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Re: [Asrg] Proposal for transition to authenticated email

2003-05-02 08:56:41
Kee Hinckley wrote:

As for your "it's easy" statements. They all deal with technical issues. Not business and political issues. Most companies do *not* like to outsource mission critical technology. You like phone comparisons. Compare the market for in-house phone systems to outsourced (to the phone company) systems. WHich is larger. Why?

That's not right. Most consultants I know recommend that businesses keep in house only technology that is within their core competency. Other technology should be evaluated for outsourcing. In particular, mission critical technology that is not within a company's core competency should be at the top of the list for outsourcing.

The reason is that mission ciritical technology cannot be allowed to fail. If a company spends resources trying to operate a technology that is outside its core competency, it detracts from the company's main business focus, which is its core competency. Such technology should be outsourced to someone whose core competency and demonstrated expertise is in operating the technology in question. That's why there are ASPs.

This is certainly true for e-mail. It's just that most companies have had higher priority things to outsource. That's because e-mail didn't require much attention. With the rising tide of spam, however, many companies are finding that running in-house mail now requires specialized expertise and resources to run. Many companies are therefore now considering outsourcing mail as well.

I have long recommended that companies, particularly small businesses, outsource e-mail. The reason is that e-mail can only be a millstone around the CIO's neck and never a plus. E-mail is generally not perceived as mission critical by most senior executives (whether or not it actually is.). The CIO gets no brownie points for running e-mail well, but gets bombed by everybody when it goes down. That alone is a really good reason for outsourcing it.

BTW, I have been both a CIO and a corporate ops director several times. When I had to run internal phone service, I moved to convert, to the extent feasible, to centrex as one of my first tasks on taking the job.

 -LM

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