Can you run your company out of your pocket? Discuss how smart phones, tablets, and other mobile devices can be used in running a business. Consider all types of devices
With increase in the technology of smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices, the people are going more mobile. With use of smart phones, everybody is accessing their email accounts and contacts. With the use of some remote access tools, we should be able to access our desktop remotely in our mobile device and access from anywhere. Even for the accounting, the QuickBooks apps generated by intuit would help in maintaining the book. Even the payroll of the company can also be done using mobile devices. The major disadvantage would be the security, because if we lose the mobile devices, there is more chance for somebody to easily hack the information.

The term cloud computing stems from the conceptual way the Internet is drawn, specifically as a cloud. Cloud computing is a way of explaining that users are no longer constrained or aware of where the services they are using reside. Both application and databases are moving from being hosted by the particular company to being outsourced to companies that can take entire enterprise applications and make them available to users via a browser.

Yes my company uses cloud computing. It is Amazon network based Cloud computing. Our headquarters is located in Houston and we have a branch location in Louisiana. The cloud computing is very beneficial in sharing the documents and all other transactions. Even the softwares we use are developed to work with cloud computing. So it saves lot of time and labor. The only problem I see with our cloud computing is the price and internet speed, the other problem is buying the user licenses for the softwares.

In our last class we discussed the Internet of things. Here is a discussion of its growth and impact:

Growth of the Internet of Things

After reading this what do you think will be the impact of this on your company? On your career?

Internet of things would definitely have an impact on the company that I work for. In a field where we dispatch the technicians on a daily basis, it would track all the technicians where they are and provides the updates. Also with some of the new devices, it would monitor the changes in the field without use of technicians. On the other side of these things, it would have some disadvantages such as security and job loss. With the use of IoT, there are increased chances to hacking and people lose their jobs.

What is a collaborative culture in a business, and how can technology promote and support this culture?

Collaboration helps the employees to work together, share responsibilities and ideas, and clear any ambiguity. Collaboration helps in understanding the structure of the organization and goals better; it also helps in understanding the transparency and improves the work environment. Technology plays an important role in effective collaboration. With the use of new technology devices, it is now very easy to bring people together anytime, anywhere and discuss. With the use of new cloud technology, people can share the data and access it from anywhere.

Here is a recent article regarding one person's opinion about CEO's knowledge of technology.

How CEOs are clueless about technology

Do you agree or disagree? Support your position with specific examples.

I agree some of the CEOs are clueless about the technology, not all of them. Most of the CEOs not try to reach the consumers and how they are responding to it. CEOs have to get into more details of the specifics of what the company is and keep up with the technology.

Check out this video about mistakes in PowerPoint:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpvgfmEU2Ck&feature=youtu.be

What are S\some of your own pet peeves?

The video presents lot of mistakes about the mistakes in power point presentation. It is really helpful. Some of my pet peeves are I put lot of data (information) in one slide and try to explain it. I would take much longer time in explaining the data in that slide. I also use more bullet points in one slide. But with this video and the information, I think I got better idea on the power point presentation.

It has been stated that IT provides a competitive edge to organizations. Can you think of a company that uses IT strategically? Perform some research on such a company and discuss its case in this thread. Make sure to use this week's material in your analysis e.g. use Porter value chain or other strategic frameworks.

There are many companies that used IT strategically and have advantage over their competitors. As we discussed in the class and stated in textbook, Wal-Mart uses low-cost leadership strategy to have advantage. Wal-Mart uses information system to produce products and services at a lower price than competitors while enhancing quality and level of service. Likewise Apple uses product differentiation strategy which uses information system to differentiate the products, services and new products.

Let's look at the competitive forces model specifically as it applies to the company you have identified: * Who are their existing competitors? * Are there any potential new market entrants? * Are there any substitute products and services? * Can customers easily switch to a lower cost provider? * Who are the suppliers?

Wal-Mart will have lot of competitors as there are many big retail stores. Some of the existing competitors for Wal-Mart would be Costco, Target, Kroger, K-mart etc. During this period of time, every type of business will have new market entrants. The new types of services that are being competitive are online ordering and delivery of all the groceries products. This would be a big blow for Wal-Mart if they don’t think of going online and delivering to the customers in near future. In my opinion I believe customers will switch to the lower cost provider.

Based on last night's BudNet case:

1. Can you identify the components that would be considered a part of a transaction processing system? A management information system? An executive support system?

2. Using BudNet as a model can you describe how your organization might build a similar system? What would it look like? Do you think it might have the same impact as BudNet?

I think the activities and transaction activities such as checking accounts receivables, inventory, sales, package placements, competitor’s product display count and entering all these in a computerized system would be considered as TPS. The study of all the data with information systems and processing and predicting the future for beers sales and the product availability would be considered as MIS. The external data about the competitors that is processed, summarized and presented to the senior management to take the decisions is considered as ESS. I don’t think Wal-Mart can build a model similar to BudNet, but they can develop a model by visiting the competitor’s stores and noticing the available products and stock information.

Read the case study, Twitter Searches for a Business Model, and let’s see if we can draw some conclusions.

Twitter provides powerful PR tool for companies, business and also celebrities. I think twitter can generate revenue by having subscription fee for the companies as it would help in marketing. As this is very powerful marketing tool, companies would be willing to pay for the fee. Also twitter can make revenue by selling display ads, companies would be willing to pay for this because now a days twitter is providing lot of information for companies and newsfeed.

"Go to twitter.com and enter a search on your favorite (or least favorite) car. Can you find the company's official site? What else do you find? Describe the results and characterize the potential risk and rewards for companies that would like to advertise to Twitter's audience."

I found my favorite car company official twitter page. Along with the official page there are other lots of pages from the companies associated with the brand name or use the name for advertising. The results were dependent on the time the tweets were posted from personal and advertising companies. I think the there is some reward for the companies as it is free advertising and there is also risk for the companies as there are some personal tweets comes up.

Comment on the following results from a study using information from Facebook pages:

http://www.businessinsider.com/your-facebook-profile-can-determine-what-type-of-employee-youll-be-2012-3?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_all

This study would seem to indicate that using Facebook pages to evaluate a job candidate might improve results. Do you agree with that conclusion? If you were a manager charged with the hiring decision would you use such a technique (evaluating the information on candidates' Facebook pages)? What would be some limitations of using such data?

Even though the Facebook pages resemble the individual interests and hobbies, I wouldn’t agree with the conclusion. If I’m a manager I would not use such a technique for hiring. I think the Facebook page doesn’t really evaluate the person ability for the job, it only shows the personal interest.

To what extent should end users be involved in the design of a database? How have our ideas of agile development environments affected this traditionally non-user input environment?

I think end user plays an important role in the design of the database, because the end users are the ones who will go through and use the database at the end. If the end users are not satisfied with the final product then the design is of no use. The success of the database design depends on the involvement of the end users and also the managers. While designing database the end users ideas and their expectations should be involved. If the end users are not involved then the database design may not be good and design has to be developed again.

How has MS Access changed user understanding of databases?

MS access is similar database when compared to other databases. But the structure is very simple and the relationships between the set of functions is simple. I think Microsoft products like excel, word are used all over the world and the users can easily understand and also have few errors. It can be used as front end with other products and the back end tables for SQL servers.

Are the users in a project the same as customers? Why or why not? What are the implications for designing a database?

The users may be customers sometimes. For example if you have an online backup system for personal files, the person using it is likely the only one who makes the decision to pay for it. At the other extreme, you might a have a CRM system where the key purchase decisions are made by people who will never actually use the system themselves. To understand your customers, you have to understand who is making the decision to buy your product, and it’s often a group, which in common parlance is called a decision making unit (DMU). (http://www.startupblender.com/customer-development/the-difference-between-users-and-customers)

What types of databases are used by companies like Google in implementing worldwide search engines?

Google uses NoSQL databases. NoSQL means Not Only SQL and it is not relational database system. NoSQL handles hierarchical nested data structures easily. Google also uses BigTable database for the search engine. BigTable was designed to support applications requiring massive scalability. BigTable is a distributed, column oriented database system.

Describe database structures for companies like Facebook.

Facebook maintains a massive database to manage all the profiles, features, music and video. Facebook uses MySQL as their core database design. Facebook uses MySQL for structured database such as profiles, wall posts etc. Facebook also uses Memcache, a memory caching system that is used to speed up dynamic database-driven websites by caching data and objects in RAM to reducing time.

There has been a lot of discussion about Big Data.

Here is an info graphic describing what are known as the 3 V's of Big Data:

The 3 V's of Big Data

As a manager what would you tell your CEO regarding how this is going to impact your company? What if anything should your company is doing?

The 3V’s of Big data tells about the volume, variety and velocity of the data. Big data also enables demographic insight into the products and services and used by your own enterprise and your competitors. I think these are the critical parameters that need to be considered for any company data. As a manager I would tell my CEO definitely consider these factors for the long run. The other factor that is missing is the security of data.

The Internet and the Web are not the same thing. What is the difference between the Internet and the Web? Let’s discuss what the Internet is and how many kinds of traffic, including Web traffic, can run on the Internet. What are the key technologies the Internet is based on?

Internet is the network that links many computers all over the world and web is the collection of different services and information that are accessible via internet. Web is the part of internet. I think the traffic that is encountered in the internet web. Along with web the other traffic include messaging, file transfers, emails, and Skype etc.

How is the Internet like the Interstate Highway System and the Web like a type of vehicle being driven on the highway?

I think we can take the highway system and the vehicles as a good example for distinguishing web and internet. Internet can be considered as the roads and signals and the infrastructure which runs. On the highway system, different types of vehicles run on the infrastructure such as cars, commercial vehicles, trucks etc. web can be considered as different types of traffic running on the highway.

Discuss IP4 vs. IP6 and why we must eventually migrate to IP6.

Internet Protocol (IP) is responsible for addressing and routing of packets. IPv4 is a 192 byte header uses 32 bit addresses. IPv6 is developed in increase the IP address space due to huge growth in internet usage to 128 bit addresses. IPv6 is mainly developed because of running of IP addresses on the internet. With IPv4 has theoretical maximum of 4.2 billion address and due to increase of internet users and advancement of mobile devices, it is estimated that IPv4 addresses will be run out. So IPv6 addresses are developed.

Discuss the advantages of some of the current technologies described in our reading this week including VoIP, Unified Communications, Virtual Private Networks, Wi-Fi and wireless technologies like RFID and Wireless Sensor Networks. Are there risks associated with any of these tools?

With the current trend in technology, it is very evident that the current technologies such as VoIP, wifi and wireless technologies are very useful when compare to previous old technologies. With VoIP, we can call a person anywhere in the world if that person has internet connection. Wifi avoids all the wiring and problems that we face. With increase in mobile devices the wifi became a necessity. RFID uses the same wireless technology for transmitting and receiving the data.

The benefits of VoIP are apparent but what disadvantages might one need to consider using this technology?

VoIP is used to transmit phone conversations over digital networks. It mainly works using internet. I think the main disadvantage with VoIP is also the dependency on the internet. If the power goes out, then the call using VoIP also goes out. If there is any emergency and there is no power then VoIP is of no use. This is different in case of regular phones. As it mainly runs on internet, VoIP will have problems with quality and reliability. If the internet connection is not so good then it will be hard.

Can someone address the implications for a business as we move fully into Web 2.0 and then into Web 3.0?

Web 2.0 is the second generation internet services that enable people to interact, collaborate, share information, and create new services online. Web 3.0 is the future version where all the digital information is woven together with intelligent search based capabilities. Based on this artificial intelligence companies can make use in improving the sales and marketing. This web 3.0 makes suggestions based on the browsing experience which would help in improving business operations.

Read the Case Study, “Salesforce.com: Cloud Services Go Mainstream,” in Chapter 5 of the Laudon text. What are the benefits of a cloud deployment for Salesforce.com? How will Cloud Computing change the traditional IT infrastructure?

How does Salesforce.com use cloud computing?

Cloud computing is the trending technology which uses the internet to share the resources, software and any database information for the computers and other devices. Salesforce.com provides the customer relation management (CRM) software and other software applications using software as a service based model over the internet. Salesforce.com uses the on-demand model which eliminates the need for large up-front hardware and software investments in systems and lengthy implementations on corporate computers.

How does cloud computing affect the infrastructure required for VoIP and Internet access, if at all?
Now a days, cloud computing is the most popular technology that is rapidly changing the information technology. In VOIP, the cloud computing refers the by which carriers and services provide the infrastructure component and applications by taking cost into consideration. Most of the companies compete with the competitors and offers the suite of services to fit the consumer’s requirements.

Here is an article describing a potential virus related problem that has life threatening implications: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429616/computer-viruses-are-rampant-on-medical-devices-in-hospitals/ If you were the CEO of a medical clinic what would you do after reading this?
I would definitely install the antivirus on all the devices and make sure the scan is run on the devices every day. I would also make sure the emails are handled properly when coming from an unknown source. All the devices should be placed along with firewall, so it would protect ite devices. The firewall should prevent the other devices to connect with the hospital devices. All softwares in the devices should be updated.

Define an enterprise system and explain how enterprise software works. Select one type of Enterprise system and describe how it helps businesses achieve operational excellence.

Enterprise system is an integrated information system that coordinates key internal process of the firm. enterprise system integrates important business data into single system. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is one the type of enterprise system. ERP is a business management software which integrates, store and manage every stage of business such as sales, marketing, human resources, accounting, manufacturing, inventory etc

What parts of the standard IT infrastructure change when an organization moves its applications and databases to the cloud?

When the organization changes to cloud, I think the IT infrastructure changes. A lot of hardware can be eliminated as everything can be accessed using cloud. This is one of the advantages with the cloud. The accessibility and communication also increases. The data can be stored in large amounts. The main change that may be a small concern is the cost that is associated with the change. All the cables can be eliminated. So with the change there rewards and small risks associated with it.

Check out this article from Time. Do you think eliminating email and adding a more social network would be better in your own company? How about in addition to existing email?

I would disagree using a social network. The main concern for me is the privacy of the information that we are transmitting. Even though there is always spam associated with the email, it protects the company information. As the research says, people will stop using the social network if they feel its over loaded. Also there is chance of misusing the social network. We can always add firewall for protecting any spam content from the email. I think it is hard to use social networking for all the communications.

Discuss how the emergence of agile methodologies has changed the IT system building model.

Agile software development is a method which uses incremental and iterative methods for the development of the software. An agile method break the tasks into smaller increments and then forms all the stages including design, programming, and testing. So the agile method typically last for two to four weeks. At the end of the period the product is shown to the client. This reduces the risk and allows the project to adapt to the changes. .

Discuss the roles of prototyping, rapid application development, and agile development.

Prototyping is the process of developing an experimental product or system for demonstration and evaluation so the users can determine the requirements. This process would help in reducing cost and time, also improves the functionality. Rapid Application development is the process of developing systems in a very short period of time by using prototype, fourth generation tools and technical personnel. RAD is developed in series of increments. Agile development is the process of developing the system by breaking large project into small projects which will be completed in shorter period of times using iterations.

Describe the essential role of the customer/user in agile development environments

Agile development emphasizes on face-to-face communication encouraging people to collaborate and make decisions effectively and quickly. So the increased customer integration will increases the chances for successful outcome of the project. Customers help in project planning, frequent feedback, evaluation, and also increasing the quality of the product. This would reduce the cost and time very much on a big scale.

What role does senior management play in the establishment of effective information system planning in a corporation?

Senior management is the main group that sets up the goals for any project in an organization. This team is responsible for the design, development and operations of the project. Senior management plays major role in positioning and prioritizing the role of information systems. They also provide the long term future and set goals. They have to coordinate and integrate the information system and also needs to be involved in the operations for a successful outcome.

Discuss how system planning needs to be supportive of and a direct reflection of the company's mission, strategy, and business plan.

System planning of an organization provides the detailed information which enables the company executives to understand clearly the requirements of the management and the key personnel. The system planning gives the details about the organization strategic approach to succeed in their business. System planning helps in analyzing and designing the architecture of organizations. This planning helps in better understanding the goals and the plans that helps in achieving it.

Google IT Alignment and summarize your finds. Be sure and read the previous responses and do not duplicate what has already been said. How can your company benefit from this information?

IT alignment is the process in which the businesses use information technology in order to achieve the success. The IT alignment is very helpful for business as it would help in making process easier. Most of the chief information officers have IT alignment as top priority. It is a bit hard process to achieve. Business-IT alignment can be achieved by setting conditions, check for latest technologies, developing the IT values and mission.

Major corporations, governments, and other organizations are hacked each week, mostly by means of phishing attacks. Describe how users and IT organizations should arm themselves against these attacks.

Phishing attacks are mainly caused by responding to the emails requesting personal information. So to avoid phishing scams, users should not respond to the emails requesting personal information and companies should train employees to follow the same. Also the users should make sure not to click on the websites ad links instead type the url in the browser. The users and the organization should need to make sure that the personal computers are installed with firewall and anti-virus software.

How should IT plan to counteract the continuing thread of security attacks?

IT should counteract the threads of security attacks by keeping all the installed programs and the operating systems up to date which makes it less prone to the security attacks. Limited access of the files and information limited to some of the users. By taking measures of using strong authentication to avoid the attacks, validate and filter the input. Configuring the operating systems and the routers by disabling the unidentified protocols and attacks.

How can home users best defend themselves from malware?

To defend any malware attack everyone should try to avoid the others from physically accessing their computers. This is one of the biggest threats when compared to other threats that come through viruses. Also other antivirus softwares such as Kaspersky should be installed, so when a new program is trying to install without permission, it will give a prompt before installing. The another step in defending malware attacks is to keep up to date with all the programs installed and the operating systems.

What are the social and security issues for individuals and organizations relative to personal and business use of social media?

Social media has many advantages and benefit the organization if used correctly. There are some issues associated with social media. some of the issues are Unequal access and usage for the people who do not use the social media, hidden costs for maintain the social media of the organizations, and privacy is an another major issue for the users. For example while recruiting, the personal information can be seen which will have effect in hiring decisions.

Why do younger people tend to disclose inappropriate information in Facebook, Twitter, G+ and other social media sites?

Most of the younger people are getting attracted to the social media such as Facebook and twitter, so they tend to spend more time and it had become more than a hobby or means to staying in touch with friends. Most of the young people don’t realize the threats that are associated with the information that they disclose.

Are social media inherently less secure than regular email?

Both email and social media have security issues. But I think information on the social media is less secure than regular media. The regular email security can be always increased when compared to the social media. If any user discloses the information on the social media there will be no control on it. Social media has very high possibility for the hackers to get access to the information easily. Everybody on social media can access you information and misuse it.