Management Chapter 5 What if you bought a beautiful new car

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servers to very high levels— businesses spend as much running a server as they did on

purchasing it.

Interactive Session: Technology: Nordea Goes Green with IT (see page 217 of the

text) describes how the banking group Nordea reduced its impact on the environment by

using technology to become more efficient.

High-Performance and Power-Saving Processors

As businesses require more and more computing capacity, hardware and chip

manufacturers are answering the need with multicore processors. Rather than a single

Autonomic Computing

As companies rely more and more on IT to meet the user demands, they can’t afford to

have any system downtime at all. Downtime costs money. Autonomic computing is a

step toward creating an IT infrastructure that is able to diagnose and fix problems with

very little human intervention.

Autonomic computing features systems that can:

• Configure themselves

Bottom Line: There are many different ways a business can meet its computing

demands: mobile digital platforms, grid computing, cloud computing, autonomic

computing, virtualization and multicore processing. Although these services may be

relatively new, rest assured they will grow in demand as companies require better

ways to manage IT infrastructures.

5.4 Contemporary Software Platform Trends

What if you bought a beautiful new car with all the fanciest equipment inside, but when

you tried to start the engine nothing happened? How can that be, you ask? The car cost a

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Linux and Open-Source Software

Security problems in proprietary software are usually discovered by those working inside

the particular software manufacturer. That task is often restricted by the number of

employees dedicated to the task, resource allocation, and organizational problems that

Open-source software isn’t limited to Linux but includes applications such as Mozilla

Firefox Web browser and free office suite software such as OpenOffice.

“OpenOffice.org 3 is the result of over twenty years’ software

engineering. Designed from the start as a single piece of software, it has a

consistency other products cannot match. A completely open development

Software for the Web: Java, HTML, and HTML5

Java fulfills the need for interactive programming over the Internet. What makes this

language so enticing is that it is platform-independent. This means that you don’t need to

worry about compatibility between separate operating systems such as Windows,

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HTML and HTML5

It’s becoming quite common for the average computer user to create Web pages using the

Hypertext markup language (HTML). In fact, by using the PC software tools we

discussed earlier (Word 2010, Lotus 1-2-3, PowerPoint), you can as easily create a Web

page as you can a letter, chart, or database. Combining HTML language into everyday

applications is one more step towards integrating the Internet into everything we do.

The original version of HTML was created when the Web was first borne. It never took

Web Services and Service-Oriented Architecture

Web services use Internet technology to link application programs together without

having to create custom coding. And, as the name suggests, they are Web-based, making

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A white paper written by Jon Bosak, Sun Microsystems, explains XML:

XML gives us a single, human-readable syntax for serializing just about

any kind of structured data—including relational data—in a way that lets

it be manipulated and displayed using simple, ubiquitous, standardized

tools. The larger implications of a standard, easily processed serial data

format are hard to imagine, but they are obviously going to have a large

It’s all part of the evolution of the Internet.

Four software standards and communication protocols provide easy access to data and

information via Web services:

• XML—eXtensible Markup Language: Describes data in Web pages and databases.

• SOAP—Simple Object Access Protocol: Allows applications to exchange data and

instructions.

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Software Outsourcing and Cloud Services

Earlier we described how businesses were going to outside vendors to meet their

hardware needs. Organizations are now doing much the same for their software needs.

Three external sources for software outsourcing are:

• Software packages from a commercial vendor

Software Packages and Enterprise Software

Rather than design, write, test, and maintain legacy systems, many organizations choose

Software Outsourcing

Companies are discovering that it’s cheaper and easier to hire third party vendors for

software related tasks such as system maintenance, data management, and program

Cloud-based Software Services and Tools

Small and mid-size companies in need of sophisticated software can rent only what they

need and can afford through online software as a service (SaaS) providers. For instance,

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service completed? These are just some of the issues managers must address when they

consider using SaaS providers versus in-house technology support.

Businesses must exercise caution when using software outsourcing or SaaS providers. If

things can go wrong, they likely will. Service level agreements (SLA) help protect both

customers and the service providers. Here are the main points of SLAs:

• Defines responsibilities of the service provider and level of service expected by

Mashups and Apps

You may be familiar with mapping services on the Web such as Mapquest.com or

Google maps. These applications provide an easy method to find your way around town.

Separately, you may have used a shopping site to locate stores that carry products you’re

Let’s say you’re shopping at Macy’s and see a blouse or shirt that you just love. The price

seems a little high but you’re not sure you can get it more cheaply somewhere else. All

you have to do is pull out your smartphone, download an app, scan the bar code or enter a

few details about the blouse, and in seconds you’ll have information about other places

that carry the item, the price, and maybe how many they have in stock. Apps, short for

applications, are very small programs that perform one particular task. They can be

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To create the app, Johnson relied on a company called Swebapps.com, one

of a new crop of services that help clients order up their own smartphone

apps—often in less time and for less money than it would take to develop

an app from scratch. Like Alliance Video Products, churches, museums,

schools, and other small businesses of every stripe can now get into the

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Bottom Line: The five major themes in contemporary software platform

5.5 Management Issues

The speed and computing capacity of technology continues to advance at dizzying speeds

and in ways we can hardly dream. Star Trek is no longer a vision for the 24th century but

for next week. Keeping up with all the advancements can be a major task in itself.

Dealing with Platform and Infrastructure Change

To be sure, it’s extremely hard to figure out ahead of time how much computing capacity

a company will need. It’s like gazing into a crystal ball and trying to discern the future.

Managers need to design scalability into their systems so that they don’t under– or over-

Now that employees are relying on mobile computing devices to accomplish more tasks,

businesses need to develop policies and procedures that are adaptable to the new

technology. The issues businesses need to address include:

• Inventorying all mobile devices in business use

Management and Governance

Technology continues to proliferate in every business, large and small. Users are more

familiar and comfortable with technology and usually see it as a helpful addition to their

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Making Wise Infrastructure Investments

Electronic business, electronic commerce, and digitization of the corporate world

continue to grow. The Internet is touted as being 24/7, anytime, anywhere. For that model

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of Technology Assets

The cost issue is becoming more important to businesses and companies as computer

technology and networks grow. Depending on the configuration of the network, a

By no means should managers simply count the dollars spent on the hardware and

software; they need to also determine the persware cost.

Competitive Forces Model for IT Infrastructure Investment

Does your company spend too little on IT infrastructure thereby foregoing opportunities

for new or improved products and services? Or does your company spend too much on IT

Some of these tasks are very difficult because of how quickly technology improvements

come into the market place. Even so, it’s worth the effort.

Bottom Line: So where are we going with all this technology? Computers that are

easier to use and incorporated into our everyday lives are in the near future.

Improved technologies for business computing are being introduced each day.

Discussion Questions:

1. Determine the Total Cost of Ownership associated with the technology in your

workplace or classroom, even if that’s your own home. Use your hourly wage or

salary as a basis to figure the persware cost.

2. Describe the five technology drivers of the infrastructure evolution. Which do you

think has been the most influential in helping us achieve the level of technology we

enjoy today?

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Answers to Discussion Questions

1. Answers should include references to the hardware costs, including cabling,

telephone line access charges, and printer costs such as paper and ink cartridges;

2. Five drivers of the technology infrastructure evolution include:

• Moore’s Law and Microprocessing Power: The number of components on a chip

with the smallest manufacturing costs per component has doubled each year.

• Law of Mass Digital Storage: The amount of digital information is roughly

3. Cloud computing allows a company to purchase computing capacity from remote,

large-scale data processing centers during peak demand periods. A company can

4. Java uses applets that are miniature programs which perform very small, specialized,

one-at-a-time tasks. Once the task is completed, the applet is “thrown away.” Using

5. Open-source software provides business value by lowering the cost of purchasing

software. Open-source software is based on the premise that it is superior to