesses are considered the sweet
spot in the market.
Adoption is far more advanced than is
being readily reported, counters
Jeff Kaplan, managing director
of
THINKstrategies, an SaaS
consultancy.
According to research firm
Gartner, the global SaaS market
is expected to grow to $19.3 billion by
2011, tripling in size from the $6.3 billion
it was in 2006. IDC predicts SaaS will be
worth $10.7 billion by 2009.
Eight years ago, however, those same
firms were touting the application service
provider model, which basically crashed and
burned when the IT bubble burst. Will this
new iteration of that model fare any better
than it did in the early part of this
decade? Or will end-users decide they would
rather keep control of their applications
in-house rather than trust the
still-too-unstable Web model?
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
A Second Life for all
Ken Anderberg
July 28, 2008
Sometimes you have to wonder if the
technology research firms are drinking
their own Kool-Aid. Take for example a
recent prediction by one of the leading
such firms that within four years 70
percent of organizations will have their
own private virtual worlds.
Think
Second Life at your company.
Cartoon characters (avatars)
milling around chatting with each other,
sharing ideas and complaints. Employees
spending work time in a virtual world.
This same research firm, however, also
says that nine out of 10 businesses that
have built private virtual worlds have seen
them fail in less than 18 months-at an
average cost of $50,000 for the platform,
which it characterizes as "low cost."
Why do these organizations need virtual
worlds? To improve employee collaboration
(re: interaction). Apparently, walking over
to someone's office to have a conversation,
or making a phone call, or even using e-mail
or instant messaging is not sufficient to
exchange ideas in today's connected world.
Today's employees apparently need to hide
behind a cartoon character to interact with
fellow employees. Cute, but why is that more
effective than having a real conversation,
with real people?
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
Brocade to challenge Cisco
Ken Anderberg
July 24, 2008
The recent news that
Brocade Communications is
purchasing
Foundry Networks has some
analysts suggesting the deal sets up
Brocade to compete with
Cisco Systems. But is that
logical?
The $2 billion deal is expected to
close in the fourth quarter and will
combine Brocade's strengths in data
storage with Foundry's Ethernet
networking products, where it is second
in the market to Cisco. Neither Brocade
or Foundry, however, has shown the
marketing muscle that will be needed to
outpace Cisco, regardless of their
product mix.
Brocade's marketing has generally
been in vertical storage publications,
not to the broad IT market. Foundry has
done some limited print and online
marketing to the broader IT segment but
still lacks the name recognition and
clout of Cisco.
Together, the merging companies will
have a market capitalization of about $5
billion, far below Cisco's $45 billion
or so. That's a real David and Goliath
battle. And did the analysts already
forget their expectations that Juniper
Networks was also positioning itself to
compete with Cisco?
Brocade is paying a steep price for
Foundry but officials at both companies
argued that the deal was well worth it.
The combination will spur growth and
innovation at Brocade, they said.
Assuming the deal goes through,
"Brocade becomes the logical alternative
to Cisco" in the overall network
equipment market, said Zeus Kerravala,
an analyst who covers the industry for
the
Yankee Group, a market
research firm.
"We believe the industry is at an
inflection point," said Mike Klayko, CEO of
Brocade, in a statement. "Customers are
demanding networking solutions that meet the
needs for today and can address the many
advances in network convergence that are
still ahead."
For Brocade to compete effectively
against Cisco, however, the new company will
need to seriously ramp up its marketing
efforts. Cisco most certainly will be doing
so and probably before the new Brocade can
catch its breath from the merger.
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
Muny Wi-Fi as We Saw It
Ken Anderberg
June 10, 2008
The trade press lately seems to have
learned some lessons about municipal
wireless. Here's what we've been saying for
the past two years.
October 2006. Learning
from the mistakes of early adopters, local
governments today are bringing in
private-sector partners for system
installation and ongoing operations. Early
desires to provide such services for free
also are being replaced by sustainable
business models.
Use of tax dollars to fund these wireless
networks has been controversial on some
fronts, as the benefits fall mostly to those
who can afford laptops, home PCs and
handhelds, as well as monthly access
charges. In addition, local governments that
tried to "own" the whole process found
themselves under-funding and understaffing
their operations.
June 2006. Opponents of
such efforts, predictably carriers and cable
companies, claimed such government-sponsored
networks were unfair competition, and that
local governments were not equipped to
handle ongoing maintenance, customer service
and technology upgrades. They even contended
that such universal access would help solve
the "Digital Divide" problem, although they
never explained how lower-income people
would benefit from Internet access when they
probably could not afford a computer in the
first place.
Time and experience have a way of weeding
out the truth and consequences of such
arguments. Local governments, many of whom
saw economic development dollar signs, were
not going to be dissuaded from there efforts
to Wi-Fi their constituents.
Time and experience are now starting to
demonstrate that perhaps these efforts were
not as well thought out as they should have
been.
July 2005. Is wireless
Internet access the next public utility? Are
public Wi-Fi spaces a public necessity, like
water and sewer service? Should taxpayer
dollars be used to help support municipal
Wi-Fi networks that could be, and usually
are offered by private companies? Should
local governments be competing with the
private sector to provide non-essential
services like wireless Internet access?
Twenty years from now, will wireless
Internet access still be considered a
non-essential service?
The arguments for such networks: lower
broadband costs to users, community
building, broadband access to areas not yet
served by the private sector, income
generation, economic development and even
"solving the Digital Divide problem."
There is a difference, however, between a
local government installing wireless
communications for its own operations as
opposed to setting up a wireless network for
residents to go online for a fee - or for
free.
Opponents of local governments providing
wireless Internet access trot out their own
litany of reasons why this is a bad idea:
use of tax dollars for initial
implementation, ongoing maintenance,
staffing and eventual upgrades; unfair
competition with the private sector;
diversion of public funds from other
important needs, such as homeless shelters
or road maintenance; conflicts of interest;
and even First Amendment considerations (If
the local government controls the medium,
can it restrict what information is carried
over that medium, such as complaints about
the local government?).
The Digital Divide defense may be the
murkiest of the bunch.
Today's Wi-Fi users tend to be high-end
professionals and high-income consumers,
groups that realize the greatest benefits
with their portable laptops or notebook PCs.
The reality of deployments has been that
they have been set up to serve the most
lucrative areas, not the low-income areas.
How will public Wi-Fi solve the Digital
Divide problem if a large percentage of
low-income people do not own a computer or
wireless hand-held device, or might not even
be able to afford a $15-a-month subscription
fee?
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
Desperate magazines
Ken Anderberg
May 29, 2008
Magazine publishers are starting to
panic, with an increasing number selling
editorial space, long a no-no in the
industry. One only has to look at a few
examples of magazines getting creative
(read: desperate) to notice.
Take for example one tech-related
monthly's recent cover. Well, actually, it
wasn't a cover. It was an advertisement made
to look like the cover, complete with the
magazine's logo at the top. Only when you
looked further did you see the real cover
underneath the 4-page wraparound ad.
According to the Magazine Publishers of
America: "The front cover and spine are
editorial space. Companies and products
should appear on covers only in an editorial
context and not in a way that suggests
advertisement. A magazine's logo should
appear on advertising pages only in
connection with advertisements for the
magazine and its promotions or when an
advertised product is touting editorial
awards that it has won."
In another tech magazine, the editor
recently used his column to lavishly
describe and praise a company's product. The
company's marketing department could not
have done a better job. In fact, much of the
editorial read like it came straight from a
press release. Of course, the company was an
advertiser.
Another tech magazine recently had
regular editorial content "sponsored" by
advertisers, complete with their logo on the
opening page of articles.
Attempts like these clearly demonstrate
the desperation publishers are feeling with
the decline of advertising dollars. Such
practices, however, only undermine both the
publication and its advertisers.
Readers can see through such practices
and will de-value the editorial content
because of the perceived bias. If the
editorial content is considered tainted,
readers will abandon the publication for an
independent source of information. The
magazine loses and so do its advertisers.
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
Am I crazy?
Ken Anderberg
April 20, 2008
I'm not sure which is worse in today's
publishing environment - being an editor or
a publisher. As the former, you're
constantly watching over your shoulder,
waiting for the ax to fall on editorial jobs
because of declining advertising revenues.
As the latter, the pressure to bring in
print advertising is daunting, while client
marketing money bleeds off to the Internet.
To want to be both editor and publisher
borders on insanity, one would think.
But here I am, now the editor and the
publisher of
Communications News. What was I thinking
when I said "Yes" to the offer from my boss
to take on the publisher duties?
Actually, I think
Communications News sits in a very good
place in the technology market. We've seen
prominent weeklies disappear in the past
year and others who are struggling. Quite
simply, their overhead was/is killing them.
High print circulations mean high
advertising rates. Large editorial staffs
mean high advertising rates. There were only
a few tech vendors who could afford those
high rates. So, good magazines like Network
Computing and InfoWorld folded their print
and retreated to the Web. Others will
follow.
As I've met with dozens of vendors this
year, one point has come up repeatedly -
advertisers in this market absolutely
understand the value of print, especially
when it is combined with an integrated
online presence. If that were not the case,
why then would those who conduct trade shows
be so interested in print publications as
vehicles for their promotional ads? Why not
just conduct their marketing via e-mail or
on their sites? Because they know print
works.
But high ad rates to justify artificially
high circulations have driven many vendors
out of print. Those vendors need frequency,
with print an important cornerstone of their
marketing efforts, but when the print rates
are too high, they opt for the
less-expensive online opportunities. It is
then, however, that those vendors begin to
lose their competitive edge.
Despite our name,
Communications News is not about
covering vendor news. We do some of that on
this site but a monthly magazine cannot
cover news. It couldn't 20 years ago and it
can't today. But we can offer insights into
how technology is being used in enterprise
networks; we can showcase the challenges
being faced by IT directors and the
solutions they are implementing. That is our
cause, and the best way to do that is in
print.
Which is not to say we don't understand
the value of online, as well. We now have a
company Web team larger than any of the
seven editorial staffs at Nelson Publishing,
our parent company. This Web site was
recently redesigned and repurposed and we
are still adding features. This summer, for
example, we will be debuting our new White
Paper Library; last month we went live with
our jobs board; and in May we start a new
regular product/white paper e-newsletter.
As tech publications with high overhead
continue to implode, those magazines that
have taken a middle-of-the-road or frugal
financial approach will be left standing.
Those that serve the reader first with
useful, hands-on, peer-to-peer focused
content will thrive. That's why saying yes
to the boss was a no-brainer.
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
Major projects ahead
Ken Anderberg
This just in: Despite expectations of a
possible recession (if we're not already
in one), Communications News
subscribers are planning significant
projects this year, topped by 19.5
percent who say their major projects in
2008 will be to upgrade their LANs,
install new equipment and build new data
centers. Those expectations are
supported by the 61 percent of
subscribers participating in our annual
subscriber profile study who say they
will be purchasing LAN hardware this
year.
Second on the list of new projects are
voice-over-IP implementations, with 13
percent of respondents saying this will be
their major effort this year and 42 percent
planning to purchase VoIP products and
services in 2008. Other subscribers' main
projects for the year: wireless networks (59
percent plan purchases), cabling/enclosures
(47 percent), storage hardware/software (46
percent), network security (38 percent) and
testing and monitoring (37 percent).
In addition, nearly one-fourth of the
respondents say they will spend at least $10
million this year for communications,
network and computer products and services
this year, with 36 percent forecasting an
increased budget from 2007 and 44 percent
expecting the same budget as last year.
The question I like the most, however, as
well as the top answer, was, "Which of the
following helps inform you about what
enterprise products are available?" The top
response: articles in trade magazines (83
percent). Next came vendor Web sites (56
percent), word of mouth among peers (54.5
percent), white papers (52 percent) and
trade shows/events (50 percent). Blogs came
in next to last among 17 answers.
Seventy-one percent said they visited an
advertiser's Web site as a result of reading
Communications News. And 61 percent actually
save their copies of the magazine, many for
a year or more. Only four percent read the
magazine only online.
The most popular areas on this Web site,
according to the survey: articles in the
most recent issue (37 percent), white papers
(31 percent), new product information (26
percent) and the buyers' guides (21
percent).
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
How much do you surf?
Ken Anderberg
There's a perception within the
technology marketing community that people
who work in IT departments spend most of
their workdays glued to computer screens
surfing the Web. In reality, IT staff
generally has little time for such activity,
with their screen time mostly limited to
traffic analysis, writing code or conducting
routine maintenance.
In our last Web survey, we asked site
visitors "How many hours during a typical
work day do you spend 'surfing' the Web?"
Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they
spend less than two hours a day on such
activity, while another 15 percent spend
anywhere from two hours to four hours daily
on the Web. Only 12 percent are on the Web
from four to six hours a day, and 13 percent
surf six hours or more daily at work.
Food for thought if you are marketing to
IT decision makers.
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
Do webinars work for you?
Ken Anderberg
Are you using webinars for marketing?
Maybe your experience is not unlike that of
a vendor I chatted with at a recent trade
show. While this marketing director fully
understands the value of using an integrated
marketing approach, management preferred to
focus its attention on webinars, which
pretty much ate up most of her marketing
budget.
Her experience involved working with a
print and online publication company that
said it had 600,000 opt-in e-mail addresses
to which it could market the webinars. A
total of about 600 people signed up for the
webinars, although I don't know how many
actually listened in. Of those 600, the
company made one sale, albeit a large one
that justified the ROI of conducting the
webinar.
The marketing manager was pleased with
the results, but still not so pleased that
the webinars used up most of her marketing
dollars and she wasn't able to spread her
marketing message in more venues and with
more methods. Would a similar result (one
large sale from 600 webinar attendees) be
satisfactory for you?
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
The VoIP switch
Ken Anderberg
For the past two months or so, we've
asked visitors to this Web site if their
organization will be switching to voice over
IP in 2008? We've put up a new survey (see
at right), so it's time to report on the
findings of the VoIP poll.
Of those responding, only 13 percent
currently have VoIP partially or fully
installed in their organizations. A
startling 65 percent of those participating
in the survey say they will implement VoIP
in 2008. Of those, 29 percent will install
the technology in parts of their
organizations, while 36 percent plan a
complete overhaul of their voice networks to
VoIP.
Twenty-one percent of those polled say
their organizations have no plans for VoIP
in 2008 and have not installed such systems
at all to date.
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
The rebirth of ASPs
Ken Anderberg
At the Gartner ITxpo in Orlando, I asked
one of the many vendor executives I met with
what the difference was between today's
software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers and
application service providers (ASPs) who
were so prominent during the IT gold rush
seven years ago. It was, to me, a rhetorical
question.
The executive promptly shook his head and
concurred that there is really little
difference between the two, but because ASPs
failed miserably no one wants to use the
same moniker to describe what is essentially
the same service. It's kind of a marketing
spin thing, you see. Give it a new name, say
new and improved on the packaging, maybe add
a few new ingredients or fancier packaging,
and try again.
Of course, the main difference today is
the proliferation of broadband connections
in the enterprise community. An ASP service
didn't work very well with dialup
connections and the bubble burst before
broadband use became widespread. Now,
broadband is pervasive and SaaS has a better
chance of success - or does it?
Maybe I'm being too cynical, but are
there really any differences between ASPs
and SaaS providers? And does anyone think
they will go the way of ASPs?
P.S. I've got a fishing story to share
with anyone interested. Just e-mail me.
kanderberg@comnews.com
September 18, 2007
Do enterprise IT executives and vendor
marketing executives see eye to eye? That
was the subject of a recent "perceptions"
survey Communications News
conducted among our readers and technology
vendors to evaluate whether both audiences
were on the same page in terms of needs and
marketing approaches. More than 900
subscribers responded, and their answers
often varied sharply from the vendors they
purchase from.
Both groups agreed on the top two
concerns of IT departments in 2008 - network
security and network performance, although
there was (is) a significant difference
between the two groups regarding how serious
network security would be to subscribers,
who we will call the customers, in 2008.
Three-fourths of customers cited security as
their top concern; 90 percent of the vendors
participating say this is their customers'
top concern.
Some other significant perception versus
reality differences, include who primarily
makes IT buying decisions - IT technical
people or non-techies. Vendors say
non-techies make such decisions 40 percent
of the time, while customers say the techies
make them 84 percent of the time.
Vendors (54 percent) say the most
important justification for purchases is
"building a case for improving operations,"
but 53 percent of customers say "budget
restrictions" are their primary
consideration. Nearly seven times as many
vendors consider peer-to-peer
recommendations as important as do
customers; and twice as many customers are
concerned with customer service as are the
companies selling them the products.
Vendors (57 percent) say articles in
trade magazines influence purchasing
decisions; 76 percent of customers contend
such articles influence their buying
decisions. In addition, buyers' guides are 4
1/2 times as important in the customer group
than is perceived by the vendor group;
customers are 2 times more likely to be
influenced by ads in trade magazines than
vendors believe; catalogs are six times more
useful to customers than vendors say; trade
publication Web sites are rated twice as
important as vendors think; and online
product videos are more than twice as
popular among customers than perceived.
One area both groups did agree on (not
surprisingly, based on the data above) was
whether enterprise IT vendors effectively
communicate an understanding of customers'
needs. Fifty-nine percent of subscribers
said yes and 52 percent of vendors agree.
Put another way, 48 percent of the vendors
surveyed do not think they are doing a good
job of communicating to potential customers.
Interesting stuff.
If you would like a copy of the survey
report, just send me an e-mail.
kanderberg@comnews.com
September 1, 2007
IT departments everywhere are battling
against the "consumerization" of the
enterprise network - the adoption of
consumer technologies in the corporate
environment. They fear this trend will
create major maintenance and support
problems. But a report from the
Yankee
Group, "Zen and the Art of Rogue
Employee Management," says enterprise IT
departments need to find ways to embrace
these consumer technologies - not fight
them.
IT departments have been down this road
before with PCs, laptops and cellphones, for
example. Invariably, IT has taken a
wait-and-see approach to these technologies,
but Yankee Group suggests a gentler, more
community-oriented approach - basically let
employees police themselves.
The suggestion is for IT to adopt a
"Zen-like" approach to managing such
technologies. This would take the form of an
internal customer care co-operative model.
As Joshua Holbrook of Yankee Group explains,
"Banning the use of consumer technologies in
the workplace creates an endless game of
whack-a-mole as IT support tries to catch
and suppress each new device and
application. IT groups that are willing to
try to manage it all will soon be
overwhelmed."
I doubt that providing an open door into
the network for consumer technologies is a
good idea, but maybe someone has a different
view.
For comments please email:
kanderberg@comnews.com
September 6, 2007
Greetings:
Balancing the need for control of the IT
environment against the pressure brought
unintentionally by our users to use software
and devices not "approved" is indeed a
challenge. My background begins with
software development and one of the earliest
lessons I learned was that no matter how
neat or cool I thought the software was, if
the intended audience had issues with it,
then the software, however neat and cool,
did not succeed. We are a service industry;
and I have found that if we try to dictate
what services our customers should want, we
have taken step one towards creating an
adversarial relationship. This is never
productive. By not trying to lock down
everything, by spending our energies trying
to help educate the consumer about how their
goals and our goals are really the same
goals, we've been able to get a fairly high
degree of cooperation where and when it's
most needed. We've succeeded in creating an
environment where when we do assert
ourselves to exercise control in a
particular area (most often security and
bandwidth management, for a particular
reason, our users have come to recognize
that what we're doing is largely to help or
protect them and their productivity, not to
control them. Do they still do things we
wish they wouldn't? Absolutely. Do they from
time to time make us mumble and grumble to
ourselves and each other within the IT team?
Absolutely. Do they view the IT team as
their partners; as a ready resource to call
upon when they have a need? Absolutely.
Doug Sands
Chief Information Officer
Royal Pet Supplies