You'll find that IBM are fully au-fait with all the security, regulatory, recovery and performance aspects. You are up against IBM who, along with EDS (Whom I just left), CGEY and a pile of others who have done this inside out and upside down and more times than you've had hot dinners. Put all, and I mean all, of your technical aspects to one side. If IBM are at proposal stage it means they're nowhere near the technical nitty gritty. That comes with the Due Diligence phase where you will have the opportunity to lay all the cards on the table and where IBM adjust their cost model to suit what you say you want versus what they say you really want and, this is a biggy, what that say they can provide from cheap Leveraged resources and what they can provide from dedicated resources.
The more they can provide from Leveraged resources the cheaper it'll become and the less viable an internal solution becomes. All of your bullet points will be met with indifference since they're pretty run of the mill. You will most likely find that IBM taking over the servers does not necessarily mean taking them into their own data centres. It could just as easily mean that they transition some of you employees into IBM (making some redundant later) and manage the boxes on your current sites. The reason IBM are coming in is that your CIO wants the same job done cheaper, not necessarily better, just cheaper. Better is a luxury Your best hope is to conduct a root and branch review of exactly what you have got, what you can get rid of and consolidate, how many staff you can afford to lay off as part of internal cost savings, and finally what your cost savings will be as a result of the internal rationalisations. You will be onto a loser in the long run since it's a foot in the door to total IT outsourcing and business process re-engineering. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jon Hill Sent: 16 November 2003 03:57 To: Exchange Discussions Subject: outsource!? My CIO has asked me to attend a meeting in which IBM is going to propose outsourcing our e-mail services, taking over for our 350 Exchange 2000 mailboxes. I'm looking for arguments to marshal against outsourcing. So far, what I've got is: * security: We use Clearswift MIMEsweeper to block incoming (and outgoing) messages containing viruses or executable files (.bat, .exe, etc.). This being IBM, I'm sure they can protect against viruses, though. * disaster recovery: Our disaster site is updated in real time. During the blackout in August e-mail was up twenty minutes after I arrived at the DR site. Again, probably not a potent line item against IBM. * regulatory: we have some regulatory requirements for keeping all records (including e-mail) on site for seven years. * integration: Our CRM solution integrates directly into Exchange, adding contacts directly to the users' mailboxes. * performance: I have trouble seeing how performance would be adequate when the mail server is off site. * price: 250 users. 350 mailboxes. 140GB/month (according to the Journal folders). That can't be cheap. * legacy: Seven years of preexisting e-mail, spread out among mailboxes and pst files. About 200GB all told. What else am I missing? _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=exchange&text_mode=&; lang=english To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message has been appended by MailEssentials Verion 9, www.gfi.co.uk The message has been scanned by Norman, Bitdefender, Macfee & eTrust 6. It is hopefully free of virus's Date: 16/11/2003 Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Recipient: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=exchange&text_mode=&lang=english To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
