Technology and Strategy :: essays research papers

Technology Widgets.com will implement a standard IT infrastructure to support individual office locations in New Jersey, California, Texas and Colorado, and new US-based locations we plan to open up over the next 3-5 years such as Massachusetts, New York, Virgina/DC . This IT infrastructure includes both our computing and communications systems. We will look to contract with a single vendor source for each system component where possible that can support all our offices on a nationwide basis. We will also continue to use the web as our network backbone in lieu of other private network protocols, i.e T1. In some cases we will build our own intellectual property to support the IT infrastructure where we believe this creates a competitive differentiator and asset for Widgets.com. An example here is our Oracle database and CRM/PRM applications. Our IT infrastructure objectives are to increase our company asset base, operating efficiency and reduce overall operating costs. The system components and the vendors providing these components must be financially secure, provide reliable 24x7 support and be accessible from any location within the US. The system components of our IT infrastructure are described below. Hardware Platform Standards Vendor Status Category Mobile Desktops Dell Computer Green Productivity Tools Lan ? Yellow Collaboration Tools Printers/Scanners/Copiers HP Green Productivity Tools UPS Backup ? Yellow Productivity Tools Office Phone sets ? Yellow Collaboration/Sales and Marketing Tools Storage Devices ? Yellow Productivity Tools Wirelss PDAs ? Yellow Collaboration/Sales and Marketing Tools Sofware Plaform Standards Vendor Status Category Operating Enviroment Windows 2000/NT/Java/HTML Green Portal Intranets Green Collaboration Tools Word/Spreadsheet/Presentation Microsoft Office Green Productivity Tools Email/Calendar Microsoft Outlook Green Collaboration Tools Accounting NetLedger/Quicken Yellow Adminstration Tools Expense Management NetLedger Expense Yellow Adminstration Tools Project/Deliverable Management ? Red Collaboration Tools Content Manager ? Red Collaborations Tools Business Process Manager (Practice Mgt.) ? Red Collaboration Tools CRM - Client DB Oracle/Cambridge Red Sales and Marketing Tools PRM - Consultant DB Oracle/Cambridge Red Sales and Marketing Tools HRM - Employee/Payroll DB Adminstaff Yellow Adminstration Tools Green Service Providers Vendor(s) Status Category Local Phone Service ?