Executive E-Mail: Managing IT for Business Value (Steve Ballmer)

Executive E-Mail: Managing IT for Business Value (Steve Ballmer) "I spend a lot of time talking with Microsoft customers around the world, and one thing I consistently hear is that the growing complexity of today's computing systems is driving up costs and limiting the potential of information technology to work on the toughest business problems. In fact, a study by the consulting firm Accenture [pok: of which Ballmer has been a board member since 2001] reported that IT professionals spend up to 70 percent of their time maintaining existing systems.
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Specifically, DSI is about doing three things really well:
-- Building software development tools that help IT managers and software-development teams design computing systems that are inherently simple and inexpensive to manage. We call this "design for operations."
-- Enhancing the Windows operating system platform with powerful management technologies suited for complex and constantly-changing IT environments, such as automated deployment, configuration and monitoring.
-- Building easy-to-use, scalable solutions that cover every aspect of the management experience, with real-time feedback on system performance and a high level of automation."