Can you Reuse the Refuse?

A Look at reusing old hardware to decrease the burden onthe CapEx without
killing the OpEx…even in Pakistan!
Things aren’t always what they seem to be. Case in point, a pile of junk, isn’t always a pile of junk. And if you’re anything like the many technology enthusiasts who buy hardware directly as opposed to through a proper procurement or purchase department, chances are, you’ve ended up buying a truckload of hardware that you didn’t necessarily need. Instead of throwing it all away, there are things you can do to bring some of the hardware back in use. And before you stand up in protest of the fact that this will only add to the refurbished hardware market, we asked people to tell us ways that our companies could save on cost because they already had hardware lying around on their premises.
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Industry Rising?

How much of the economic sludge can the new fiscal budget actually help to relieve? Every industry has its strong points to consider, hence making a business case to one association or another as to why or why not it should be in the tax net. But when you look at the Information Technology sector, you simply cannot look at it in isolation because it has an impacting effect on every other industry. Call it the common denominator or whatever other buzzword you’d like, Information Communications Technology touches the boundaries of several hundred industries. In many cases, they drive the competition and enable traditional Pakistani enterprises to compete more effectively in international markets.

Technology is an enabler. It makes sure that businesses can run on it. Much like physical infrastructure, the progress of roads and other infrastructure which enable logistics will be severely hindered, if you put strain on the services which enable the growth. If you tax the industry itself, instead of being able to have the requisite impact, the costs will be too much for any other organization to bear. And once that happens, not only will we be killing off hundreds of thousands of jobs, we’ll be putting our economy into some serious economic distress in the long term. So what needs to happen? Read more

Networking 2.0: Driving Networking Through the Power of Online

There’s a whole science behind it while others refer to it as an art. Knowing how to get the most effective utility out of a networking opportunity provided to you is tough work. Read more

Where Do Our CIOs Stand?

We interviewed a 100 CIOs and IT Heads across various industries in Pakistan and here’s what we came up with. You can preview the PDF of our December 2008 Cover Story, but we’d like you to share your insights as to the accuracy or relevance of the data we have collected. Read more

The Balancing Act: An Economy and a CIO

Umair Naeem takes a look…

As Pakistan continues to go through increasing inflation and economic instability due to the political situation and the Rupee’s inability to hold on to the coat tails of the Dollar, local and multinational companies and SMEs face an unenviable situation: balancing cost and profit ratios by trying to predict how the economy will respond in the coming months. Meanwhile, oil prices continue to be all over the place, and the costs of oil related commodities to rise, thus effecting planning and profit forecasting and causing a perpetual headache to those who have to predict where to efficiently and effectively buy from. Read more

Web 2.0 for the CIO: Too Hard To Handle?

It’s a state of mind more than anything else. A CIO’s job today can’t be an easy one, and the Web2.0 we all love to love, isn’t making the Chief a very happy camper. One of the main reasons that an interactive internet is so good is because of the bi-directional ease with which information is allowed to flow. You can already see the nightmare this causes for the average IT department in any vertical. Read more

Project: Computerized Electoral Roll System

Pakistan’s general elections were held on the 18th of February, 2008 after a series of incidents that literally rocked the foundations of the country. After experiencing a bullish market and a stability that we hadn’t experienced in decades, March 2007 to today, Pakistan has had to face one conundrum after another. Read more