The Bloor Perspective: EMC's declaration of independence, the insecurities of the board and diminishing mobile mania

In light of the growing importance of managing storage, this week EMC and Accenture joined together to create Information Solutions Consulting, a new business targeted at bringing "end-to-end, platform-independent storage consulting services" to the market.

The five-year agreement will see the new group established as a unit within EMC but separate from the core EMC professional services business. The new services are meant to extend the reach of EMC's services, not replace its service business.

The unit will have around 200 staff from both EMC and Accenture and will initially focus its efforts on EMC's existing Global accounts in North America and Europe. The consulting services will look at areas including cost reductions and the design of storage infrastructures.

While EMC will be totally responsible for the strategic direction of the unit with all revenue flowing through it, there is no doubting the potential strengths of such cooperation between the two organisations.

While the new venture wants to position itself as an independent consulting company, this may prove difficult while it is effectively another EMC business unit.

Interestingly, both EMC and Accenture will remain free to work with other partners. However, this may also pose challenges since many of EMC's existing partner base already attempt to offer such "vendor-independent" services.

There is certainly a demand from the end user community for highly skilled, high-value advice on how to build and manage heterogeneous storage systems. EMC is currently devoting a lot of attention to this area, especially through its AutoIS and WideSky software initiatives.

If EMC and Accenture together can grab any sort of hold in the vendor neutral consultancy business there is clearly room to grow. We shall have to wait to see if the two together can win mind share as a "Switzerland of Storage" advice centre and build a thriving operation.

Security still baffling the board

The latest security study, this time from Integralis, has found some worrying trends. Did you know, for instance, that 65 per cent of the 190 UK businesses surveyed by Integralis admitted to having an IT attack, be it hacker, virus or whatever, at some point in the last 12 months.
Furthermore, 15 per cent of those asked said they weren't actually sure if they had been affected by viruses - now that is worrying, but nothing revelatory.

The really interesting part of the study, in fact, was nothing to do with the number of attacks, viruses and so on that companies had suffered. They are, after all, an everyday and nigh-on accepted part of life nowadays. Rather, the interesting bit was the news that 85 per cent of respondents described their IT security awareness as low to medium.

Assuming that Integralis spoke to IT business leaders and not the tea boy, this study is bad news indeed. If the people making the decisions and driving the projects and initiatives around the company have no idea about security, then times are looking very bad.

This is what has made Integralis claim that some serious board-level education is required. If security is to be taken seriously throughout the organisation there needs to be a driver, and there's rarely a better place for that than from the top.

There are other points worth mentioning in this study. For instance one of the ways companies are trying to tackle their security problems is by turning to outsourced or managed security services. Sixty per cent of those questioned highlighted this as an important consideration. Only 35 per cent of them have actually used such services though.

Outsourced or managed security services do provide some definite and very appealing advantages. You get security skills, service level agreements and, theoretically, you get less security problems. However, that doesn't mean it is for everyone. Outsourcing is a plan that people typically either love or hate and, despite the considerable advantages to be gained, if it goes wrong, it can go very wrong indeed.

Mobilising the UK

There are few signs in the UK that mobile phone users will be upgrading their handsets
in the short term, according to Taylor Nelson Sofres.

The firm yesterday revealed the latest findings from a study and the picture it painted was a bleak one - for the manufacturers.

The study compared mobile phone ownership over the past 12 months, from April 2001, and it showed some worrying trends. In the UK, where mobile phone ownership is as common as television ownership, the public are hanging onto their handsets for an average of 20 months. Compared to the previous year, when people where typically keeping their handsets for only 16 months, this gave a grim outlook for the manufacturers.

The real cling-ons, as we might as well call them, were the British people aged between 35 and 44 who were keeping their handsets for an average of 21 months. Those aged between 12 and 24 weren't quite so slow, typically replacing their handsets after 17 months.

The reason for the slow-down in the upgrade cycle is obvious - there's no point. Manufacturers of the handsets are hoping that new models, with exciting features like colour screens and, erm... not much else actually, will drive new growth into the sector.

But clearly this isn't enough for experienced handset users. Colour screens will undoubtedly have some pull in the US and other emerging mobile phone markets but the more experienced, Asia and much of Europe, are still waiting for the killer app. And that shows no sign of appearing in the short term.

Previously, the big handset upgrade cycle was kept to a minimum as a new breed of handset emerged which were smaller and provided better reception than the old fashioned brick-sized models that were around just a year or more ago.

Now it seems that the UK has made the switch to these devices and, right now, there are few compelling reasons to upgrade any further - unless, of course, your handset is malfunctioning.

**Bloor Research is a leading independent analyst organisation in Europe. You can find out more at www.bloor-research.com or by emailing mail@bloor-research.com.