Our Thoughts on IT Matters

Keep Posted on Industry News and Events

   

The Top 10 IT Services Companies for 2023

Introduction Many of you will remember last year’s very successful blog regarding the Top 10 India-Based IT Services Companies for 2022, where Mphasis was rated as the #1 overall performing “India-Based” IT Services Company. We decided to expand the focus this year beyond “India” to include the rest of the world, and while India remains a critical region for offshoring talent, and certainly India-based firms are disproportionately represented in the analysis, the India-based firms are also competing (and winning) head-to-head with the global elite, so there is no reason why we can’t measure them in the full context of the highest demands of ...

Read More

Time to Defuse Your Kyndryl Deal BEFORE it Detonates

Introduction Kyndryl is the new name for IBM’s managed infrastructure services business (what they refer to as IBM Global Technology Services), which spun out of IBM in November of 2021. Over the last 10+ years, IBM has fallen from a technology titan to a member of the walking dead, so how must Kyndryl feel about itself knowing that it is the discarded most unwanted stepchild of this unholy monster? Unlike Microsoft, IBM has proven unable to reinvent itself as a cloud company. IBM was very well positioned to become a big benefactor of the cloud revolution, and the explosion of the data center utility model, but IBM continues to suffer from a ...

Read More

Cyber Security and Ransomware: Punching Above Your Weight With MSPs and MSSPs

The news is rife lately with security breaches and ransomware attacks. The U.S. company Colonial Pipeline was among one of the high profile cases given the impact on business and consumers across the country. There have been several others such as JBS USA food processor, Ireland’s HSE (Health Service Executive) which manages health care system, Acer and many, many more. As an NBC news item recently put it, Cyber Security staff are barely hanging on and not able to keep up with the barrage of attacks. Its clear that for the short term, the opportunities for criminals to make vast sums of money are simply too good to resist and will likely ...

Read More

SolarWinds Breach: Three Lessons You Need to Heed

What do the Pentagon, the U.S. State Department, The White House, the NSA, all five branches of the US military, the top ten U.S. telecommunications companies, and four hundred twenty-five of the Fortune 500 all have in common? Given the title of this article, you already have a clue, which is that they are all SolarWinds customers. Those are just some of the higher profile organizations, but in all there are 300k SolarWinds customers around the world, with about 18k identified as impacted. The impact of this breach is so far and deep, the actual repercussions will not be fully understood for years potentially. However, we don’t have to wait ...

Read More

Cloud Cost Optimization: Moving Mountains With Shovels

The front lines of the Cloud Cost Optimization battle are not going well for many. Sadly, the worst part of the story is, that most don’t even know it yet. As Cloud investments go deeper and broader throughout corporate computing environments, so too is the waste and damage to IT budgets. I’ve been in IT long enough to witness hundreds of companies implement and manage thousands of different environments with hundreds of various suppliers. Suffice it to say, I’ve been around. So, when I tell you that waste and overspend on Cloud are at frightening levels, you should pay attention when I share why, and what you might be able to do about it. ...

Read More

Terminating Your IT Services Contract

Preface: Due principally to COVID-19, NET(net) has been getting many requests from clients for recommendations on how they can reduce or otherwise reshape their IT contracts; particularly their IT Services Agreements. Insider eBook: Top 5 Ways to Terminate Your IT Services Contract When it comes to contract wrangling in 2020, the soup du jour has been force majeure, but instead of a ‘silver bullet’ of sorts to get relief from contractual obligations in the age of a global pandemic, many of our clients are learning that the force majeure Rosetta Stone may not be the panacea of bargaining table control they hoped it was. In most cases where ...

Read More

Your Cisco Technology Investments: It’s Time for Bold Action

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook If you’ve been avoiding risk or waiting for the right time to take bold action in reducing both your reliance and cost structure with Cisco – the wait should be over. The market readiness to reduce or eliminate your Cisco dependence is at an all time high with suppliers who are stable, reliable, innovative and eager to win your business. Below we’ll outline how: The Cisco ecosystem is set up to work against the economics of its own customers Why their ...

Read More

Security Operations Center: Insource or Outsource to MSSP?

As technology marches ever forward, the threats to Enterprise Security have seemingly multiplied exponentially. Our ability as organizations to stay ahead of the risks that technological advancements have brought to the forefront are challenged daily. Literally. They are challenged everyday by threats from: Foreign governments trying to access data and networks Cloud security as more and more corporate data is stored outside proprietary networks Shadow IT Ransomware Phishing attacks on unaware employees Internal bad actors (i.e. employees who wish to do harm) Malware installed on endpoints surreptitiously by external bad actors There are ...

Read More

Financial Services Blog Series: Optimizing IT Spend in Banks to Improve Efficiency Ratio and Fund Innovation

It was just a few years ago when a leading global consulting firm noted in their financial services outlook, that the “industry would switch gears from defensive compliance remediation to a proactive search for revenue growth and further cost reduction.” As topline growth stayed modest over the years, banks focused mostly on operational efficiencies to drive financial performance improvements. As an example, they looked for scale efficiencies through rationalizing their branch networks with only mixed results. Banks are very complex organizations, but as IT and Finance collaborate more to redefine their role and value, optimizing IT cost as ...

Read More