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Around 85 per cent of application service providers (ASP) will fail to deliver service-level agreements to their customers because their own suppliers lack performance targets, according to IT analysts Gartner.
One-third of small and medium-sized enterprises said that is was simple to change their Internet service provider, claimed telecoms watchdog Oftel in a quarterly survey of 700 SMEs. Half of medium-sized companies have also changed mobile phone companies in an effort to get better coverage, service and support.
Swedish mobile phone company Ericsson is cutting 3,700 jobs in the UK and Sweden and is ending all mobile telephone production at its Worksop and Scunthorpe sites in a bid to save £1.4 billion a year. The group is outsourcing the manufacture of mobile phones to electronics specialist Flextronics. It is expected to source in eastern Europe or the Far East.
Japanese semiconductor and computer company NEC is to shed 4,000 jobs and pull out of memory chip production. The cuts come on top of 14,000 job losses since 1999. The move is seen as the latest indication that Japanese companies are relinquishing their traditional reservations about the social impact of job cuts.
As the world tries to come to terms with the terrorist attacks on the US, Peter Smith asks whether the purchasing profession can be a force for good
should hook up right?
Q: In e-mail communications between buyer and seller, when can contractual acceptance be said to occur?