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Preston hits the nail on the head in saying the IT arena may not be so public as the sports arena. The majority of users, from admin assistants to general managers, take what they use for granted. If they can log in, read an e-mail, make a presentation and print a document, everything is fine. When the technology isn't working, IT gets the spotlight.

Preston also talks about courage in IT. Our latest corporate project is migrating users to Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange 2000. For my company, which has thousands of employees coast to coast at numerous sites, this task is intimidating, but I look forward to learning something new and using that knowledge to help the project. Courage in this case is trying to get past internal corporate politics to complete the project so everyone in the corporation can communicate and collaborate efficiently. Some people don't see the big picture; they fail to recognize that they're part of a corporation. These people do their own thing because they think it's best for them, not for the company. I imagine we've all done this at some point, but I've driven myself past this behavior for several reasons, not the least of which is that I was tired of having tunnel vision and worrying about tomorrow instead of next week or next year.

Russ Lyons
LAN/WAN Administrator
Company name and e-mail withheld by request

Mike Lee hits the nail on the head in his column "My Dog Ate My 10 Gig Switch." We're seeing the same kind of "you don't need to review this" vendor attitude here in West Virginia University's Advanced Network Applications Lab.

It used to be that whatever caught our interest would be easy to get in house for a 30-, 60- or 90-day eval. Now getting gear for evaluation is like pulling teeth. We've been after one major network vendor for almost a year to let us evaluate its DWDM optical gear. This evaluation could result in a multimillion-dollar sale if we like the gear. So far, no dice. Jeffrey Fritz
Director of Networking; Office of Information Technology West Virginia University
jfritz@wvu.edu

Calling All Vendors
I appreciate Mike Lee's column "My Dog Ate My 10 Gig Switch" (Jan. 23, 2003). As an IS manager, I don't have the resources to analyze hardware I want to implement. When faced with the need to implement switches, routers or what have you, our department turns to reviews in trade magazines. Your service is a vital resource that provides a ton of useful information we can't get on our own. Our final procurement most often includes products of vendors that have participated in reviews.

Vendor participation is critical, and vendors truly lose out in the long run if they don't take part. My network of friends and co-workers often looks for hardware reviews within their own environments. Vendor participation is seen as total openness with a desire to improve, not to protect.

Thanks again and keep doing the excellent job you and your staff do each and every month.

Mike Klinkowski
IS Manager; Bourns
mikek@pcu.net

Revelation?
Sorry, Lori MacVittie, [your suggestion in] "Interoperability Revelation" (Jan. 23, 2003) is not a revelation to the vendors. It's exactly what they don't want. They're all trying to move to a "services" model because that's where the money is. And every other IT-related article is trying to help them figure out how to do it. So it's totally counterproductive for them to do anything that would "alleviate the lion's share of expense associated with hiring the professional services and third-party integration frameworks currently necessary."

Kevin Square
Network Administrator; Dynea U.S.A.
Kevin.Square@dynea.com

Lori MacVittie responds: I agree. It's not in the vendors' best interests to advocate anything that deprives them of a revenue stream. I know they don't want it, but it's what the industry--and our readers--need.

However, if the vendors weren't receiving revenue because of their business models and attitudes, it would be a different story. Buyers need to be more demanding and make sure a vendor knows when it's lost a sale and why.

Rather than a revelation, we should be pushing for a revolution.

Good to the Core
My sincere compliments to Greg Shipley for his excellent, substantive article "Secure to the Core" (Jan. 23, 2003). Shipley's messages are extremely well-carved and have great impact. The body of the article is comprehensive and yet to the point and very instructive.

Philippe Courtot
Chairman and CEO; Qualys
pcourtot@qualys.com



Correction
Contrary to what we stated in our Sneak Preview of OptiView's SiteCelerate (Feb. 6, 2003), a wire add-on is necessary only in a man-in-the-middle configuration.



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