Iowa considers outsourcing e-mail

Iowa State University officials are looking into a plan that would outsource the university's e-mail system to a large technology company, says wcco.com.

Officials say turning over the university's e-mail system to a firm like Google could help cut costs, because the service would be free. But critics wonder how secure student information will be if an outside company oversees accounts.

Iowa State officials say the university spends about $450 000 a year on its central e-mail system. Costs that go into maintaining the system such as spam software are projected to increase. But officials said if a company takes over, those concerns could be alleviated.

Under a seven-year, $41 million contract, Affiliated Computer Services will provide IT outsourcing services to Parkland Health & Hospital System, a Dallas-based public hospital system, says TMCnet.

ACS will supply comprehensive infrastructure services, including data centre operations, network monitoring and management, asset tracking and help-desk support services.

The company will also implement a comprehensive disaster recovery platform that utilises a network connection to securely store critical Parkland clinical data online.

British managers who offshored call centre work and IT services to cheaper locations like India earlier in the decade are now bringing the jobs back to the UK, a trend that could reshape the outsourcing industry, says guardian.co.uk.

The U-turn comes as customers question the quality of service offered by non-resident workers, and as data protection concerns and other issues force a re-evaluation of the economic benefit of outsourcing jobs so far from the market they serve.

Both Lloyds TSB and the UK's train route-finder National Rail Enquiries have reduced customer-contact presence in India in recent times, officials of both organisations confirmed.