Comments on Innovation Evangelist: Quiz On MIS

Respected sir, Established in 1997, St. Gregorious...

2010-02-22T14:31:45.070+05:30

Respected sir,
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1. Chalk out the evolution of Database Management...

2009-04-05T20:16:00.000+05:30

1. Chalk out the evolution of Database Management Systems and their relative merits/ demerits. Also depict the future of Database Systems.
A database is a collection of logically related data designed to meet the information of one or more users. The term database evolved within the computer industry. A possible definition of database would be storing or collecting records in systematic way, so that a computer can help one in solving a problem when need arises. Data base management system (DBMS) can be referred to software that can be applied by an organization to centralize data. Manage them efficiently & provide access to the stored data by application programs.
Many organizations previously had poor way storing information, didn’t have accurate or relevant information because the data in their systems was poorly organized & maintained. Accurate Information without any errors is essential during the various decision making phase. This led to the evolution of DBMS along with increased importance.

Merits of database management:
 There are no wastages of storage resources. There is also no confusion hence there is no need to different coding system to represent value for an attribute.
 Data stored are independent of each other. A small change done n the specific program need not be updated in every program; any change required will take place automatically.
 Access & availability of information will be increased & program development & maintenance costs reduced because users & programmers can perform hoc queries of data in the database.
 The DBMS enables an organization to centrally manage data, their use, & security.
Demerits of data base management:
 The implementation of DBMS is very expensive.
 . Multiple users’ access is not possible.
 Cost to implement security is expensive.
The database will be soul of every organization in future has It is widely used I n many applications of computer software. They are also used as storage location for multi user applications, where coordination many users are present. It is also convenient for individual’s coz many electronic mail programs are based on the DBMS. The two types of DBMS API & ODBC are in high demand.
3. Mention the ways in which the E-Commerce has evolved, the early adopters, the benefits served and the future of this technology (do mention corresponding names and years).
E-commerce began in 1995. It refers to the use of internet and web to transact business. Netscape.com accepted the first ads from major corporations and popularized the idea of using the net to advertise and sell. The dot-com bubble burst in March 2001.In 2007 the overall e-commerce revenues looked positive.
In the initial days it transformed the world of books, music and air travel. Then came the telephone, movies, television, jewelry, real estates, hotels etc.
Benefits:
• It is available everywhere. We can shop using it from home, office, car etc.
• It can be conveniently used for commercial transaction to cross cultural and national boundaries and cost effectively.
• The technical standards for conducting e-commerce are universal since they are available to all. They are shared by all nations around the world.
• Richness: Video, audio and text messages are possible.
• It allows two way communications. Buyers can interact with the sellers.
• It reduces the information cost and provides high quality.
• The technology allows personalized messages to be delivered to individuals as well as groups.
After the e-commerce revolution Individuals and organizations are increasingly using the internet to conduct commerce as more products come online and more households switch to broadband. User generated content in the form of blogs and social networks grow to form an entirely new self-publishing forum.
3. Identify the trends in Consumer IT (the IT used in a B2C and C2C context).
E-commerce process model works in four ways:
B2C: Business organization to customer
B2B: Business organization to Business
C2B: Customer to Business organization
C2C: Customer to customer.
The IT used in B2C: It involves retailing products and services to individual shoppers Barnesandnoble.com, which sells books, software and music to individual customers is an example. The business organizations use the websites or portals to spread information about their products, through multimedia clippings, catalogs, product configuration guidelines. A new customer interacts with the site and uses interactive order processing system for order placement. On placement of order, secured payment systems comes into operation to authorize and permit payment to sellers. The delivery system the takes over to execute the delivery to customer.
The IT in C2C: It involves consumers selling directly to consumers. E-bay permits people to sell their goods to other customers through auctions & the merchandise off to the highest bidder. Personal advertisements of products or services can be done. E news paper website is an example.

Answers subitted by:
NAVEEN KUMAR.S
SMU-&quo...

2009-04-05T20:05:00.000+05:30

Answers subitted by:
NAVEEN KUMAR.S
SMU-"A"section
I.S.B.R

Answer 1:
A “ network"in the latest phase of sequential introduction of database system , there came organization of data in form of tables in the form of rows and attributes in it , known as ‘ relational database system “
but,
The evolution of database happened to be in sequence starting from the period of indexing of data in a file , most probably knowned as “ file management system “
,but it snaped usefull organizational time period that got waste in correcting , updating and carrying forward modification or detailing the information in FMS .
A “ network ‘ , in the latest phase of sequential introduction of database system , there came organization of data in form of tables in the form of rows and attributes in it , known as ‘ relational database system “

Merits of DBS

1. UNAUTHORISED ACCESS IS CONTROLLED .
2. REDUNDANCY IS CONTROLLED
3. IT HELPS IN PROVIDING MULTIPLE USER INTERFACES.
4. IT ALSO HELPS IN PROVIDING BACK UP AND RECOVERY SET UP .

TYPES OF DATABASE :
• Multimedia Database
• Geographical Information System Database (GIS)
• Data Warehouse or On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP) Database
• Real-time or Active Database

NEW TRENDS IN THIS LINE :
Parallel database system is the future of high performance database.
Real time database
Incorporation of parallel processing , support of data warehousing , the typical hardware system that includes this are 64-bit processors, disk caches, and RAID and many other .

ANSWER 2:
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a company-wide computer software system used to manage and coordinate all the resources, information, and functions of a business from shared data stores.
An ERP system has a service-oriented architecture with modular hardware and software units or "services" that communicate on a local area network. The modular design allows a business to add or reconfigure modules while preserving data integrity in one shared database that may be centralized or distributed.
Some ERP software package systems are Compiere, Dolibarr, Python based ‘GNU Enterprise * GRR (software)’, a plugin Openbravo, JFire, etc.
Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and services packages required by end customers. Supply Chain Management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point-of-origin to point-of-consumption. It is a network of facilities and distribution options that performs the functions of procurement of materials, transformation of these materials into intermediate and finished products, and the distribution of these finished products to customers. Supply chains exist in both service and manufacturing organizations, although the complexity of the chain may vary greatly from industry to industry and firm to firm.
SCM is all about anticipating and fulfilling customers needs.
Some types of SCM systems are inventory management software, Optical character recognition (OCR). SAP, BAAN, QAD, Peoplesoft, i2 and Manugistics are some of the companies providing supply-chain solutions.

Customers Relationship Management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these processes; information about customers and customer interactions can be entered, stored and accessed by employees in different company departments.
There are various organizations which have customer relationship management. They are as follows:-

CRM Vendors:
Siebel (Oracle) ,SAP ,Epiphany (Infor) ,Oracle, PeopleSoft (Oracle), Amdocs, Chordiant

Answer3:
Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s.
The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years.

The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce.Another form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK.

Lets have a look upon the growth of E-Commerce from its early days till 2008-09:-
* 1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, using a NeXT computer.
* 1992: J.H. Snider and Terra Ziporyn publish Future Shop: How New Technologies Will Change the Way We Shop and What We Buy. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312063598.
* 1994: Netscape releases the Navigator browser in October under the code name Mozilla. Pizza Hut offers pizza ordering on its Web page. The first online bank opens. Attempts to offer flower delivery and magazine subscriptions online. Adult materials also becomes commercially available, as do cars and bikes. Netscape 1.0 is introduced in late 1994 SSL encryption that made transactions secure.
* 1995: Jeff Bezos launches Amazon.com and the first commercial-free 24 hour, internet-only radio stations, Radio HK and NetRadio start broadcasting. Dell and Cisco begin to aggressively use Internet for commercial transactions. eBay is founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb.
* 1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
* 1999: Business.com sold for US $7.5 million to eCompanies, which was purchased in 1997 for US $149,000. The peer-to- peer filesharing software Napster launches.
* 2000: The dot-com bust.
* 2002: eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion . Niche retail companies CSN Stores and NetShops are founded with the concept of selling products through several targeted domains, rather than a central portal.
* 2003: Amazon.com posts first yearly profit.
* 2007: Business.com acquired by R.H. Donnelley for $345 million.
* 2008: US eCommerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $204 billion, an increase of 17 percent over 2007

Answer 4:
Green IT:-GreenIT® is the leading advisor in sustainable Information and Communications Technology.

GreenIT® provides services to enable clients to drive measurable financial and environmental benefits from programs for IT Eco-Efficiency and IT Eco-Innovation.

Because the world's appetite for energy is outpacing production of renewable and non-renewable resources. Because the world is too densely populated to escape the effects of Greenhouse gas emissions, electronic waste disposal and toxic production methods. Because ICT is both part of the problem and a key to the solution. Because to thrive requires combining social responsibility, smart resource use and technological innovation.

* Don’t get lost in the Greenwash
* ICT is the fastest growing sector of energy use
* Energy savings is the low-hanging fruit ready to be picked
* The days of unregulated energy waste are over
* Customers shop for Green Supply Chains
* EPP – Environmentally Preferred Purchasing – Sets the Bar
* Customers Demand Sustainable Behavior
* E-Waste and U-Waste reduction programs are no longer voluntary
* Green IT innovation leads the way to Sustainability.
The overuse of “Green” may have you seeing red, but hype is a normal part of the evolution of new technologies. The issues driving the need for Green ICT are real, and growing.

Virtualization:- In computing, virtualization is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources:

* Computer clusters and grid computing, the combination of multiple discrete computers into larger metacomputers

* Application virtualization, the hosting of individual applications on alien hardware/software

* Virtualization Development, further work in this area

* Desktop virtualization, the remote manipulation of a computer desktop

* Platform virtualization, which separates an operating system from the underlying platform resources
o Full virtualization
o Hardware-assisted virtualization
o Partial virtualization
o Paravirtualization
o Operating system-level virtualization
o Hosted environment[citation needed] (e.g. User-mode Linux)

* Resource virtualization, the virtualization of specific system resources, such as storage volumes, name spaces, and network resources
o Encapsulation, the hiding of resource complexity by the creation of a simplified interface
o Virtual memory, which allows uniform, contiguous addressing of physically separate and non-contiguous memory and disk areas
o Storage virtualization, the process of completely abstracting logical storage from physical storage
o Network virtualization, creation of a virtualized network addressing space within or across network subnets
o Channel bonding, the use multiple links combined to work as though they offered a single, higher-bandwidth link

Web 2.0:-
The term "Web 2.0" refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that aims to facilitate communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.
Web 2.0 encapsulates the idea of the interconnectivity and interactivity of web-delivered content. Tim O'Reilly regards Web 2.0 as the way that business embraces the strengths of the web and uses it as a platform. The term was first used by Dale Dougherty and Craig Cline and shortly after became notable after the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to changes in the ways software developers and end-users utilize the Web
Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of "Web 1.0" to provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser.

Business Analyst:-
The term Business Analyst (BA) is used to describe a person who practices the discipline of business analysis. A business analyst or "BA" is responsible for analyzing the business needs of clients to help identify business problems and propose solutions. Within the systems development life cycle domain, the business analyst typically performs a liaison function between the business side of an enterprise and the providers of services to the enterprise. Common alternative titles are business analyst, systems analyst, and functional analyst, although some organizations may differentiate between these titles and corresponding responsibilities.
A business analyst works as a liaison among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, communicate and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies and information systems. The business analyst understands business problems and opportunities in the context of the requirements and recommends solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.

Cloud Computing:-
Cloud computing is Internet ("cloud") based development and use of computer technology ("computing").It is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.
The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.
The majority of cloud computing infrastructure as of 2009 consists of reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers with different levels of virtualization technologies. The services are accessible anywhere that has access to networking infrastructure. The Cloud appears as a single point of access for all the computing needs of consumers.

Software as a Service:-
Software as a Service (SaaS, typically pronounced 'sass') is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web servers or download the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires. The on-demand function may be handled internally to share licenses within a firm or by a third-party application service provider (ASP) sharing licenses between firms.
The concept of "software as a service" started to circulate prior to 1999[citation needed]. In December 2000 Bennett et al. noted the term as "beginning to gain acceptance in the marketplace". Whilst the phrase "software as a service" passed into in common usage, the CamelCase acronym "SaaS" was allegedly not coined until 2000-2001 in a white paper called "Strategic Backgrounder: Software as a Service" by the Software & Information Industry's eBusiness Division published in Feb. 2001, but written in fall of 2000 according to internal Association records.

Open Source
Open source usually refers to software that is released with source code under a license that ensures that derivative works will also be available as source code, protects certain rights of the original authors, and prohibits restrictions on how the software can be used or who can use it. The most important difference between software created by the open source communities and commercial software sold by vendors is that open source software is published under licenses that ensure that the source code is available to everyone to inspect, change, download, and explore as they wish. This is the essential meaning of open source: the source code--the language in which the software is written and the key to understanding how the software works--can be obtained and improved by anyone with the right skills.More precise definitions extend this basic concept by adding provisions concerning derivative works, the rights to use the software for any purpose, the rights of the original author, and prohibitions against discrimination.

ANSWER 5.:-
Electronic Commerce is merely a part of E-Business and is limited essentially to marketing and sales processes, and it uses digital technologies such as internet and bar-code scanners to enable the buying and selling process.

Today the emerging trends basically in consumer information technology is E-Commerce & M-Commerce. Now lets understand what is the defination of this E-commerce & M- commerce and how they together performed in C2C & B2B transactions.
E-commerce:- it is often referred as a business conducted over internet using any of the application that rely on internet such as E-mail, intant messaging,shopping carts,web services,EDI,UDDI & ftp and many more.ecommerce can be between two business firms or between two consumers and even between a business & consumer.
M=commerce:- m-commerce is called as mobile commerce that is now a days the consumer trend says that all most all the transactions/payment and placing orderand many more are done through mobile it also helps to transfer the ring tones vedios etc including the live alerts of news now a days which is very much popular trends for the professional who dont have time to read out news paper for half hr.

Now lets try to get in details of consumer information technology trends with respect to C2C transaction and its advantages:-
consumer to consumer transaction came into existence for span of recorded history in form of barter,flea market ,swap meet etc.most of the highly successful examples of C2C using the internet is of the corporate intermediary and are thus not strictly"pure play"eg of c2c.the best eg.venue for the consumer to consumer e-commerce is called EBAY OR AMAZON .

B2C and its advantages on consumer of it withthe new trends(e-commerce):- this type of E-commerce is basically for the transaction process between a consumer and a business firmand this transaction is done in 2 forms i,e.direct sales & online intermediary
Direct sales:- companie sthat provide product and services directly to the consumer is called the direct sales eg. the AMAZON.COM were the business let the product available directly to the consumer via internet .The goal is to remove intermediaries through
a process called disintermediation. One of the greatest following this rule is DELL.
Online intermediaries:- these are the companies that fascilitate transactions between buyers and sellersand recieve a percentage of the transactions value.these firms make the largest group of B2C companies today & the two famous intermediaries are brokers and infomediaries.

Here are some of the advantageswhich atracts the consumers attension towards information technology:-
1.shopping can be faster and more convenient .
2.offering and price can change instantaneously.
3. call center can be integrated with the website.
4.broadband telecommunication will enhance the buying experience.

Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of...

2009-04-05T18:27:00.000+05:30

Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these processes; information about customers and customer interactions can be entered, stored and accessed by employees in different company departments. Typical CRM goals are to improve services provided to customers, and to use customer contact information for targeted marketing. The principal sellers for this product are SAP, Oracle, Salesforce.com, Amdocs, Microsoft. Some packages are Sage CRM Solutions, CRM 114, Microsoft CRM, Siebel CRM, Clarify CRM…

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a company-wide computer software system used to manage and coordinate all the resources, information, and functions of a business from shared data stores.An ERP system has a service-oriented architecture with modular hardware and software units or "services" that communicate on a local area network. The principal sellers for this product are SAP, Oracle Application, The Sage Group, Microsoft dynamics, SSA Global Technologies. Here some ERP packages Oracle e-Business Suite, SAGE ERP X3, SAP R/3, mySAP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, ERP Adage, Adempiere, ERP5, OFBiz…

In software engineering, software configuration management (SCM) is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software. Configuration management practices include revision control and the establishment of baselines.
SCM concerns itself with answering the question "Somebody did something, how can one reproduce it?" Often the problem involves not reproducing "it" identically, but with controlled, incremental changes. Answering the question thus becomes a matter of comparing different results and of analyzing their differences. Traditional configuration management typically focused on controlled creation of relatively simple products. Now, implementers of SCM face the challenge of dealing with relatively minor increments under their own control, in the context of the complex system being developed

Evolutions of IT can be divided in Semiconductor T...

2009-04-05T18:24:00.000+05:30

Evolutions of IT can be divided in Semiconductor Technology, Information storage, networking and applications.
Semiconductor Technology
Enormous improvements in the performance of integrated circuits and cost reductions brought about by rapid miniaturization have driven much of the advances in IT. Because they became less expensive, they are also more ubiquitous. New capacities have also been added these include microelectromechanical systems (MEMs), such as sensors and actuators, and digital signal processors that enable cost reductions and extend IT into new types of devices. Examples of MEM are ink-jet printer cartridges, hard disk drive heads, accelerometers that deploy car airbags, chemical and environmental sensors. These improvements in MEMs and microelectronics are expected to continue.
Information Storage
Disk drives and other forms of information storage reflect similar improvements in cost and performance. It result that the amount of information in digital form has expanded greatly. Due to the improvements of the computer’s components (semiconductors, storage…) their performances have increase and their price has reduce since 15 years.
Networking
The third trend is the growth of networks. Computers are increasingly connected in networks, including local area networks and wide area networks. People are more able to be interconnected and share information, the value of IT has increased. The development of optical networking has allowed an important growth in networking. In 1990, a single optical fiber could transmit about 1 billion bits per second; by 2000, a single fiber could transmit nearly 1 trillion bits per second. The growth of internet is the best indicator of networking growth.
Applications of IT
A fourth trend is the increasing of applications. Computers were originally used primarily for data processing. As they became more powerful and convenient, applications expanded. Innovations in software have enabled applications to expand to include educational software, desktop publishing, computer-aided design and manufacturing, games, modeling and simulation, networking and communications software, electronic mail, the WWW, digital imaging and photography, audio and video applications, electronic commerce applications, groupware, file sharing, search engines... The growth and diversity of applications increase the utility of IT, leading to its further expansion.

The meaning of electronic commerce has changed ove...

2009-04-05T18:23:00.000+05:30

The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange and Electronic Funds Transfer. These were introduced in the 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, ATM and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. Online shopping was invented in 1979 and during the 1980s it was used extensively particularly by auto manufacturers such as Ford,Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. From the 1990s electronic commerce would additionally include ERP, data mining and data warehousing. By the end of 2000, a lot of European and American business companies offered their services through the Web. Today internet is very popular and people associate ecommerce with the ability of purchasing goods through the Internet using secure protocols and electronic payment services.

Green IT:-
Green IT can be defined as research ...

2009-04-05T00:58:00.000+05:30

Green IT:-
Green IT can be defined as research in and use of IT in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner.
The Green IT approach can include several different phases in the lifecycle of a product – the development, production, usage and disposal of IT. Development must grant consideration to the environment; the production must take place using environmentally friendly production methods; the IT solutions must be used in an environmentally friendly manner; and finally, IT waste must be disposed of in an environmentally correct manner. All of these phases are supported by research and innovation in Green IT.

virtualization:-
Virtualization is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an operating system, a server, a storage device or network resources.
Operating system virtualization is the use of software to allow a piece of hardware to run multiple operating system images at the same time. The technology got its start on mainframes decades ago, allowing administrators to avoid wasting expensive processing power.

In 2005, virtualization software was adopted faster than anyone imagined, including the experts. There are three areas of IT where virtualization become more popular, network virtualization, storage virtualization and server virtualization:
1.Network virtualization:
It is a method of combining the available resources in a network by splitting up the available bandwidth into channels, each of which is independent from the others, and each of which can be assigned (or reassigned) to a particular server or device in real time. The idea is that virtualization disguises the true complexity of the network by separating it into manageable parts, much like your partitioned hard drive makes it easier to manage your files.
2.Storage virtualization:
It is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. Storage virtualization is commonly used in storage area networks.
3.Server virtualization:
The intention of the Server virtualization is to spare the user from having to understand and manage complicated details of server resources while increasing resource sharing and utilization and maintaining the capacity to expand later.

Cloud computing:
Cloud computing is becoming one of the next industry buzz words. It joins the ranks of terms including: grid computing, utility computing, virtualization, clustering, etc.
Cloud computing overlaps some of the concepts of distributed, grid and utility computing, however it does have its own meaning if contextually used correctly. The conceptual overlap is partly due to technology changes, usages and implementations over the years. Cloud computing is driven largely by marketing and service offerings from big corporate players like Google, IBM and Amazon

Business Analytics:-
Business Analytics focuses on effective use of data and information to drive positive business actions. The body of knowledge for this area includes both business and technical topics, including concepts of performance management, definition and delivery of business metrics, data visualization, and deployment and use of technology solutions such as OLAP, dashboards, scorecards, analytic applications, and data mining.
Business intelligence roles that demand business analytics knowledge and skills include business sponsor, business subject expert, knowledge worker, data steward, business requirements analyst, and developer of business analytics systems. Roles with broad scope of responsibility such as business intelligence architect, metadata administrator, quality administrator, and customer service personnel also benefit from a solid foundation in business analytics.

Software as a Service:-
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet.
SaaS is becoming an increasingly prevalent delivery model as underlying technologies that support Web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA) mature and new developmental approaches, such as Ajax, become popular. Meanwhile, broadband service has become increasingly available to support user access from more areas around the world.
SaaS is closely related to the ASP (application service provider) and On Demand Computing software delivery models.
Benefits of the SaaS model include:
a.easier administration
b.automatic updates and patch management
c.compatibility: All users will have the same version of software.
d.easier collaboration, for the same reason
e.global accessibility.
Web 2.0:-
Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that aims to facilitate communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications; such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.
The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity.
Open source:-
Open source software (OSS) is a development of open source concept which is defined as computer software for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that meets the Open Source Definition or that is in the public domain. This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified forms. It is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open source software is the most prominent example of open source development and often compared to user-generated content.The term open source software originated as part of a marketing campaign for free software. A report by Standish Group states that adoption of open source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers.

5]

ONLINE MARKETING

Business-to-cons...

2009-04-04T02:40:00.000+05:30

5]

ONLINE MARKETING

Business-to-consumer (B2C) online marketing:
Defined as the online selling of goods and services to final consumers.
65% of Americans shop on the Internet. In 2007 online retail sales totaled $259 billion. The Internet is expected to influence 50% of retail sales by in 2010.
Online consumers are becoming increasingly diverse and mainstream.
B2C consumers differ from off-line consumers because customers initiate and control the Internet exchange process.

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online marketing:
Defined as online exchanges of goods and information between final consumers.
Auction sites such as eBay offer marketplaces to buy or exchange goods.
Blogs and forums facilitate information interchanges.
Marketers are tapping into blogs as a medium for reaching carefully targeted consumers.

4]
Green IT-

Also called green computing...

2009-04-04T02:16:00.000+05:30

4]
Green IT-

Also called green computing it describes the study and the using of computer resources in an efficient way. Green IT starts with manufacturers producing environmentally friendly products and encouraging IT departments to consider more friendly options like virtualization, power management and proper recycling habits. The government has also recently proposed new compliance regulations which would work towards certifying data centers as green. Some criteria includes using low-emission building materials, recycling, using alternative energy technologies, and other green technologies.

Virtualization-

Virtualization is a technique for hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources to simplify the way in which other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources.
Virtualization lets a single physical resource (such as a server, an operating system, an application, or storage device) appear as multiple logical resources; or making multiple physical resources (such as storage devices or servers) appear as a single logical resource.

Cloud Computing-

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are provided as a service over the Internet.[1][2][3][4] Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them[5]
The concept incorporates infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) as well as Web 2.0 and other recent (ca. 2007–2009)[6][7] technology trends that have the common theme of reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users.

Business Analytics-

According to Thomas Davenport, analytics are defined as the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive modeling [1], and fact-based management to drive decision making. Analytics may be used as input for human decisions or may drive fully automated decisions. According to Davenport,businesses analytics represent a subset of business intelligence. The other part of business intelligence is querying, reporting, OLAP, and "alerts".

SaaS-Software as a Service

Software as a Service (SaaS, typically pronounced 'sass') is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web servers or download the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires. The on-demand function may be handled internally to share licenses within a firm or by a third-party application service provider (ASP) sharing licenses between firms.

Web 2.0-

Web 2.0" refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that aims to facilitate communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications; such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.

Open Source-

Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge). Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations. Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.

3]The meaning of electronic commerce has changed o...

2009-04-04T01:57:00.000+05:30

3]The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. Another form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK. Online shopping was invented in the UK in 1979 by Michael Aldrich[citation needed] and during the 1980s it was used extensively particularly by auto manufacturers such as Ford,Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

Future of ecommerce-

-Ubiquitous computing
Ralph Merkle, from the Xerox Palo Alto, predicted that by 2050 there will be devices that have the computing power of roughly a billion Pentium computers.
-Miniaturisation & Mobile Commerce
-GS & Blocking Software
-User InterfaceCompanies are
Developing talking-head interfaces to make voice recognition more realistic.
Improving intelligent agent software.
-Collaborative Computing Software
-Intenet 2
Project started in 1996, Chicago,
154 American universities together with representatives from a few high tech and telecommunications companies
Aim to establish Gbit-per-second points of presence nationwide on a Very High Performance Backbone Network.

2]
Various ERP packages in market-
-Adempier...

2009-04-04T01:29:00.000+05:30

2]
Various ERP packages in market-
-Adempiere, a Java based ERP-System which started as a fork of Compiere.
-BlueErp, a PHP based ERP System
-Compiere, a Java based ERP-System
-Dolibarr, a PHP based ERP system
-ERP5, a Python based ERP system
-GNU Enterprise
-GRR (software), a PHP/MySQL -based, web-accessed free ERP system
-JFire, a Java based ERP-System from NightLabs
-Kuali Foundation
-LedgerSMB
-OFBiz Apache Java based ERP-System
-Omni, a plugin, web-accessed free ERP-System
-Openbravo, a Java based ERP-System
-OpenERP (formerly Tiny ERP)
-Opentaps (Java based)
-OrangeHRM
-Postbooks from XTuple
-SQL-Ledger uses Perl and -PostgreSQL
-WebERP is a LAMP based system

Various SCM packages in market
-AdvancePro
-3PL Warehouse Manager
-SmartTurn WMS
-TECSYS Elite Series
-da vinci Supply Chain
-Apprise Distribution
-DS Enterprise
-FAES
-eTEK Supply Chain Management Systems

Various CRM packages in market

-EBI Neutrino R1 CRM java
-OpenERP - java
-Compiere - java
-Adempiere - java
-Openbravo - java
-Ofbiz - java
-xTuple - integrated ERP, C++
-Vtiger_CRM - php
-SugarCRM - php
-CiviCRM - php
-Opentaps - java
-XLsuite - ruby (RubyOnRails)full stack CRM and ERP system
-eWay CRM - .NET (For single user only)

Ans 1 >>>>>
Databases have been ...

2009-04-04T01:18:00.000+05:30

Ans 1 >>>>>
Databases have been in use since the earliest days of electronic computing. Unlike modern systems which can be applied to widely different databases and needs, the vast majority of older systems were tightly linked to the custom databases in order to gain speed at the expense of flexibility. Originally DBMSs were found only in large organizations with the computer hardware needed to support large data sets.
1960s Navigational DBMS
As computers grew in capability, this trade-off became increasingly unnecessary and a number of general-purpose database systems emerged; by the mid-1960s there were a number of such systems in commercial use. Interest in a standard began to grow, and Charles Bachman, author of one such product, Integrated Data Store (IDS), founded the "Database Task Group" within CODASYL, the group responsible for the creation and standardization of COBOL. In 1971 they delivered their standard, which generally became known as the "Codasyl approach", and soon there were a number of commercial products based on it available.
The Codasyl approach was based on the "manual" navigation of a linked data set which was formed into a large network. When the database was first opened, the program was handed back a link to the first record in the database, which also contained pointers to other pieces of data. To find any particular record the programmer had to step through these pointers one at a time until the required record was returned. Simple queries like "find all the people in India" required the program to walk the entire data set and collect the matching results. There was, essentially, no concept of "find" or "search". This might sound like a serious limitation today, but in an era when the data was most often stored on magnetic tape such operations were too expensive to contemplate anyway.
1970s Relational DBMS
Edgar Codd worked at IBM in San Jose, California, in one of their offshoot offices that was primarily involved in the development of hard disk systems. He was unhappy with the navigational model of the Codasyl approach, notably the lack of a "search" facility which was becoming increasingly useful. In 1970, he wrote a number of papers that outlined a new approach to database construction that eventually culminated in the groundbreaking A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks.
Linking the information back together is the key to this system. In the relational model, some bit of information was used as a "key", uniquely defining a particular record. When information was being collected about a user, information stored in the optional (or related) tables would be found by searching for this key. For instance, if the login name of a user is unique, addresses and phone numbers for that user would be recorded with the login name as its key. This "re-linking" of related data back into a single collection is something that traditional computer languages are not designed for.
End 1970s SQL DBMS
IBM started working on a prototype system loosely based on Codd's concepts as System R in the early 1970s. The first "quickie" version was ready in 1974/5, and work then started on multi-table systems in which the data could be broken down so that all of the data for a record (much of which is often optional) did not have to be stored in a single large "chunk". Subsequent multi-user versions were tested by customers in 1978 and 1979, by which time a standardized query language, SQL, had been added. Codd's ideas were establishing themselves as both workable and superior to Codasyl, pushing IBM to develop a true production version of System R, known as SQL/DS, and, later, Database 2 (DB2).
Ans 2 >>>>>
ERP
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software attempts to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments' particular needs.
ERP combines all departments within an organization (HR, Manufacturing) together into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database. In turn, the various departments can more easily share information and communicate with each other.
When one department finishes with an order, it is automatically routed via the ERP system to the next department. To find out where the order is at any point, you need only log in to the ERP system and track it down.
Segments within the ERP software Market
The ERP applications market falls into three primary segments by customer size: Enterprises, Mid-Market and Small Companies. The major ERP application vendors to each segment group are illustrated below.
Market Segment ERP Vendor
Enterprise: SAP, Oracle/PeopleSoft
Upper Mid-Market: Microsoft, Lawson, SSA Global, Geac, SAP, Oracle/PeopleSoft
Lower Mid-Market: Microsoft, Epicor, Exacta, Sage, NetSuite, SPA BusinessOne
Small Companies: Sage, Intuit, ACCPAC, NetSuite
Key Players
SAP is the market leader in the ERP applications market. SAP and Oracle have been in intense competition for customers in recent years. After Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft, they are now ranked as the second leader of the ERP software market. SAP is holding the leadership within vertical sectors such as Government, Financial Services, Healthcare and Education across the European countries.
When looking at the leading ERP vendors for the European countries, SAP is the market leader in Germany, Spain and Italy. Oracle, on the other hand, has a strong market leadership in certain segments within the UK and France.
Most industry analysts are watching i2 Technologies, Siebel Systems, Broadvision, Ariba and CommerceOne as ERP solution providers that would like to have their share of the market.
In addition, there are also predictions that the ERP battle amongst ERP solution providers will move rapidly to the mid-market as Microsoft begins to actively compete with vendors such as SAP and Oracle for market share.
Benefits of implementation of ERP solutions
Integrate financial information - To avoid receiving conflicting information from the Finance-, HR- or Manufacturing Department, the ERP system creates a single version of the truth that cannot be questioned because everyone is using the same system.
Integrate customer order information - ERP systems can become the place where the customer order lives from the time a customer service representative receives it until the loading dock ships the merchandise and finance sends an invoice. By having this information in one software system, organizations can keep track of orders more easily, and coordinate manufacturing, inventory and shipping among many different locations at the same time.
Standardize and speed up manufacturing processes - Standardizing a company's processes using a single, integrated computer system can save time, increase productivity and reduce head count.
Reduce inventory - ERP helps the business process flow more smoothly, and it improves visibility of the order fulfilment process inside the company. In turn, this may lead to reduced inventories of the stuff used to make products (work-in-progress inventory).
Standardize HR information - Especially in companies with multiple business units, HR may not have a unified, simple method for tracking employees' time and communicating with them about benefits and services.
ERP software challenges
•There is often a gap between package functionality and business needs
•ERP environments are costly to maintain
•ERP Implementation is costly and time consuming
•Larger companies typically have multiple ERP packages and vendors
•Integration of systems is complex
•Companies Are Simplifying Their ERP Environments
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
The worldwide market for supply chain management (SCM) software topped an estimated $6 billion last year, and is expected to reach or exceed $8 billion by 2010, according to the most current estimates from AMR Research (617-542-6600) and ARC Advisory Group (781-471-1000).
That’s a segment that includes supply chain planning (SCP) applications as well as supply chain execution systems including transportation management (TMS), warehouse management (WMS), and manufacturing execution (MES).
The upsurge marks a significant rebound from recent years, when the SCM market was merely keeping pace with inflation. AMR estimates that spending on SCM solutions increased by 7% last year, up from an increase of just 3% in 2005. And ARC sees the market growing at a compound annual growth rate of 8.6% through 2010.
Leading the top 20 list of providers is three enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors, SAP at $735 million, Oracle at $585 million, and Infor at $348 million. Others include two best-of-breed suppliers, Manhattan Associates with $289 million and i2 Technologies with $280 million, both providers of supply chain planning and execution solutions.
Driving that growth, according to John Fontanella, AMR’s vice president of research, is the need to manage complex, global supply chains that include a mix of global suppliers, contract manufacturers as well as company-owned plants, third-party logistics providers and a network of transportation providers.
In fact, AMR’s research found that the typical U.S. manufacturer is managing on average more than 30 contract relationships. Supply chain management solutions allow enterprises to handle that complexity while still responding to increasingly demanding customers.
New direction
Listing the top 20 SCM providers marks a new direction for Modern’s annual look at the top providers of execution and planning software. In 2001, the first year we surveyed the industry, our focus was on top providers of warehouse management systems (WMS) in North America. The focus shifted slightly to supply chain execution providers with last year’s list.
Supply chain execution and warehouse management reflected our readers’ interests and responsibilities at the time. Manufacturing and distribution processes had taken place primarily inside the four walls and were managed by people whose view of their business was restricted to those facilities. And what went on in facilities was often not reported to the enterprise at the end of the day, or even at the end of the week.
Today, manufacturing plants and distribution centers are at the center of global businesses, and not an afterthought. How well a company manages its supply chain processes can determine its market position.
And, products that used to be manufactured from start to finish in one plant, now may begin the process in one location, travel to another for further assembly, and be finalized in yet a third facility.
For proof, look no further than recent stories from Modern about Sun Microsystems , Delphi and C.R. Bard. Each relies on sophisticated supply chain management solutions to manage processes that span not just multiple factories and distribution centers, but multiple countries.
Our readers’ titles and responsibilities have changed, too—with more supply chain and logistics titles than ever. And as business goes global, so have our Web readers, with a significant portion coming from outside the United States.
Finally, not only have our readers broadened their outlook and responsibilities, so have the suppliers of supply chain solutions.
For example, in 2001 Manhattan Associates was the No. 1 provider of warehouse management systems, with just more than $100 million in revenue. Today, Manhattan is a nearly $300 million company, offering transportation management, supplier collaboration and supply chain planning.
Meanwhile, RedPrairie, the next largest best-of-breed provider of warehouse management systems with $189 million in revenue last year, also offers just-in-time, just-in-sequence manufacturing solutions and applications to plan, schedule and manage labor inside big box retail stores. Limiting the list to WMS providers no longer reflects the world of supply chain software.
The criteria
To make the list this year, a company had to meet the following criteria. It must supply more than one of the major categories of supply chain management software—planning solutions along with WMS, TMS and MES execution systems. That’s why a company like Dematic, which only provides warehouse management systems, is on our list of top supply chain execution providers (p. 51) but not on the “Top 20 supply chain management providers” (p. 49) list despite software revenues of $60 million. All rankings are determined by worldwide revenue numbers.
Here’s a look at the leading trends in each of the prime categories for supply chain management.
ERP systems
Last year saw a continuation of the consolidation in the supply chain management and planning space, according to Fontanella. This trend was best illustrated by the purchase of Provia Software by SSA Global, only to see SSA swallowed up by Infor, now the third-largest ERP provider.
Last year also saw JDA Software, No. 6 on the list with $277 million in combined revenue, purchase Manugistics.
“The ERP companies have re-asserted themselves in the supply chain market,” says Fontanella. “But consolidation doesn’t mean we’ll be lacking for innovation because new companies continually pop up in this field with new approaches.”
Fontanella has noticed two trends in the ERP companies that top our list.
1) While CIO’s would like to standardize applications under one application vendor, Fontanella says “companies recognize that there’s a certain amount of risk to building your whole application portfolio around one vendor.” At the same time, Fontanella says he’s seeing ERP vendors like Infor and Oracle compete with best-of-breed providers in areas where they have deep functionality in an application.
2) Fontanella sees an opportunity for providers of multi-enterprise collaborative platforms that link trading partners together to make their presence felt in the market. “With the emphasis on doing business globally, there’s an opportunity for collaborative commerce if companies can implement a solution and begin to get an ROI (return on investment),” says Fontanella. “If that happens, today’s leaders will have to rethink how they approach the market.”
Transportation management systems
The market for transportation management systems (TMS) continues to grow at an accelerating pace, according to Adrian Gonzalez, director of the logistics executive council for ARC Advisory. “Last year, I forecasted that the market would grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.9%, and when all the numbers are in, I believe we’re going to find that it grew faster than that in 2006,” says Gonzalez.
One of the biggest areas of growth is the on-demand market TMS. “On-demand TMS is now an estimated 33% of revenue for all of TMS, and over the next five years, two-thirds of the vendors expect that to be the fastest-growing segment of the market,” Gonzalez says.
In addition, Gonzalez says TMS suppliers are expanding their footprint, much as WMS providers have by adding solutions for global trade management, which facilitate international shipping and fleet management solutions like route management and scheduling.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
The past 3 years have seen much consolidation in the customer relationship management (CRM) industry, with some of the large CRM players being acquired by even larger software development companies. The divide between enterprise resource planning (ERP) software developers and CRM software developers has closed, as all software developers have extended their product ranges to provide total business-management solutions for their customers and have either acquired the technologies to integrate the functions provided by different software solutions or have developed them themselves.
True to its early promise, CRM has turned out not to be a passing fad, but rather an essential way for organisations to understand their customers and, in the words of one of the respondents to the CRM roundtable discussion in this report, `sell more now!' Technological advances have allowed organisations to link their `front-office' functions (i.e. customer contact centre operations, marketing and sales) to their `back-office' enterprise solutions (i.e. accounting, inventory, payroll and personnel, stock control, etc.). This was, after the initial euphoria from CRM early adopters, the big issue, and one that barred companies without huge IT resources — and huge development budgets — from entering the CRM arena.
This has changed: CRM products, understanding of these products, and the technology involved have all improved, allowing vendors to begin marketing their products to small to medium businesses (SMBs).
At the same time, Web 2.0 — the much vaunted new era of Internet usage enabled by the widespread availability of broadband for greater access — has given rise to a new generation of Internet users, both developers and consumers, who use open-source technology and the Internet to collaborate and network online.
Users have become more mobile. CRM systems had already developed Web-based accessibility, enabling sales and other personnel access to the system via a Web browser, so it has been a small step for vendors to make the entire system available to the whole organisation this way but by hosting it themselves.
Hosted solutions provide a relatively low-cost entry for SMBs and, with this sector being increasingly targeted by vendors, the case for developing their own hosted offerings has proven irresistible: almost all of the major CRM (and ERP) vendors now offer hosted solutions.
Nonetheless, these companies face competition; there are a number of software companies, backed by the venture capital that has fuelled so much of the economic growth seen in recent years, that have entered the hosted CRM market, designing their products largely around sales and marketing processes.
For SMBs, facing up to a decline in economic growth, and increasing costs, the attraction of being able to increase productivity and to generate better-quality leads for a low monthly subscription fee is attractive. It is likely that vendors offering basic CRM functionality to SMBs will enjoy some growth during the next 2 to 3 years (i.e up to 2010 or 2011).
The question is whether or not they will survive. As customer needs change and the economy picks up again, SMBs may look for deeper functionality. This is where the established software providers — the giants in the marketplace, such as Oracle and SAP — will win. Unless the start-ups have something new to offer that has not been already developed by existing vendors, they will not survive in the long term.
The major software vendors are extremely acquisitive but, having already bought the CRM software leaders, their acquisitions now are all in the area of technological development, where the research and development (R&D) has been done by the target acquisition company, such as in mobile functionality.
Other targets for acquisition are companies that are strong in particular vertical markets: specialists in finance or pharmaceuticals, manufacturing or retail, with large customer bases, will be attractive to acquiring companies, as will be companies that already have a strong presence in emerging markets. Vendors are all looking to extend their geographical reach, into Eastern Europe, China, India and South America.
The CRM industry, even in the face of an economic decline, is growing. Indeed, many of the commentators Key Note spoke to for this report suggested that the economic decline would fuel the continued growth of the CRM industry, as CRM can be the tool used to make cost savings and increase productivity. Moreover, with hosted solutions ready to tap into this need, the short-term future for this sector especially looks very promising.
“Historically, TMS has focused on providing solutions for large companies that tender their loads to common carriers,” says Gonzalez. “Now, TMS providers are broadening their footprint and adding solutions for carriers that have their own fleets.”
Warehouse management systems
Warehouses and distribution centers have evolved from storage facilities to order fulfillment engines. For that reason, the leading supply chain management companies are also leading providers of supply chain execution systems, including warehouse management (see table on p. 51).
It’s also one of the reasons that the WMS market is once again beating inflation, especially among the leaders. “For several years, I’ve been saying that WMS is a mature market growing at less than 5% a year,” says Steve Banker, service director for supply chain management at ARC Advisory. “For most of the market, that’s still true. But the top suppliers, like Manhattan Associates and RedPrairie, had double-digit growth.”
What’s going on? In part, it’s a reflection that the biggest WMS companies are dominating, either through internal growth or by acquiring competitors. But there is also a growing market for new WMS solutions on the part of Tier 1 and large Tier 2 end users. “The last time the WMS market really grew was between 1995 and 2000,” says Banker. “When you figure that a WMS system gets replaced after 10 or 11 years, you see we’re in a replacement cycle that will last for another five years.”
Banker also notes that ERP providers are making further inroads, especially among mid-tier companies looking for one vendor who can provide all of their business process applications. “I’m seeing mid-size ERP companies, like Epicor, have a real impact on the market,” says Banker. “These are companies that wouldn’t have been on my radar a few years ago.”
Manufacturing execution systems
While MES has been around for years, the market for manufacturing systems is finally hitting on all cylinders, says Alison Smith, senior research analyst for AMR Research. “All of our corporate spending data shows that MES has finally reached the same strategic importance as ERP,” says Smith. “And if you look just at ERP companies, you’ll find that their manufacturing applications have surpassed all other categories that they offer.”
Now that it’s caught fire, the MES market, says Smith, will continue to grow at least until 2010 and possibly beyond. “All of our market models are showing a potential market of more than $2 billion,” says Smith. “We don’t know who the winners will be, but there is plenty of untapped opportunity.”
Driving that growth, says Smith, has been the need to get more control and flexibility over manufacturing operations, along with new regulatory requirements for more information about the raw materials, components and parts that went into a product, along with where and when the product was manufactured.
The single biggest trend Smith is tracking? “What we’re seeing is essentially a decomposition of MES into core nuggets of functional components, like track and trace, in-process quality control, and product genealogy, that can be implemented according to what a manufacturer needs,” says Smith. “Not everyone needs the whole set of MES capabilities, and the expense and time it takes to implement a full system is what’s impeded the growth of the market.”

Ans 3 >>>>>
The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. Another form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK. Online shopping was invented in the UK in 1979 by Michael Aldrich[citation needed] and during the 1980s it was used extensively particularly by auto manufacturers such as Ford,Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.
The earliest[citation needed] example of many-to-many electronic commerce in physical goods was the Boston Computer Exchange, a marketplace for used computers launched in 1982. The first[citation needed] online information marketplace, including online consulting, was likely the American Information Exchange, another pre-Internet[clarification needed] online system introduced in 1991.
Until 1991, commercial enterprise on the Internet was strictly prohibited.[1] Although the Internet became popular worldwide around 1994, it took about five years to introduce security protocols and DSL allowing continual connection to the Internet. And by the end of 2000, a lot of European and American business companies offered their services through the World Wide Web. Since then people began to associate a word "ecommerce" with the ability of purchasing various goods through the Internet using secure protocols and electronic payment services.
Some common applications related to electronic commerce are the following:
* Email
* Enterprise content management
* Instant messaging
* Newsgroups
* Online shopping and order tracking
* Online banking
* Online office suites
* Domestic and international payment systems
* Shopping cart software
* Teleconferencing
* Electronic tickets
E Commerce is one of the most important facets of the Internet to have emerged in the recent times. Ecommerce or electronic commerce involves carrying out business over the Internet with the assistance of computers, which are linked to each other forming a network. To be specific ecommerce would be buying and selling of goods and services and transfer of funds through digital communications.
The benefits of Ecommerce:
* Ecommerce allows people to carry out businesses without the barriers of time or distance. One can log on to the Internet at any point of time, be it day or night and purchase or sell anything one desires at a single click of the mouse.
* The direct cost-of-sale for an order taken from a web site is lower than through traditional means (retail, paper based), as there is no human interaction during the on-line electronic purchase order process. Also, electronic selling virtually eliminates processing errors, as well as being faster and more convenient for the visitor.
* Ecommerce is ideal for niche products. Customers for such products are usually few. But in the vast market place i.e. the Internet, even niche products could generate viable volumes.
* Another important benefit of Ecommerce is that it is the cheapest means of doing business.
* The day-to-day pressures of the marketplace have played their part in reducing the opportunities for companies to invest in improving their competitive position. A mature market, increased competitions have all reduced the amount of money available to invest. If the selling price cannot be increased and the manufactured cost cannot be decreased then the difference can be in the way the business is carried out. Ecommerce has provided the solution by decimating the costs, which are incurred.
* From the buyer’s perspective also ecommerce offers a lot of tangible advantages.
1. Reduction in buyer’s sorting out time.
2. Better buyer descisions
3. Less time is spent in resolving invoice and order discrepancies.
4. Increased opportunities for buying alternative products.
* The strategic benefit of making a business ‘ecommerce enabled’, is that it helps reduce the delivery time, labour cost and the cost incurred in the following areas:
1. Document preparation
2. Error detection and correction
3. Reconciliation
4. Mail preparation
5. Telephone calling
6. Data entry
7. Overtime
8. Supervision expenses
* Operational benefits of e commerce include reducing both the time and personnel required to complete business processes, and reducing strain on other resources. It’s because of all these advantages that one can harness the power of ecommerce and convert a business to ebusiness by using powerful turnkey ecommerce solutions made available by ebusiness solution providers.
future:-
Experts predict a promising and glorious future of ecommerce in the 21st century. In the foreseeable future ecommerce will further confirm itself a major tool of sale. Successful ecommerce will become a notion absolutely inseparable from the web, because e-shopping is becoming more and more popular and natural. At the same time severe rivalry in the sphere of ecommerce services will intensify their development. Thus prevailing future trends of ecommerce will be the growth of Internet sales and evolution.
Each year number of ecommerce deals grows enormously. Sales volumes of on-line stores are more than comparable with those of “brick-and-mortar” ones. And the tendency will continue, because a lot of people are “imprisoned” by work and household duties, while Internet saves a lot of time and gives opportunity to choose goods at the best prices. Present-day Internet sales boom is the foundation for magnificent ecommerce future.
The “quantity to quality” tendency of ecommerce is also becoming more and more obvious, as the Internet has excluded geographical factor from the sale. So it doesn’t matter any more whether your store is situated in New York or London or in a small town. To survive, merchants will have to adapt rapidly to the new conditions. To attract more customers e-store-owners will have not only to increase the number of available services, but to pay more attention to such elements like attractive design, user-friendliness, appealing goods presentation, they will have to opportunely employ modern technologies for their businesses to become parts of ecommerce future.
Of course, those, who acquire e-stores earlier, get better chance for future success and prosperity, though an ecommerce site itself doesn’t guarantee you anything. Only an appropriate ecommerce solution in combination with thorough emarketing and advertising can buy you business insurance.
Ans 4 >>>>>
Virtualization:-
In computing, virtualization is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources:
* Platform virtualization, which separates an operating system from the underlying platform resources[citation needed]
o Full virtualization
o Hardware-assisted virtualization
o Partial virtualization
o Paravirtualization
o Operating system-level virtualization
o Hosted environment[citation needed] (e.g. User-mode Linux)
* Resource virtualization, the virtualization of specific system resources, such as storage volumes, name spaces, and network resources
o Encapsulation, the hiding of resource complexity by the creation of a simplified interface
o Virtual memory, which allows uniform, contiguous addressing of physically separate and non-contiguous memory and disk areas
o Storage virtualization, the process of completely abstracting logical storage from physical storage
+ RAID - redundant array of inexpensive disks
+ Disk partitioning, is the splitting of a single resource (usually large), such as disk space or network bandwidth, into a number of smaller, more easily utilized resources of the same type
+ Logical volume management, which combines many disks into one large pool and then divides it into logical disks.
Network virtualization, creation of a virtualized network addressing space within or across network subnets
Channel bonding, the use multiple links combined to work as though they offered a single, higher-bandwidth link
I/O virtualization e.g. vNICs, vHBAs
* Computer clusters and grid computing, the combination of multiple discrete computers into larger metacomputers
* Application virtualization, the hosting of individual applications on alien hardware/software
Portable application
Cross-platform virtualization
Emulation or simulation
Hosted Virtual Desktop
* Virtualization Development, further work in this area
* Desktop virtualization, the remote manipulation of a computer desktop
cloud computing:-
Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them
The concept incorporates infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) as well as Web 2.0 and other recent (ca. 2007–2009)technology trends that have the common theme of reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. Examples of SaaS vendors include Salesforce.com and Google Apps which provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.
The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.
Software as a service:-
Software as a Service (SaaS, typically pronounced 'sass') is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web servers or download the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires. The on-demand function may be handled internally to share licenses within a firm or by a third-party application service provider (ASP) sharing licenses between firms.
Web 2.0:-
The term "Web 2.0" refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that aims to facilitate communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications; such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.
The term was first used by Dale Dougherty and Craig Cline and shortly after became notable after the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to changes in the ways software developers and end-users utilize the Web. According to Tim O'Reilly:
“Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”
O'Reilly has noted that the "2.0" refers to the historical context of web businesses "coming back" after the 2001 collapse of the dot-com bubble, in addition to the distinguishing characteristics of the projects that survived the bust or thrived thereafter.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has questioned whether one can use the term in any meaningful way, since many of the technological components of Web 2.0 have existed since the early days of the Web.
Open source:-
Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge). Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations. Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.
The open source model of operation and decision making allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, and differs from the more closed, centralized models of development.[1] The principles and practices are commonly applied to the peer production development of source code for software that is made available for public collaboration. The result of this peer-based collaboration is usually released as open-source software, however open source methods are increasingly being applied in other fields of endeavor, such as Biotechnology.

Ans 1 >>>>>
Databases have been ...

2009-04-04T01:17:00.000+05:30

Ans 1 >>>>>
Databases have been in use since the earliest days of electronic computing. Unlike modern systems which can be applied to widely different databases and needs, the vast majority of older systems were tightly linked to the custom databases in order to gain speed at the expense of flexibility. Originally DBMSs were found only in large organizations with the computer hardware needed to support large data sets.
1960s Navigational DBMS
As computers grew in capability, this trade-off became increasingly unnecessary and a number of general-purpose database systems emerged; by the mid-1960s there were a number of such systems in commercial use. Interest in a standard began to grow, and Charles Bachman, author of one such product, Integrated Data Store (IDS), founded the "Database Task Group" within CODASYL, the group responsible for the creation and standardization of COBOL. In 1971 they delivered their standard, which generally became known as the "Codasyl approach", and soon there were a number of commercial products based on it available.
The Codasyl approach was based on the "manual" navigation of a linked data set which was formed into a large network. When the database was first opened, the program was handed back a link to the first record in the database, which also contained pointers to other pieces of data. To find any particular record the programmer had to step through these pointers one at a time until the required record was returned. Simple queries like "find all the people in India" required the program to walk the entire data set and collect the matching results. There was, essentially, no concept of "find" or "search". This might sound like a serious limitation today, but in an era when the data was most often stored on magnetic tape such operations were too expensive to contemplate anyway.
1970s Relational DBMS
Edgar Codd worked at IBM in San Jose, California, in one of their offshoot offices that was primarily involved in the development of hard disk systems. He was unhappy with the navigational model of the Codasyl approach, notably the lack of a "search" facility which was becoming increasingly useful. In 1970, he wrote a number of papers that outlined a new approach to database construction that eventually culminated in the groundbreaking A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks.
Linking the information back together is the key to this system. In the relational model, some bit of information was used as a "key", uniquely defining a particular record. When information was being collected about a user, information stored in the optional (or related) tables would be found by searching for this key. For instance, if the login name of a user is unique, addresses and phone numbers for that user would be recorded with the login name as its key. This "re-linking" of related data back into a single collection is something that traditional computer languages are not designed for.
End 1970s SQL DBMS
IBM started working on a prototype system loosely based on Codd's concepts as System R in the early 1970s. The first "quickie" version was ready in 1974/5, and work then started on multi-table systems in which the data could be broken down so that all of the data for a record (much of which is often optional) did not have to be stored in a single large "chunk". Subsequent multi-user versions were tested by customers in 1978 and 1979, by which time a standardized query language, SQL, had been added. Codd's ideas were establishing themselves as both workable and superior to Codasyl, pushing IBM to develop a true production version of System R, known as SQL/DS, and, later, Database 2 (DB2).
Ans 2 >>>>>
ERP
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software attempts to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments' particular needs.
ERP combines all departments within an organization (HR, Manufacturing) together into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database. In turn, the various departments can more easily share information and communicate with each other.
When one department finishes with an order, it is automatically routed via the ERP system to the next department. To find out where the order is at any point, you need only log in to the ERP system and track it down.
Segments within the ERP software Market
The ERP applications market falls into three primary segments by customer size: Enterprises, Mid-Market and Small Companies. The major ERP application vendors to each segment group are illustrated below.
Market Segment ERP Vendor
Enterprise: SAP, Oracle/PeopleSoft
Upper Mid-Market: Microsoft, Lawson, SSA Global, Geac, SAP, Oracle/PeopleSoft
Lower Mid-Market: Microsoft, Epicor, Exacta, Sage, NetSuite, SPA BusinessOne
Small Companies: Sage, Intuit, ACCPAC, NetSuite
Key Players
SAP is the market leader in the ERP applications market. SAP and Oracle have been in intense competition for customers in recent years. After Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft, they are now ranked as the second leader of the ERP software market. SAP is holding the leadership within vertical sectors such as Government, Financial Services, Healthcare and Education across the European countries.
When looking at the leading ERP vendors for the European countries, SAP is the market leader in Germany, Spain and Italy. Oracle, on the other hand, has a strong market leadership in certain segments within the UK and France.
Most industry analysts are watching i2 Technologies, Siebel Systems, Broadvision, Ariba and CommerceOne as ERP solution providers that would like to have their share of the market.
In addition, there are also predictions that the ERP battle amongst ERP solution providers will move rapidly to the mid-market as Microsoft begins to actively compete with vendors such as SAP and Oracle for market share.
Benefits of implementation of ERP solutions
Integrate financial information - To avoid receiving conflicting information from the Finance-, HR- or Manufacturing Department, the ERP system creates a single version of the truth that cannot be questioned because everyone is using the same system.
Integrate customer order information - ERP systems can become the place where the customer order lives from the time a customer service representative receives it until the loading dock ships the merchandise and finance sends an invoice. By having this information in one software system, organizations can keep track of orders more easily, and coordinate manufacturing, inventory and shipping among many different locations at the same time.
Standardize and speed up manufacturing processes - Standardizing a company's processes using a single, integrated computer system can save time, increase productivity and reduce head count.
Reduce inventory - ERP helps the business process flow more smoothly, and it improves visibility of the order fulfilment process inside the company. In turn, this may lead to reduced inventories of the stuff used to make products (work-in-progress inventory).
Standardize HR information - Especially in companies with multiple business units, HR may not have a unified, simple method for tracking employees' time and communicating with them about benefits and services.
ERP software challenges
•There is often a gap between package functionality and business needs
•ERP environments are costly to maintain
•ERP Implementation is costly and time consuming
•Larger companies typically have multiple ERP packages and vendors
•Integration of systems is complex
•Companies Are Simplifying Their ERP Environments
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
The worldwide market for supply chain management (SCM) software topped an estimated $6 billion last year, and is expected to reach or exceed $8 billion by 2010, according to the most current estimates from AMR Research (617-542-6600) and ARC Advisory Group (781-471-1000).
That’s a segment that includes supply chain planning (SCP) applications as well as supply chain execution systems including transportation management (TMS), warehouse management (WMS), and manufacturing execution (MES).
The upsurge marks a significant rebound from recent years, when the SCM market was merely keeping pace with inflation. AMR estimates that spending on SCM solutions increased by 7% last year, up from an increase of just 3% in 2005. And ARC sees the market growing at a compound annual growth rate of 8.6% through 2010.
Leading the top 20 list of providers is three enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors, SAP at $735 million, Oracle at $585 million, and Infor at $348 million. Others include two best-of-breed suppliers, Manhattan Associates with $289 million and i2 Technologies with $280 million, both providers of supply chain planning and execution solutions.
Driving that growth, according to John Fontanella, AMR’s vice president of research, is the need to manage complex, global supply chains that include a mix of global suppliers, contract manufacturers as well as company-owned plants, third-party logistics providers and a network of transportation providers.
In fact, AMR’s research found that the typical U.S. manufacturer is managing on average more than 30 contract relationships. Supply chain management solutions allow enterprises to handle that complexity while still responding to increasingly demanding customers.
New direction
Listing the top 20 SCM providers marks a new direction for Modern’s annual look at the top providers of execution and planning software. In 2001, the first year we surveyed the industry, our focus was on top providers of warehouse management systems (WMS) in North America. The focus shifted slightly to supply chain execution providers with last year’s list.
Supply chain execution and warehouse management reflected our readers’ interests and responsibilities at the time. Manufacturing and distribution processes had taken place primarily inside the four walls and were managed by people whose view of their business was restricted to those facilities. And what went on in facilities was often not reported to the enterprise at the end of the day, or even at the end of the week.
Today, manufacturing plants and distribution centers are at the center of global businesses, and not an afterthought. How well a company manages its supply chain processes can determine its market position.
And, products that used to be manufactured from start to finish in one plant, now may begin the process in one location, travel to another for further assembly, and be finalized in yet a third facility.
For proof, look no further than recent stories from Modern about Sun Microsystems , Delphi and C.R. Bard. Each relies on sophisticated supply chain management solutions to manage processes that span not just multiple factories and distribution centers, but multiple countries.
Our readers’ titles and responsibilities have changed, too—with more supply chain and logistics titles than ever. And as business goes global, so have our Web readers, with a significant portion coming from outside the United States.
Finally, not only have our readers broadened their outlook and responsibilities, so have the suppliers of supply chain solutions.
For example, in 2001 Manhattan Associates was the No. 1 provider of warehouse management systems, with just more than $100 million in revenue. Today, Manhattan is a nearly $300 million company, offering transportation management, supplier collaboration and supply chain planning.
Meanwhile, RedPrairie, the next largest best-of-breed provider of warehouse management systems with $189 million in revenue last year, also offers just-in-time, just-in-sequence manufacturing solutions and applications to plan, schedule and manage labor inside big box retail stores. Limiting the list to WMS providers no longer reflects the world of supply chain software.
The criteria
To make the list this year, a company had to meet the following criteria. It must supply more than one of the major categories of supply chain management software—planning solutions along with WMS, TMS and MES execution systems. That’s why a company like Dematic, which only provides warehouse management systems, is on our list of top supply chain execution providers (p. 51) but not on the “Top 20 supply chain management providers” (p. 49) list despite software revenues of $60 million. All rankings are determined by worldwide revenue numbers.
Here’s a look at the leading trends in each of the prime categories for supply chain management.
ERP systems
Last year saw a continuation of the consolidation in the supply chain management and planning space, according to Fontanella. This trend was best illustrated by the purchase of Provia Software by SSA Global, only to see SSA swallowed up by Infor, now the third-largest ERP provider.
Last year also saw JDA Software, No. 6 on the list with $277 million in combined revenue, purchase Manugistics.
“The ERP companies have re-asserted themselves in the supply chain market,” says Fontanella. “But consolidation doesn’t mean we’ll be lacking for innovation because new companies continually pop up in this field with new approaches.”
Fontanella has noticed two trends in the ERP companies that top our list.
1) While CIO’s would like to standardize applications under one application vendor, Fontanella says “companies recognize that there’s a certain amount of risk to building your whole application portfolio around one vendor.” At the same time, Fontanella says he’s seeing ERP vendors like Infor and Oracle compete with best-of-breed providers in areas where they have deep functionality in an application.
2) Fontanella sees an opportunity for providers of multi-enterprise collaborative platforms that link trading partners together to make their presence felt in the market. “With the emphasis on doing business globally, there’s an opportunity for collaborative commerce if companies can implement a solution and begin to get an ROI (return on investment),” says Fontanella. “If that happens, today’s leaders will have to rethink how they approach the market.”
Transportation management systems
The market for transportation management systems (TMS) continues to grow at an accelerating pace, according to Adrian Gonzalez, director of the logistics executive council for ARC Advisory. “Last year, I forecasted that the market would grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.9%, and when all the numbers are in, I believe we’re going to find that it grew faster than that in 2006,” says Gonzalez.
One of the biggest areas of growth is the on-demand market TMS. “On-demand TMS is now an estimated 33% of revenue for all of TMS, and over the next five years, two-thirds of the vendors expect that to be the fastest-growing segment of the market,” Gonzalez says.
In addition, Gonzalez says TMS suppliers are expanding their footprint, much as WMS providers have by adding solutions for global trade management, which facilitate international shipping and fleet management solutions like route management and scheduling.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
The past 3 years have seen much consolidation in the customer relationship management (CRM) industry, with some of the large CRM players being acquired by even larger software development companies. The divide between enterprise resource planning (ERP) software developers and CRM software developers has closed, as all software developers have extended their product ranges to provide total business-management solutions for their customers and have either acquired the technologies to integrate the functions provided by different software solutions or have developed them themselves.
True to its early promise, CRM has turned out not to be a passing fad, but rather an essential way for organisations to understand their customers and, in the words of one of the respondents to the CRM roundtable discussion in this report, `sell more now!' Technological advances have allowed organisations to link their `front-office' functions (i.e. customer contact centre operations, marketing and sales) to their `back-office' enterprise solutions (i.e. accounting, inventory, payroll and personnel, stock control, etc.). This was, after the initial euphoria from CRM early adopters, the big issue, and one that barred companies without huge IT resources — and huge development budgets — from entering the CRM arena.
This has changed: CRM products, understanding of these products, and the technology involved have all improved, allowing vendors to begin marketing their products to small to medium businesses (SMBs).
At the same time, Web 2.0 — the much vaunted new era of Internet usage enabled by the widespread availability of broadband for greater access — has given rise to a new generation of Internet users, both developers and consumers, who use open-source technology and the Internet to collaborate and network online.
Users have become more mobile. CRM systems had already developed Web-based accessibility, enabling sales and other personnel access to the system via a Web browser, so it has been a small step for vendors to make the entire system available to the whole organisation this way but by hosting it themselves.
Hosted solutions provide a relatively low-cost entry for SMBs and, with this sector being increasingly targeted by vendors, the case for developing their own hosted offerings has proven irresistible: almost all of the major CRM (and ERP) vendors now offer hosted solutions.
Nonetheless, these companies face competition; there are a number of software companies, backed by the venture capital that has fuelled so much of the economic growth seen in recent years, that have entered the hosted CRM market, designing their products largely around sales and marketing processes.
For SMBs, facing up to a decline in economic growth, and increasing costs, the attraction of being able to increase productivity and to generate better-quality leads for a low monthly subscription fee is attractive. It is likely that vendors offering basic CRM functionality to SMBs will enjoy some growth during the next 2 to 3 years (i.e up to 2010 or 2011).
The question is whether or not they will survive. As customer needs change and the economy picks up again, SMBs may look for deeper functionality. This is where the established software providers — the giants in the marketplace, such as Oracle and SAP — will win. Unless the start-ups have something new to offer that has not been already developed by existing vendors, they will not survive in the long term.
The major software vendors are extremely acquisitive but, having already bought the CRM software leaders, their acquisitions now are all in the area of technological development, where the research and development (R&D) has been done by the target acquisition company, such as in mobile functionality.
Other targets for acquisition are companies that are strong in particular vertical markets: specialists in finance or pharmaceuticals, manufacturing or retail, with large customer bases, will be attractive to acquiring companies, as will be companies that already have a strong presence in emerging markets. Vendors are all looking to extend their geographical reach, into Eastern Europe, China, India and South America.
The CRM industry, even in the face of an economic decline, is growing. Indeed, many of the commentators Key Note spoke to for this report suggested that the economic decline would fuel the continued growth of the CRM industry, as CRM can be the tool used to make cost savings and increase productivity. Moreover, with hosted solutions ready to tap into this need, the short-term future for this sector especially looks very promising.
“Historically, TMS has focused on providing solutions for large companies that tender their loads to common carriers,” says Gonzalez. “Now, TMS providers are broadening their footprint and adding solutions for carriers that have their own fleets.”
Warehouse management systems
Warehouses and distribution centers have evolved from storage facilities to order fulfillment engines. For that reason, the leading supply chain management companies are also leading providers of supply chain execution systems, including warehouse management (see table on p. 51).
It’s also one of the reasons that the WMS market is once again beating inflation, especially among the leaders. “For several years, I’ve been saying that WMS is a mature market growing at less than 5% a year,” says Steve Banker, service director for supply chain management at ARC Advisory. “For most of the market, that’s still true. But the top suppliers, like Manhattan Associates and RedPrairie, had double-digit growth.”
What’s going on? In part, it’s a reflection that the biggest WMS companies are dominating, either through internal growth or by acquiring competitors. But there is also a growing market for new WMS solutions on the part of Tier 1 and large Tier 2 end users. “The last time the WMS market really grew was between 1995 and 2000,” says Banker. “When you figure that a WMS system gets replaced after 10 or 11 years, you see we’re in a replacement cycle that will last for another five years.”
Banker also notes that ERP providers are making further inroads, especially among mid-tier companies looking for one vendor who can provide all of their business process applications. “I’m seeing mid-size ERP companies, like Epicor, have a real impact on the market,” says Banker. “These are companies that wouldn’t have been on my radar a few years ago.”
Manufacturing execution systems
While MES has been around for years, the market for manufacturing systems is finally hitting on all cylinders, says Alison Smith, senior research analyst for AMR Research. “All of our corporate spending data shows that MES has finally reached the same strategic importance as ERP,” says Smith. “And if you look just at ERP companies, you’ll find that their manufacturing applications have surpassed all other categories that they offer.”
Now that it’s caught fire, the MES market, says Smith, will continue to grow at least until 2010 and possibly beyond. “All of our market models are showing a potential market of more than $2 billion,” says Smith. “We don’t know who the winners will be, but there is plenty of untapped opportunity.”
Driving that growth, says Smith, has been the need to get more control and flexibility over manufacturing operations, along with new regulatory requirements for more information about the raw materials, components and parts that went into a product, along with where and when the product was manufactured.
The single biggest trend Smith is tracking? “What we’re seeing is essentially a decomposition of MES into core nuggets of functional components, like track and trace, in-process quality control, and product genealogy, that can be implemented according to what a manufacturer needs,” says Smith. “Not everyone needs the whole set of MES capabilities, and the expense and time it takes to implement a full system is what’s impeded the growth of the market.”

Ans 3 >>>>>
The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. Another form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK. Online shopping was invented in the UK in 1979 by Michael Aldrich[citation needed] and during the 1980s it was used extensively particularly by auto manufacturers such as Ford,Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.
The earliest[citation needed] example of many-to-many electronic commerce in physical goods was the Boston Computer Exchange, a marketplace for used computers launched in 1982. The first[citation needed] online information marketplace, including online consulting, was likely the American Information Exchange, another pre-Internet[clarification needed] online system introduced in 1991.
Until 1991, commercial enterprise on the Internet was strictly prohibited.[1] Although the Internet became popular worldwide around 1994, it took about five years to introduce security protocols and DSL allowing continual connection to the Internet. And by the end of 2000, a lot of European and American business companies offered their services through the World Wide Web. Since then people began to associate a word "ecommerce" with the ability of purchasing various goods through the Internet using secure protocols and electronic payment services.
Some common applications related to electronic commerce are the following:
* Email
* Enterprise content management
* Instant messaging
* Newsgroups
* Online shopping and order tracking
* Online banking
* Online office suites
* Domestic and international payment systems
* Shopping cart software
* Teleconferencing
* Electronic tickets
E Commerce is one of the most important facets of the Internet to have emerged in the recent times. Ecommerce or electronic commerce involves carrying out business over the Internet with the assistance of computers, which are linked to each other forming a network. To be specific ecommerce would be buying and selling of goods and services and transfer of funds through digital communications.
The benefits of Ecommerce:
* Ecommerce allows people to carry out businesses without the barriers of time or distance. One can log on to the Internet at any point of time, be it day or night and purchase or sell anything one desires at a single click of the mouse.
* The direct cost-of-sale for an order taken from a web site is lower than through traditional means (retail, paper based), as there is no human interaction during the on-line electronic purchase order process. Also, electronic selling virtually eliminates processing errors, as well as being faster and more convenient for the visitor.
* Ecommerce is ideal for niche products. Customers for such products are usually few. But in the vast market place i.e. the Internet, even niche products could generate viable volumes.
* Another important benefit of Ecommerce is that it is the cheapest means of doing business.
* The day-to-day pressures of the marketplace have played their part in reducing the opportunities for companies to invest in improving their competitive position. A mature market, increased competitions have all reduced the amount of money available to invest. If the selling price cannot be increased and the manufactured cost cannot be decreased then the difference can be in the way the business is carried out. Ecommerce has provided the solution by decimating the costs, which are incurred.
* From the buyer’s perspective also ecommerce offers a lot of tangible advantages.
1. Reduction in buyer’s sorting out time.
2. Better buyer descisions
3. Less time is spent in resolving invoice and order discrepancies.
4. Increased opportunities for buying alternative products.
* The strategic benefit of making a business ‘ecommerce enabled’, is that it helps reduce the delivery time, labour cost and the cost incurred in the following areas:
1. Document preparation
2. Error detection and correction
3. Reconciliation
4. Mail preparation
5. Telephone calling
6. Data entry
7. Overtime
8. Supervision expenses
* Operational benefits of e commerce include reducing both the time and personnel required to complete business processes, and reducing strain on other resources. It’s because of all these advantages that one can harness the power of ecommerce and convert a business to ebusiness by using powerful turnkey ecommerce solutions made available by ebusiness solution providers.
future:-
Experts predict a promising and glorious future of ecommerce in the 21st century. In the foreseeable future ecommerce will further confirm itself a major tool of sale. Successful ecommerce will become a notion absolutely inseparable from the web, because e-shopping is becoming more and more popular and natural. At the same time severe rivalry in the sphere of ecommerce services will intensify their development. Thus prevailing future trends of ecommerce will be the growth of Internet sales and evolution.
Each year number of ecommerce deals grows enormously. Sales volumes of on-line stores are more than comparable with those of “brick-and-mortar” ones. And the tendency will continue, because a lot of people are “imprisoned” by work and household duties, while Internet saves a lot of time and gives opportunity to choose goods at the best prices. Present-day Internet sales boom is the foundation for magnificent ecommerce future.
The “quantity to quality” tendency of ecommerce is also becoming more and more obvious, as the Internet has excluded geographical factor from the sale. So it doesn’t matter any more whether your store is situated in New York or London or in a small town. To survive, merchants will have to adapt rapidly to the new conditions. To attract more customers e-store-owners will have not only to increase the number of available services, but to pay more attention to such elements like attractive design, user-friendliness, appealing goods presentation, they will have to opportunely employ modern technologies for their businesses to become parts of ecommerce future.
Of course, those, who acquire e-stores earlier, get better chance for future success and prosperity, though an ecommerce site itself doesn’t guarantee you anything. Only an appropriate ecommerce solution in combination with thorough emarketing and advertising can buy you business insurance.
Ans 4 >>>>>
Virtualization:-
In computing, virtualization is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources:
* Platform virtualization, which separates an operating system from the underlying platform resources[citation needed]
o Full virtualization
o Hardware-assisted virtualization
o Partial virtualization
o Paravirtualization
o Operating system-level virtualization
o Hosted environment[citation needed] (e.g. User-mode Linux)
* Resource virtualization, the virtualization of specific system resources, such as storage volumes, name spaces, and network resources
o Encapsulation, the hiding of resource complexity by the creation of a simplified interface
o Virtual memory, which allows uniform, contiguous addressing of physically separate and non-contiguous memory and disk areas
o Storage virtualization, the process of completely abstracting logical storage from physical storage
+ RAID - redundant array of inexpensive disks
+ Disk partitioning, is the splitting of a single resource (usually large), such as disk space or network bandwidth, into a number of smaller, more easily utilized resources of the same type
+ Logical volume management, which combines many disks into one large pool and then divides it into logical disks.
Network virtualization, creation of a virtualized network addressing space within or across network subnets
Channel bonding, the use multiple links combined to work as though they offered a single, higher-bandwidth link
I/O virtualization e.g. vNICs, vHBAs
* Computer clusters and grid computing, the combination of multiple discrete computers into larger metacomputers
* Application virtualization, the hosting of individual applications on alien hardware/software
Portable application
Cross-platform virtualization
Emulation or simulation
Hosted Virtual Desktop
* Virtualization Development, further work in this area
* Desktop virtualization, the remote manipulation of a computer desktop
Cloud computing:-
Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them
The concept incorporates infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) as well as Web 2.0 and other recent (ca. 2007–2009)technology trends that have the common theme of reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. Examples of SaaS vendors include Salesforce.com and Google Apps which provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.
The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.
Software as a service:-
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet.
SaaS is becoming an increasingly prevalent delivery model as underlying technologies that support Web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA) mature and new developmental approaches, such as Ajax, become popular. Meanwhile, broadband service has become increasingly available to support user access from more areas around the world.
SaaS is closely related to the ASP (application service provider) and On Demand Computing software delivery models. IDC identifies two slightly different delivery models for SaaS. The hosted application management (hosted AM) model is similar to ASP: a provider hosts commercially available software for customers and delivers it over the Web. In the software on demand model, the provider gives customers network-based access to a single copy of an application created specifically for SaaS distribution. IDC predicts that SaaS will make up 30 percent of the software market by 2007 and will be worth $10.7 billion by 2009.
Web 2.0:-
The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What's more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as "Web 2.0" might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.
In the year and a half since, the term "Web 2.0" has clearly taken hold, with more than 9.5 million citations in Google. But there's still a huge amount of disagreement about just what Web 2.0 means, with some people decrying it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, and others accepting it as the new conventional wisdom.
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
DoubleClick --> Google AdSense
Ofoto --> Flickr
Akamai --> BitTorrent
mp3.com --> Napster
Britannica Online --> Wikipedia
personal websites --> blogging
evite --> upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation --> search engine optimization
page views --> cost per click
screen scraping --> web services
publishing --> participation
content management systems --> wikis
directories (taxonomy) --> tagging ("folksonomy")
stickiness --> syndication
The list went on and on. But what was it that made us identify one application or approach as "Web 1.0" and another as "Web 2.0"? (The question is particularly urgent because the Web 2.0 meme has become so widespread that companies are now pasting it on as a marketing buzzword, with no real understanding of just what it means. The question is particularly difficult because many of those buzzword-addicted startups are definitely not Web 2.0, while some of the applications we identified as Web 2.0, like Napster and BitTorrent, are not even properly web applications!) We began trying to tease out the principles that are demonstrated in one way or another by the success stories of web 1.0 and by the most interesting of the new applications.
Open source:-
Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge). Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations. Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.
The open source model of operation and decision making allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, and differs from the more closed, centralized models of development.[1] The principles and practices are commonly applied to the peer production development of source code for software that is made available for public collaboration. The result of this peer-based collaboration is usually released as open-source software, however open source methods are increasingly being applied in other fields of endeavor, such as Biotechnology.

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Evolution of DBMS-
1st Generation: E...

2009-04-04T00:53:00.000+05:30

1-->
Evolution of DBMS-
1st Generation: Early Database Applications
-1960s:The Hierarchical and Network Models were introduced
-1970s: They became dominated.
A bulk of the worldwide database processing still occurs using these models, particularly, the hierarchical model.
2nd Generation: Relational Model based Systems
Originally introduced in 1970, a paper by E. F. Codd
IBM Research and several universities.
-1980s: Relational DBMS Products emerged.
3rd Generation: Object-oriented Applications
-1990s: Object-Oriented Database Management Systems (OODBMSs) for complex data processing in CAD and other applications.

Realative merits and demerits of DBMS-

Merits/Advantages
-Program-data independence
-Planned data redundancy
-Improved
Data quality.
data consistency.
data sharing.
Data accessibility and responsiveness
-development productivity.
-Enforcement of standards.
-Improved decision support.

Demerits/Disadvantages
-New, specialized personnel.
-Installation and management cost and complexity.
-Conversion costs.
-Need for explicit backup and recovery.
-Organizational conflict.

Future of DBMS
-Something radically different is going to emerge.
-Orders of magnitude more data is going to be stored on the net in the near future and the expectation is going to be that we can find and possibly modify it from anywhere.
-Matching will result not from a worldwide standardization of data or a “semantic web”, but from stupid but powerful algorithms (similar to Google spell check)

Answer 3:
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is t...

2009-04-04T00:46:00.000+05:30

Answer 3:
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is the process of trading across the Internet, i.e. a buyer visits a seller's website and makes a transaction there. Basically it includes deals where the Internet plays some role, e.g. assisting the buyer in locating or comparing
products and/or sellers.

Evolution:
Matthew Gray, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, estimated there were a mere 130 web sites in June 1993, which had risen to 650,000 by January 1997. Leading search engine Google now claims to index 1,346,966,000 web pages.
Global Reach placed the worldwide number of Internet users at 369,400,000 in Sept 2000. The Electronic Telegraph quoted a survey by MMXI Europe in July 2000, which found that nearly one in five people in Britain uses the Internet from home. Many more have access to the 'net at work or school, or from public libraries and Cybercafes.The largely academic roots of Cyberspace meant the commercial exploitation of the 'net was initially viewed with hostility. In 1994 two Arizona lawyers, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegal, posted advertisements to a large number of newsgroups offering legal help to foreigners seeking U.S. work permits. Their act caused outrage, resulting in thousands of complaints including death threats. Since then attitudes have changed with most users accepting most forms of 'net advertising as a means of paying for the huge amount of valuable free content available, just as television advertising pays for the program mes. However, the non-commercial ethos of the web remains evident in the vast quantity of valuable content which is still freely available, including daily newspapers such as the Times and the entire contents of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. This is significant for the contemporary e-commerce enterprise.

The Early Adopters:
Although companies have been doing business electronically for many years using proprietary EDI systems, B2B commerce over the Internet remained in the early adopter stage at the start of the 2000s. The notion of an early adopter comes from a popular marketing theory which holds that buyers of a new product enter the market in several stages, starting with the early adopters who set the trends and ending with so-called laggards who purchase only after the vast majority has already bought. If B2B is still attracting mainly the early crowd, it suggests great potential for growth, as do the figures from the Census Bureau and private firms.
In May 2001 Accenture, a large consulting firm, released a study of B2B buyers that categorized them into five types:
1.Traditionalists (28 percent), who were principally brand sensitive but also valued customer service and good prices
2.eService Seekers (23 percent), for whom customer service was the most important
3.Price Sensitives (21 percent), for whom value lay in the price
4.eSkeptics (17 percent), who valued brand above all
5.and eVanguard (17 percent), who were comparison buyers.
The study aimed to help sellers understand online B2B buyers and help them market to companies that were or could be potentially involved in online buying.
In April 2001 InfoWorld reported that "fizzling interest in public [B2B] exchanges, coupled with the general slowdown, is forcing e-business vendors to refocus their development energies." The IT periodical noted that B2B technology vendors were shifting their focus away from building public supplier marketplaces to integration technologies and getting suppliers' content online. While some businesses began to question the value of public B2B marketplaces, claiming they would lose their competitive advantage by participating in a public exchange, private exchanges and highly focused public exchanges were being developed. One example of a specialty public exchange was eScout.com, which worked with regional banks to help small businesses make online purchases. Trade Matrix Network was a series of private exchanges that focused on vertical industries and offered a range of services, including financial settlement, collaboration, catalog management, and fulfillment and logistics.

Benefits of E-Commerce:
Some of the benefits served by e-commerce include:
•Being able to conduct business 24 x 7 x 365 . E-commerce systems can operate all day every day. Your physical storefront does not need to be open in order for customers and suppliers to be doing business with you electronically.
•Access the global marketplace . The Internet spans the world, and it is possible to do business with any business or person who is connected to the Internet. Simple local businesses such as specialist record stores are able to market and sell their offerings internationally using e-commerce. This global opportunity is assisted by the fact that, unlike traditional communications methods, users are not charged according to the distance over which they are communicating.
•Speed. Electronic communications allow messages to traverse the world almost instantaneously. There is no need to wait weeks for a catalogue to arrive by post: that communications delay is not a part of the Internet / e-commerce world.
•Marketspace. The market in which web-based businesses operate is the global market. It may not be evident to them, but many businesses are already facing international competition from web-enabled businesses.
•Opportunity to reduce costs. The Internet makes it very easy to 'shop around' for products and services that may be cheaper or more effective than we might otherwise settle for. It is sometimes possible to, through some online research, identify original manufacturers for some goods - thereby bypassing wholesalers and achieving a cheaper price.
•Computer platform-independent . 'Many, if not most, computers have the ability to communicate via the Internet independent of operating systems and hardware. Customers are not limited by existing hardware systems'.
•Efficient applications development environment - 'In many respects, applications can be more efficiently developed and distributed because the can be built without regard to the customer's or the business partner's technology platform. Application updates do not have to be manually installed on computers.
•Allowing customer self service and 'customer outsourcing'. People can interact with businesses at any hour of the day that it is convenient to them, and because these interactions are initiated by customers, the customers also provide a lot of the data for the transaction that may otherwise need to be entered by business staff. This means that some of the work and costs are effectively shifted to customers; this is referred to as 'customer outsourcing'.
•Stepping beyond borders to a global view. Using aspects of e-commerce technology can mean your business can source and use products and services provided by other businesses in other countries.

The Future:
E-commerce has experienced phenomenal growth in the last five years both in terms of the number of participants and the variety and sophistication of features which e-tailers can use to promote their product. Continuing improvements in communications technology and access devices coupled with an ever richer array of software tools which designers can employ to convey their message across the 'net suggest the impact of e-commerce is set to increase unabated for the foreseeable future. The momentum acquired thus far is likely to inspire innovative solutions to remaining problems such as security issues and representational difficulties.
As intelligent agents become more sophisticated and more widely deployed it would appear that profit through artificially high prices will cease to be feasible. Merchants of near-identical goods and services will need to provide some form of added value to their core purpose in order to differentiate themselves from their competitors and earn a share of the market. For those that can successfully achieve this the potential rewards are enormous.
e-commerce promises to liberate business, consumers and workers alike but is set to impact widely on the existing economy forcing traditional businesses to adapt and creating numerous
opportunities for new entrants.

Answer 4:Short Essays-

Green IT:-
Concerns over global warming, energy conservation, and social responsibility are leading to an unprecedented amount of media coverage about all things that need to go “Green”. Not only is there increased press coverage, but environmental protection issues are also gaining much more visibility with IT managers too.
IT has been on an unsustainable path for years. Huge data centers feeding on electricity; millions of computers burn up processor power performing background processes, many a times while their users are in meetings; add to it piles of emails, and documents are needlessly printed off and never read.
If these factors alone are not reason enough to sign up to Green IT, there are countless more. Many UK and EU regulations and campaigns demand greener businesses. Employees are increasingly ‘Green aware’ and want to see their company contributing to the solution, rather than exacerbating the problem. Sooner rather than later, someone—your boss, a big customer or a government agency—is going to want to know what you’re doing to comply with, support or advance your company’s efforts to become more environmentally responsible.

Defining Green IT:Green IT as means of increasing energy efficiency of the IT hardware, IT Data Centers and other assets. Since IT consumes very large quantities of renewable and not so renewable resources like silicon, platinum and others, a big part of Green IT also implies reducing electronic parts waste. IT also consumes space on the planet and data centers. Thus, Green IT also means reducing the data center footprint on the environment.

Datacenter is at the heart of Green IT: While ‘Green’ IT is a discussion that merits a long discussion, for the want of time and space we can perhaps focus on the heart of the issue today, which lies inside the datacenter of an enterprise.The Data Center is often the engine that drives the growth of the enterprise, and energy efficiency is the key there. According to recent AFCOM Data Center Institute survey, 50% of every dollar spent on a new server goes into the energy to power and cool it. The Lean & Green consortium predicts that by the end of 2008, the cost of powering a server may even exceed the cost of the server itself.
In fact, as per some reports Data centers consume between 1.5 percent and 3 percent of all the power generated annually in the United States— at the high end, that’s equivalent to the electricity needed to power the state of Michigan for one year.
Therefore, power management is a key aspect to achieving a Green Data Center. Simple acts such as turning off unused lights, PCs and other devices are powerful and strikingly easy changes. Furthermore, in many organizations the ‘power save’ features do exist, but have not been activated. Energy Star standards also enable us to determine what the impact of various equipments is before we buy it. At the next level, is to ensure an equipment layout that optimizes cooling.
But when considering using environmentally friendly techniques, companies should take the Green effort beyond power saving through the tactical ways. Today the need is to transform the Data Center footprints through more sustainable strategies like consolidation and virtualization which offer a more long-term solution to the problem.

Virtualization:

virtualization is a framework or methodology of dividing the resources of a computer into multiple execution environments, by applying one or more concepts or technologies such as hardware and software partitioning, time-sharing, partial or complete machine simulation, emulation, quality of service, and many others. Note that this definition includes concepts such as quality of service, which, even though being a separate field of study, is often used alongside virtualization. Often, such technologies come together in intricate ways to form interesting systems, one of whose properties is virtualization. In other words, the concept of virtualization is related to, or more appropriately synergistic with various paradigms. Consider the multi-programming paradigm: applications on 'nix' systems (actually almost all modern systems) run within a virtual machine model of some kind.The term "virtualization" is not always used to imply partitioning - breaking something down into multiple entities.
Grid computing enables the "virtualization" (ad hoc provisioning, on-demand deployment, decentralized, etc.) of distributed computing: IT resources such as storage, bandwidth, CPU cycles, PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) is a software package that permits a heterogeneous collection of Unix and/or Windows computers hooked together by a network to be used as a single large parallel computer. PVM is widely used in distributed computing.Following are some (possibly overlapping) representative reasons for and benefits of virtualization:

• Virtual machines can be used to consolidate the workloads of several under-utilized servers to fewer machines, perhaps a single machine (server consolidation). Related benefits (perceived or real, but often cited by vendors) are savings on hardware, environmental costs, management, and administration of the server infrastructure.
• The need to run legacy applications is served well by virtual machines. A legacy application might simply not run on newer hardware and/or operating systems. Even if it does, if may under-utilize the server, so as above, it makes sense to consolidate several applications. This may be difficult without virtualization as such applications are usually not written to co-exist within a single execution environment (consider applications with hard-coded System V IPC keys, as a trivial example).
• Virtual machines can be used to provide secure, isolated sandboxes for running untrusted applications. You could even create such an execution environment dynamically - on the fly - as you download something from the Internet and run it. You can think of creative schemes, such as those involving address obfuscation. Virtualization is an important concept in building secure computing platforms.
• Virtual machines can be used to create operating systems, or execution environments with resource limits, and given the right schedulers, resource guarantees. Partitioning usually goes hand-in-hand with quality of service in the creation of QoS-enabled operating systems.
• Virtual machines can provide the illusion of hardware, or hardware configuration that you do not have (such as SCSI devices, multiple processors,) Virtualization can also be used to simulate networks of independent computers.
• Virtual machines can be used to run multiple operating systems simultaneously: different versions, or even entirely different systems, which can be on hot standby. Some such systems may be hard or impossible to run on newer real hardware.
• Virtual machines allow for powerful debugging and performance monitoring. You can put such tools in the virtual machine monitor, for example. Operating systems can be debugged without losing productivity, or setting up more complicated debugging scenarios.
• Virtual machines can isolate what they run, so they provide fault and error containment. You can inject faults proactively into software to study its subsequent behavior.
• Virtual machines make software easier to migrate, thus aiding application and system mobility.
• You can treat application suites as appliances by "packaging" and running each in a virtual machine.
• Virtual machines are great tools for research and academic experiments. Since they provide isolation, they are safer to work with. They encapsulate the entire state of a running system: you can save the state, examine it, modify it, reload it, and so on. The state also provides an abstraction of the workload being run.
• Virtualization can enable existing operating systems to run on shared memory multiprocessors.
• Virtual machines can be used to create arbitrary test scenarios, and can lead to some very imaginative, effective quality assurance.
• Virtualization can be used to retrofit new features in existing operating systems without "too much" work.
• Virtualization can make tasks such as system migration, backup, and recovery easier and more manageable.
• Virtualization can be an effective means of providing binary compatibility.
• Virtualization on commodity hardware has been popular in co-located hosting. Many of the above benefits make such hosting secure, cost-effective, and appealing in general.
• Virtualization is fun.

Cloud Computing:
Cloud computing is a computing paradigm in which tasks are assigned to a combination of connections, software and services accessed over a network. This network of servers and connections is collectively known as "the cloud." Computing at the scale of the cloud allows users to access supercomputer-level power. Users can access resources as they need them. (For this reason, cloud computing has also been described as "on-demand computing.")
This vast processing power is made possible though distributed, large-scale cluster computing, often in concert with server virtualization software, like Xen, and parallel processing. Cloud computing can be contrasted with the traditional desktop computing model, where the resources of a single desktop computer are used to complete tasks, and an expansion of the client/server model. To paraphrase Sun Microsystems' famous adage, in cloud computing the network becomes the supercomputer.
Cloud computing is often used to sort through enormous amounts of data. In fact, Google has an initial edge in cloud computing precisely because of its need to produce instant, accurate results for millions of incoming search inquries every day, parsing through the terabytes of Internet data cached on its servers. Google's approach has been to design and manufacture hundreds of thousands of its own servers from commodity components, connecting relatively inexpensive processors in parallel to create an immensely powerful, scalable system. Google Apps, Maps and Gmail are all based in the cloud. Other companies have already created Web-based operating systems that collect online applications into Flash-based graphic user interfaces (GUIs), often using a look and feel intentionally quite similar to Windows. Hundreds of organizations are already offering free Web services in the cloud.
In many ways, however, cloud computing is simply a buzzword used to repackage grid computing and utility computing, both of which have existed for decades. Like grid computing, cloud computing requires the use of software that can divide and distribute components of a program to thousands of computers. New advances in processors, virtualization technology, disk storage, broadband Internet access and fast, inexpensive servers have all combined to make cloud computing a compelling paradigm. Cloud computing allows users and companies to pay for and use the services and storage that they need, when they need them and, as wireless broadband connection options grow, where they need them. Customers can be billed based upon server utlilization, processing power used or bandwidth consumed. As a result, cloud computing has the potential to up end the software industry entirely, as applications are purchased, licensed and run over the network instead of a user's desktop. This shift will put data centers and their administrators at the center of the distributed network, as processing power, electricity, bandwidth and storage are all managed remotely.

Business Analytics:
Business Analytics focuses on effective use of data and information to drive positive business actions. The body of knowledge for this area includes both business and technical topics, including concepts of performance management, definition and delivery of business metrics, data visualization, and deployment and use of technology solutions such as OLAP, dashboards, scorecards, analytic applications, and data mining. Business intelligence roles that demand business analytics knowledge and skills include business sponsor, business subject expert, knowledge worker, data steward, business requirements analyst, and developer of business analytics systems. Roles with broad scope of responsibility such as business intelligence architect, metadata administrator, quality administrator, and customer service personnel also benefit from a solid foundation in business
analytics. In addition to the Core and Data Warehousing exams, the Business Analytics exam is required for certification in Business Analytics.
According to Thomas Davenport, analytics are defined as the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive modeling, and fact-based management to drive decision making. Analytics may be used as input for human decisions or may drive fully automated decisions. According to Davenport,businesses analytics represent a subset of business intelligence. The other part of business intelligence is data access and reporting. The questions that business analytics can answer represent more proactive and higher value questions than questions data access and reporting can answer. In other words, data and access tools can answer the questions: what happened; how many, how often, where; where exactly is the problem; what actions are needed. Business analytics can answer the questions: why is this happening; what if these trends continue; what will happen next; what is the best than can happpen.

Software as a Service(SaaS):
SaaS is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet. SaaS is becoming an increasingly prevalent delivery model as underlying technologies that support Web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA) mature and new developmental approaches, such as Ajax, become popular. Meanwhile, broadband service has become increasingly available to support user access from more areas around the world.SaaS is closely related to the ASP (application service provider) and On Demand Computing software delivery models. IDC identifies two slightly different delivery models for SaaS. The hosted application management (hosted AM) model is similar to ASP: a provider hosts commercially available software for customers and delivers it over the Web. In the software on demand model, the provider gives customers network-based access to a single copy of an application created specifically for SaaS distribution. IDC predicts that SaaS will make up 30 percent of the software market by 2007 and will be worth $10.7 billion by 2009.
Benefits of the SaaS model include:
•easier administration
•automatic updates and patch management
•compatibility: All users will have the same version of software.
•easier collaboration, for the same reason
•global accessibility.
The traditional model of software distribution, in which software is purchased for and installed on personal computers, is sometimes referred to as software as a product.

Web 2.0:
Within 15 years the Web has grown from a group work tool for scientists at CERN into a global
information space with more than a billion users. Currently, it is both returning to its roots as a read/write tool and also entering a new, more social and participatory phase. These trends have led to a feeling that the Web is entering a ‘second phase’—a new, ‘improved’ Web version 2.0.Web 2.0 is more than a set of ‘cool’ and new technologies and services. It has, at its heart, a set of at least six powerful ideas that are changing the way some people interact. Secondly, it is also important to acknowledge that these ideas are not necessarily the preserve of ‘Web 2.0’, but are, in fact, direct or indirect reflections of the power
of the network: the strange effects and topologies at the micro and macro level that a billion Internet users produce. This might well be why Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, maintains that Web 2.0 is really just an extension of the original ideals of the Web that does not warrant a special moniker.

Open Source:
Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge). Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations. Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.The open source model of operation and decision making allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, and differs from the more closed, centralized models of development. The principles and practices are commonly applied to the peer production development of source code for software that is made available for public collaboration. The result of this peer-based collaboration is usually released as open-source software, however open source methods are increasingly being applied in other fields of endeavor, such as Biotechnology. The FOSS (free and open-source software) community is often too busy coding and testing to bother with marketing, even when the new "point release" of the software is really remarkable.
And there are plenty of remarkable open-source applications on the way this year. Quite a few projects are quietly (or not so quietly) working on major releases or significant upgrades that they aim to make available sometime during 2009. Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox 3.5 promises a native parser for JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), a data exchange format frequently used in Web apps, and several features to enhance rich media Web content, including support for the HTML 5 video element and the Ogg Vorbis and Theora open audio and video codecs.
And then there's whatever Google Inc. is planning for its Chrome browser, based on the open-source WebKit engine. The company is playing it close to the vest, but we do know Mac and Linux versions of the browser are in development.
Linux fans have much to look forward to, too. Following the release of Ubuntu 9.04, the "Jaunty Jackalope," in April, the Ubuntu team is planning for Ubuntu 9.10, the "Karmic Koala," to see the light of day in October 2009. Among the promised new features are integration with the Amazon EC2 APIs, so users can set up their own cloud using entirely open tools, and a kernel mode setting for a smooth and flicker-free start-up. The Ubuntu Netbook Edition will get the latest technology from the mobile Internet project Moblin, including better screen support.
Every other Linux distribution is sure to get better, too, along with associated operating system components. For example, Novell openSUSE 11.2, scheduled for November, should include KDE 4.3, GNOME 2.28, Linux kernel 2.6.30 (or higher), a Web-based YaST interface and netbook support.
Mac OS X is fully-conformant UNIX operating system—built on Mach 3.0 and FreeBSD 5—bundles over a hundred of the most popular Open Source products. You can shell out with bash, tcsh, ksh, and zsh; edit your code with emacs, vim, and nano; and build your projects using gcc, make, and autoconf.For a little higher-level you can Run your X11 apps side-by-side with native apps using X11R7 from X.org. Serve your web site with Apache 2.0 and PHP 5. Start scripting with Ruby and Python, and build web applications with the Ruby on Rails framework. You can even measure your application's performance using DTrace from OpenSolaris.

Answer 5:
The Trends in Consumer IT

To stick with the online revolution: if you feel the online world is evolving so fast that it’s hard to tell your web 0.2 from your web 2.0— tough luck! 2007 will see a broad debate on what constitutes web 3.0, web 4.0 and who knows, even web 5.0. So while the web 2.0’s user-generated avalanche will continue, we’re going to hear and obsess (again) about the Mobile Web, the Internet of Things, INFOLUST, Exploding TV, the Metaverse and so on.So instead of logging off, grab the online bull by the horns and educate yourself about as many WEB N+1s as you can. Quick tip: start by (re)reading everything by Kevin Kelly, who has been correct in predicting the Next Big Online Thing over and over again. When it comes to the shift from offline to online, the predications are out there, we haven’t seen anything yet, and you have no excuse not to know about it.
While the last few years didn’t disappoint (consumers are already enjoying near-full transparency of prices and, in categories like travel and music, near-full transparency of opinions as well), 2007 could be the year in which TRANSPARENCY TYRANNY really starts scaring the shit out of non-performing brands.
Why? For one, 1+ billion consumers are now online, and the majority of them have been online for years. They're skilled bargain seekers and ‘best of the best’ hunters, they're avid online networkers and they're opinionated reviewers and advisors (tripadvisor.com now boasts 5,000,000+ travel reviews). Now, for 2007, add the following:
As camera and video phones are becoming both ubiquitous and more powerful, reviews of anything and everything will go multimedia.EVERYTHING brands do or don’t do will end up on youtube.com, or on an undoubtedly soon to be launched youtube-clone dedicated to product reviews.
More on those camera-phones: as they’re bound to eventually go online on a global scale (for early learnings, Japan and South Korea are the place to be, see also WEB N+1 below), consumer reviews will increasingly become real time and on the spot, i.e. expect ever shorter gaps between a consumer experience (good or bad) and the rest of the world knowing about it. And those web-enabled phones will also come in handy for in-store price comparisons. Real-time TRANSPARENCY TYRANNY is on the rise for another reason as well: as more people are contributing, the sheer mass of reviews will lead to daily and who knows, hourly reviews on any topic imaginable. (The image above shows
three Tripadvisor members reviewing the Hilton Millenium in 24 hours, whereas a few years ago, one review per month was deemed frequent.) Pleasant side-effect: mass postings will also unmask, outnumber and neutralize any fake reviews posted by desperate brands trying to piggyback on the powers of transparency.
However, the missing link in the above is profiles: the onslaught of recommendations needs some transparency of its own. After all, what good is a recommendation if it’s from someone leading a different STATUS LIFESTYLE than your own? Expect a host of new TWINSUMER ventures to monetize collaborative filtering and profile matching in 2007, most likely by partnering with sites that are already centered around profiles, like MySpace and Bebo.com. Collaborative filtering and profile matching ranges from social shopping (check out Crowdstorm, ThisNext and Stylehive on Springwise) to the Last.fms and Yoonos of this world.
Once this PROFILE MANIA reaches its zenith, and even more purchase decisions will be influenced by fellow, likeminded consumers, expect star contributors/reviewers to demand a piece of the action. Re-read our GENERATION C(ASH) briefing for a taste of things to come. Smart 'participants' will want to get paid in 2007. As everything that becomes mass always paves the way for niche, expect more niche price comparison sites like Red Roller, which compares shipping prices for small businesses.And transparency is not just consumer-driven: count on your own employees and colleagues to add to the fun too. Here’s to employee-generated videos stirring things up in 2007.
The list of observations goes on:
Quality is hygiene these days: even TV sets or irons from obscure brands found at WalMart work flawlessly. Another incentive to try out the unknown.
An entire generation is growing up as gamers, and games are nothing but invitations to be daring, and try, try, try until you find a solution and succeed.
Building on the disappointment theme: as we pointed out in our TRANSUMERISM briefing, a global C2C infrastructure is now in place, from eBay to classifieds, enabling (or even encouraging) TRYSUMERS to quickly dispose of what's no longer needed. From Daniel Nissanoff, author of FutureShop: "An interesting phenomenon that somebody shared with me was that, as eBay began to grow, people began to buy musical instruments, especially guitars, much more frequently, because they weren't as worried about taking up the wrong instrument or buying the wrong instrument and getting stuck with it.The auction culture is beginning to empower the consumer to reach because they can afford better items since they're not paying the whole ticket for them. They know there's going to be residual value at the end of the day and they're willing to take more chances because they know there's an exit if they made a mistake.
* The Plantronics Voyager 855 is the first two-in-one stereo bluetooth headset with "exclusive AudioIQ technology for crystal clear wireless sound."
* Lenovo now offers the ThinkPad Reserve Edition laptop, encased in leather. The Reserve Edition is based on the recently released 12.1-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X61s, and comes with 'Blue-Button Instant Access' for instant messaging with dedicated support staff
* SNACK CULTURE meets 'Instant Gratification 2.0': the growing number of sophisticated SEE-HEAR-BUY services that enable consumers to instantly purchase anything virtual they see or hear. Best example to watch in 2008: the iTunes WiFi Music Store. How it works: when a user hears a particular song playing at his or her local Starbucks, he/she can instantly find the artist, album and name of the track on his iPhone or iPod Touch. By tapping the Starbucks button in either device's main menu, the current song shows up, as well as the last ten songs played. They can be purchased and downloaded instantly via Starbucks' wifi connection.
* Amazon.com's just-launched Kindle, a digital book reading device, is going after the same market for the written word, with books and (international or niche) paper-based magazines as the most desirable 'must have right now' items.

Software as A Service

Software as a Service...

2009-04-04T00:13:00.000+05:30

Software as A Service

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet.
SaaS is becoming an increasingly prevalent delivery model as underlying technologies that support Web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA) mature and new developmental approaches, such as Ajax, become popular. Meanwhile, broadband service has become increasingly available to support user access from more areas around the world.
SaaS is closely related to the ASP (application service provider) and On Demand Computing software delivery models. IDC identifies two slightly different delivery models for SaaS. The hosted application management (hosted AM) model is similar to ASP: a provider hosts commercially available software for customers and delivers it over the Web. In the software on demand model, the provider gives customers network-based access to a single copy of an application created specifically for SaaS distribution. IDC predicts that SaaS will make up 30 percent of the software market by 2007 and will be worth $10.7 billion by 2009.
Benefits of the SaaS model include:
• easier administration
• automatic updates and patch management
• compatibility: All users will have the same version of software.
• easier collaboration, for the same reason
• global accessibility.
The traditional model of software distribution, in which software is purchased for and installed on personal computers, is sometimes referred to as software as a product.

PRASHANT GUHA
SMU SEM 2

www.enigmaticpieces.blogspot.com

2. ERP:
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource P...

2009-04-03T23:58:00.000+05:30

2. ERP:
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. ERP is a way to integrate the data and processes of an organization into one single system. Usually ERP systems will have many components including hardware and software, in order to achieve integration, most ERP systems use a unified database to store data for various functions found throughout the organization.

The term ERP originally referred to how a large organization planned to use organizational wide resources. In the past, ERP systems were used in larger more industrial types of companies. However, the use of ERP has changed and is extremely comprehensive, today the term can refer to any type of company, no matter what industry it falls in. In fact, ERP systems are used in almost any type of organization - large or small.
In order for a software system to be considered ERP, it must provide an organization with functionality for two or more systems. While some ERP packages exist that only cover two functions for an organization (QuickBooks: Payroll & Accounting), most ERP systems cover several functions.
Today's ERP systems can cover a wide range of functions and integrate them into one unified database. For instance, functions such as Human Resources, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relations Management, Financials, Manufacturing functions and Warehouse Management functions were all once stand alone software applications, usually housed with their own database and network, today, they can all fit under one umbrella - the ERP system.
Integration is Key to ERP
Integration is an extremely important part to ERP's. ERP's main goal is to integrate data and processes from all areas of an organization and unify it for easy access and work flow. ERP's usually accomplish integration by creating one single database that employs multiple software modules providing different areas of an organization with various business functions.
Although the ideal configuration would be one ERP system for an entire organization, many larger organizations usually create and ERP system and then build upon the system and external interface for other stand alone systems which might be more powerful and perform better in fulfilling an organizations needs. Usually this type of configuration can be time consuming and does require lots of labor hours.
The Ideal ERP System
An ideal ERP system is when a single database is utilized and contains all data for various software modules. These software modules can include:
Manufacturing: Some of the functions include; engineering, capacity, workflow management, quality control, bills of material, manufacturing process, etc.
Financials: Accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets, general ledger and cash management, etc.
Human Resources: Benefits, training, payroll, time and attendance, etc
Supply Chain Management: Inventory, supply chain planning, supplier scheduling, claim processing, order entry, purchasing, etc.
Projects: Costing, billing, activity management, time and expense, etc.
Customer Relationship Management: sales and marketing, service, commissions, customer contact, calls center support, etc.
Data Warehouse: Usually this is a module that can be accessed by an organizations customers, suppliers and employees.
ERP Improves Productivity
Before ERP systems, each department in an organization would most likely have their own computer system, data and database. Unfortunately, many of these systems would not be able to communicate with one another or need to store or rewrite data to make it possible for cross computer system communication. For instance, the financials of a company were on a separate computer system than the HR system, making it more intensive and complicated to process certain functions.
Once an ERP system is in place, usually all aspects of an organization can work in harmony instead of every single system needing to be compatible with each other. For large organizations, increased productivity and less types of software are a result.
Implementation of an ERP System
Implementing an ERP system is not an easy task to achieve, in fact it takes lots of planning, consulting and in most cases 3 months to 1 year +. ERP systems are extraordinary wide in scope and for many larger organizations can be extremely complex. Implementing an ERP system will ultimately require significant changes on staff and work practices. While it may seem reasonable for an in house IT staff to head the project, it is widely advised that ERP implementation consultants be used, due to the fact that consultants are usually more cost effective and are specifically trained in implementing these types of systems.
One of the most important traits that an organization should have when implementing an ERP system is ownership of the project. Because so many changes take place and its broad effect on almost every individual in the organization, it is important to make sure that everyone is on board and will help make the project and using the new ERP system a success.
Usually organizations use ERP vendors or consulting companies to implement their customized ERP system. There are three types of professional services that are provided when implementing an ERP system, they are Consulting, Customization and Support.
Consulting Services - usually consulting services are responsible for the initial stages of ERP implementation, they help an organization go live with their new system, with product training, workflow, improve ERP's use in the specific organization, etc.
Customization Services - Customization services work by extending the use of the new ERP system or changing its use by creating customized interfaces and/or underlying application code. While ERP systems are made for many core routines, there are still some needs that need to be built or customized for an organization.
Support Services- Support services include both support and maintenance of ERP systems. For instance, trouble shooting and assistance with ERP issues.
Advantages of ERP Systems
There are many advantages of implementing an EPR system; here are a few of them:
• A totally integrated system
• The ability to streamline different processes and workflows
• The ability to easily share data across various departments in an organization
• Improved efficiency and productivity levels
• Better tracking and forecasting
• Lower costs
• Improved customer service
Disadvantages of ERP Systems
While advantages usually outweigh disadvantages for most organizations implementing an ERP system, here are some of the most common obstacles experienced:
Usually many obstacles can be prevented if adequate investment is made and adequate training is involved, however, success does depend on skills and the experience of the workforce to quickly adapt to the new system.
• Customization in many situations is limited
• The need to reengineer business processes
• ERP systems can be cost prohibitive to install and run
• Technical support can be shoddy
• ERP's may be too rigid for specific organizations that are either new or want to move in a new direction in the near future.
SCM:
Introduction to Supply Chain Management
If your company makes a product from parts purchased from suppliers, and those products are sold to customers, then you have a supply chain. Some supply chains are simple, while others are rather complicated. The complexity of the supply chain will vary with the size of the business and the intricacy and numbers of items that are manufactured.
Elements of the Supply Chain
A simple supply chain is made up of several elements that are linked by the movement of products along it. The supply chain starts and ends with the customer.
• Customer: The customer starts the chain of events when they decide to purchase a product that has been offered for sale by a company. The customer contacts the sales department of the company, which enters the sales order for a specific quantity to be delivered on a specific date. If the product has to be manufactured, the sales order will include a requirement that needs to be fulfilled by the production facility.
• Planning: The requirement triggered by the customers sales order will be combined with other orders. The planning department will create a production plan to produce the products to fulfill the customers orders. To manufacture the products the company will then have to purchase the raw materials needed.
• Purchasing: The purchasing department receives a list of raw materials and services required by the production department to complete the customers orders. The purchasing department sends purchase orders to selected suppliers to deliver the necessary raw materials to the manufacturing site on the required date.
• Inventory: The raw materials are received from the suppliers, checked for quality and accuracy and moved into the warehouse. The supplier will then send an invoice to the company for the items they delivered. The raw materials are stored until they are required by the production department.
• Production: Based on a production plan, the raw materials are moved inventory to the production area. The finished products ordered by the customer are manufactured using the raw materials purchased from suppliers. After the items have been completed and tested, they are stored back in the warehouse prior to delivery to the customer.
• Transportation: When the finished product arrives in the warehouse, the shipping department determines the most efficient method to ship the products so that they are delivered on or before the date specified by the customer. When the goods are received by the customer, the company will send an invoice for the delivered products.
Supply Chain Management
To ensure that the supply chain is operating as efficient as possible and generating the highest level of customer satisfaction at the lowest cost, companies have adopted Supply Chain Management processes and associated technology. Supply Chain Management has three levels of activities that different parts of the company will focus on: strategic; tactical; and operational.
• Strategic: At this level, company management will be looking to high level strategic decisions concerning the whole organization, such as the size and location of manufacturing sites, partnerships with suppliers, products to be manufactured and sales markets.
• Tactical: Tactical decisions focus on adopting measures that will produce cost benefits such as using industry best practices, developing a purchasing strategy with favored suppliers, working with logistics companies to develop cost effect transportation and developing warehouse strategies to reduce the cost of storing inventory.
• Operational: Decisions at this level are made each day in businesses that affect how the products move along the supply chain. Operational decisions involve making schedule changes to production, purchasing agreements with suppliers, taking orders from customers and moving products in the warehouse.
Supply Chain Management Technology
If a company expects to achieve benefits from their supply chain management process, they will require some level of investment in technology. The backbone for many large companies has been the vastly expensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suites, such as SAP and Oracle.
Since the wide adoption of Internet technologies, all businesses can take advantage of Web-based software and Internet communications. Instant communication between vendors and customers allows for timely updates of information, which is key in management of the supply chain.
CRM:
CRM (customer relationship management) is an information industry term for methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized way. For example, an enterprise might build a database about its customers that described relationships in sufficient detail so that management, salespeople, people providing service, and perhaps the customer directly could access information, match customer needs with product plans and offerings, remind customers of service requirements, know what other products a customer had purchased, and so forth.
According to one industry view, CRM consists of:
• Helping an enterprise to enable its marketing departments to identify and target their best customers, manage marketing campaigns and generate quality leads for the sales team.
• Assisting the organization to improve telesales, account, and sales management by optimizing information shared by multiple employees, and streamlining existing processes (for example, taking orders using mobile devices)
• Allowing the formation of individualized relationships with customers, with the aim of improving customer satisfaction and maximizing profits; identifying the most profitable customers and providing them the highest level of service.
• Providing employees with the information and processes necessary to know their customers, understand and identify customer needs and effectively build relationships between the company, its customer base, and distribution partners.
Many organizations turn to CRM software to help them manage their customer relationships. CRM technology is offered on-premise, on-demand or through Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM, depending on the vendor. Recently, mobile CRM and the open source CRM software model have also become more popular.

3.Mention the ways in which the E-Commerce has evo...

2009-04-03T23:48:00.000+05:30

3.Mention the ways in which the E-Commerce has evolved, the early adopters, the benefits served and the future of this technology (do mention corresponding names and years).

Information technology was once the exclusive realm of the IT professional. Users were concerned not with technology issues but with technology results. If I had to pinpoint when that changed, I’d say it was probably with the launch of Windows 95. The hype that surrounded Microsoft’s marketing blitz gave consumers their first real exposure to the world of technology. Among those waiting in line all night to buy a copy were people who didn’t even own a computer. If you can sell an operating system to someone without a CPU, you have reached the ultimate in marketing, as far as I’m concerned.

Today, consumers have taken on many of the same roles as IT professionals — in fact, they are often working on more complicated tasks, such as streaming live video feeds from their homes to their phones. Dad is the CIO, Mom runs the help desk, and the kids are doing technical support and stringing Cat 5 wire around the house. If users are feeling more comfortable with IT, it’s because they’ve been thrust into these roles at home, where they are keeping technology running without the benefit of a dedicated IT department. They’re also more interested in technology issues — just check how many technology sites users visit from work.

Now granted, there’s a big difference in the things consumers are doing and the challenges that IT managers face, but consumer familiarity with technical tasks means that more users are techno literate than ever before. And that means they’re going to want to express their opinions about how things should be done.

But users’ priorities are different from IT’s. For example, form factor is a major consideration for consumers. It was not that long ago that all PCs looked the same. PCs were PCs. If you wanted to market a server, you turned the PC on its side; if you needed a workstation, you painted it blue; and if you wanted a mobile computer, you just glued a handle on the top. Today, PCs are as much about fashion and style as they are about feeds and speeds.

This, of course, has ramifications for IT departments. IT is getting more requests for new laptops based on form and style, and not just from top executives. And increasingly, users are taking matters into their own hands and making technology purchases on their own. Whether it’s buying a cool new laptop to replace the organizational behemoth they were issued, installing a new operating system like Windows Vista, or purchasing a smart phone and asking IT to make it work with corporate e-mail, users are demanding more of a voice in IT decisions.

Yes, consumer technology is often unsuitable for business use, but IT organizations must begin to pay attention to what consumers want. The line that once existed between home and work is eroding, and people want to use personal devices to bridge that gap.

There is no one answer to how IT organizations will deal with this new reality. Different companies will exercise different degrees of control based on their comfort with the risks involved and the amount of individual device adoption they can absorb. But IT people need to not only recognize the changes in the landscape, but also remember whom they work for.
By definition, E-commerce involves carrying out commerce on the web, which includes buying and selling of products on the web. The term, e-business, is about carrying out any business on the web and is broader than e-commerce. Various types of corporations are now in ebusiness, including corporations that provide consulting as well as solutions and products such as IBM, and smaller corporations such as the Dot-Com companies. Some of these smaller corporations can connect consumers with healthcare providers, lawyers, real estate agents and other professionals who provide services of various kinds. Consulting companies may come in and assess the state of a corporation’s business practices, and advise it on how to develop ebusiness solutions. One of the latest trends is to provide fully integrated enterprise resource management and business process reengineering capabilities on the web. A strong business component is essential for e-business. Technology will provide only the tools to make e-business more efficient.
Business-to-consumer e-commerce is when a consumer such as a member of the mass population makes purchases on the web (see figure 2-3). In the toy manufacturer example, the purchase between the individual and the toy manufacturer is a business-to-consumer transaction.
Business-to-consumer e-commerce has grown tremendously during recent years. While computer hardware purchases still constitute the leading application for e-commerce transactions, purchasing toys, apparel, software, and even groceries via the web have also increased. But many experts believe that the real future will be in business-to-business transactions, as this will involve much greater amounts of transactions. Furthermore, for organizations to work across boundaries, we need effective business-to-business c-commerce.
There are two main types of e-commerce. The first, and most common, is business to consumer (B2C), which as the name implies, involves e-businesses providing goods and/or services to end consumers. Common examples of popular B2C e-commerce include Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, and NewEgg.com. On the other side of the e-commerce spectrum, we have business to business (B2B) e-commerce, which is the electronic transactions between multiple businesses, and does not involve common products or consumers. B2C e-commerce has been changing the way people shop and conduct business online for well over ten years, and has become a significant staple in the way modern retail giants attract and maintain loyal consumers from all over the globe. The number of online e-tailers (electronic retailers) continues to grow each and every year, and new marketing strategies are constantly being developed by businesses to ensure that their products are ultimately being found online and purchased by the end-user.

This growth is being spawned by the mere fact that more and more people are buying online each year. Looking back at the first quarter of 2004, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported that $15.5 billion was spent online, an increase of 28.1% from the first quarter of 2003. This sales figure accounted for 1.9% of total retail sales that quarter. Going forward, the progress of retail e-commerce has all but slowed, with online sales increasing no less that 25% each year until the first quarter of 2007, where an estimated $31.5 billion in online spending was reported. Worth noting, however, is that while total e-commerce sales increase, also increasing is total retail spending as a whole. Keeping this in mind, the most effective way to gauge the increasing impact of e-commerce on retail is to look at the percent of total retail that was conducted online. As previously mentioned, 1.9% of retail sales were made online in the first quarter of 2004. This number increases in each first quarter over the next 3 years: 2.2% in 2005, 2.7% in 2006, and 3.2% in 2007. At this rate of increase, one can only assume that by the year 2020, roughly 10% of all retail business will be conducted online.

As a result of this online shopping phenomenon, both commercial and independent brick and mortar shops are looking to integrate e-commerce solutions into their business models in an attempt to compete with the evolving marketplace, yet are falling behind as a result of poor site design, faulty programming and functionality, or weak marketing efforts. In order to effectively sell online, e-tailers need to be able to look at what their site offers through the eyes of the average consumer and come to grips with the fact that running a store online is essentially no different than a physical brick and mortar shop.

Sayantan Dey
SMU Sem II

1. Database management system:
A collection of...

2009-04-03T23:40:00.000+05:30

1. Database management system:
A collection of programs that enables you to store, modify, and extract information from a database. There are many different types of DBMSs, ranging from small systems that run on personal computers to huge systems that run on mainframes. The following are examples of database applications:
• computerized library systems
• automated teller machines
• flight reservation systems
• computerized parts inventory systems
From a technical standpoint, DBMSs can differ widely. The terms relational, network, flat, and hierarchical all refer to the way a DBMS organizes information internally. The internal organization can affect how quickly and flexibly you can extract information.
Requests for information from a database are made in the form of a query, which is a stylized question. For example, the query
SELECT ALL WHERE NAME = "SMITH" AND AGE > 35
requests all records in which the NAME field is SMITH and the AGE field is greater than 35. The set of rules for constructing queries is known as a query language. Different DBMSs support different query languages, although there is a semi-standardized query language called SQL (structured query language). Sophisticated languages for managing database systems are called fourth-generation languages, or 4GLs for short.
The information from a database can be presented in a variety of formats. Most DBMSs include a report writer program that enables you to output data in the form of a report. Many DBMSs also include a graphics component that enables you to output information in the form of graphs and charts.
Future of Database Systems:
Database management systems (DBMSs) are at a crossroads, perhaps the first since their successful entry into the information-processing marketplace. On the one hand, relational systems have been enormously successful, creating a multibillion-dollar industry over the last two decades. On the other, current technological developments and application demands are severely testing the limits of current commercial systems. Failure to address these changes and demands may result in the marginalization of database management with more and more data stored elsewhere and managed by systems without typical database functionality (e.g., querying, transactional support, integrity enforcement). The following are some of my views on the challenges and the directions that seem to be important to investigate.
Changing Applications
The unsuitability of the existing (relational) DBMSs in servicing the data management requirements of complex (aka `advanced') application domains is a well known (and much repeated) fact. Most of the problems arise from the multiplicity and complexity of data types and the uncertainty of accessing them. Existing systems are optimized to manage structured data of a few relatively simple types. Users are expected to pose well-formed queries and/or simple transactions to access the database. All of these issues change in new applications that now demand DBMS services. Most of these applications deal with multiple types of quite complex data that are not well structured; user access to these data is ill-defined, requiring partial match searches, and the transactional access to the data is at workflow complexity. Since many of these applications exhibit multimedia characteristics, I ll use multimedia information systems to demonstrate some of the issues. What are the characteristics of multimedia data that differentiate these databases from traditional ones?
• Multimedia objects are diverse with differing characteristics. The storage and access requirements of text, for example, are quite different from those of audio and video. Furthermore, some of these data have real-time constraints in their delivery to client stations.
• Multimedia objects are large. For example, each of the following takes 1 Mbytes of storage in uncompressed form [1]: six seconds of CD-quality audio, a single 640x480 color image with 24 bits/pixel, a single frame of (1/30 second) CIF video, or one digital X-ray image (1024x1024) with 8 bits/pixel.
• Multimedia objects are complex in their structure. The primitive objects are not simple structured data (eg, names, addresses, and salaries of employees), but rather consist of digitized voice and images. Multimedia documents are structured complex objects containing a number of these primitive objects. There should be facilities available for (a) accessing this information based on the semantic content of the objects, and (b) accessing different components of these objects. Furthermore, there are relationships among multimedia objects (i.e., classification, specialization/generalization, and aggregation hierarchies) that need to be modeled.
• Multimedia objects have temporal and spatial relationships to each other in addition to the structural relationships described above. These relationships should be modeled explicitly as part of the stored data.
• Multimedia applications require users to be able to define new data types as part of the schema. This points to the need for extensible DBMSs. Furthermore, these applications add and delete new object types dynamically. Therefore, multimedia systems do not have static schemas and the data management system needs to be able to handle dynamic schema changes.
• User access to multimedia databases is complex and possibly ill-defined. This requires query models and languages that can deal with incomplete information and fuzzy specification.
• The processing of individual multimedia objects in composing multimedia documents is a complex process that can be specified as a workflow and managed by the system. Furthermore, some multimedia applications are collaborative (e.g., authoring systems, design environments) and require collaborative transaction processing capability.
Current relational DBMSs cannot meet these requirements for a number of model and architectural reasons. This is perhaps why DBMS technology has not had a significant impact on data management requirements of applications with similar requirements. The main use of database technology has been as the holder of metadata, but the actual multimedia data, in particular continuous-media data such as audio and video, are stored in ordinary files. This unfortunately eliminates the possibility of posing queries on these data. Ultimately, we would should be able to pose queries such as ``Find all multimedia documents that show Bill Clinton standing next to John Chretien and uttering the words `Canada is our best neighbor''' or ``Show me all the images that contain an object that looks like O (depicting a shape)'' and have these queries executed efficiently.
What needs to be done to let DBMSs fulfill the requirements of these applications? The needs are both architectural and model-dependent. For example, since the delivery of audio and video streams (assuming they are delivered on different streams) are both time-dependent and need to be synchronized with each other, either the communication between the client and the server has to be adjusted to meet these real-time synchronization requirements, or the server interface of the systems needs to be opened to enable syncronization routines to access multimedia objects at the server buffer. From a modeling perspective, more sophisticated models are necessary to capture the application objects properly. Object DBMSs are, in my view, the most promising systems for meeting these requirements. However, many problems in engineering high-performance, full-functionality object DBMSs have yet to be resolved. Existing systems, by and large, are persistent object repositories with limited DBMS functionality following simple distribution strategies. It is hard to extend them (how do you store JPEG encoded images in native mode in an object DBMS so that you can interpret the encoded images?), they don't offer query models that can be extended with multimedia constructs, their query-optimization capabilities are severely limited, and I don't know how they would scale with increasing data volume and user community. Furthermore, querying these databases is significantly more complicated as one has to deal with quality-of-service concerns and handle fuzzy queries that can be answered by partial matches and those that need the discovery of ill-defined (or undefined) patterns in the data. Thus, for example, data-mining techniques can be used on image databases to answer some of the queries.
As indicated above, multimedia systems are representative (in terms of their data management requirements) of many other applications such as electronic commerce, digital libraries, and engineering design environments. I believe distributed object management [2,3] will be the major technology in addressing these requirements and R&D in this technology is a fundamental strategic direction. Research in this area is in its infancy.
The foregoing discussion may have left the impression that it is essential (or, at least, desirable) to collect all of this data under the control of a DBMS. This is not my claim, since I recognize that most of this data is already stored in various other places. What I propose, however, is that DBMS-like access to this data be provided in an interoperable environment. This raises the second important strategic issue, namely interoperable systems. Early research in this area concentrated on multidatabases (or federated databases). More recent research has started to address the problem in more generality with emphasis on wrapper-mediator systems [4]. The wrapper-mediator approach, coupled with object orientation, seems to be the correct paradigm to deal with interoperability. However, there is currently no well-defined methodology for constructing these systems and there is little or no support for (semi-)automatic generation of wrappers and mediators for different functions.
Technological Developments
Perhaps the most important technological development that is affecting database management is the emergence of distributed and parallel computing as a mainstream computing paradigm. Stonebraker claimed in 1988 that in the subsequent decade centralized database managers would become an antique curiosity as more organizations move toward distributed database managers [5]. By and large, this turned out to be an accurate forecast. Most, if not all, of the commercial DBMSs provide some sort of distribution. Practically every product can be configured as a single server client-server system and some go beyond that as well. In my view, this trend will continue at an accelerated pace in the future and the only obstacle to this growth that I can see is our inability to manage highly distributed systems effectively. One might question whether this is a computer science problem or an issue that organizational and management science should tackle, but it remains an issue.
We claimed in a 1991 paper [6] that we do not have a handle on the effects of computer network protocols on the performance of distributed DBMSs. This remains largely true today as well, and the problem is becoming more serious. There is a convergence of communications and data management whose synergistic effect provides both challenges and opportunities. There are three major developments in networking that will have profound effects on database management, and I am not convinced that we know how to deal with the effects of these developments. These are (1) the emergence of high-bandwidth, high-speed broadband networks, (2) mobile computing environments, and (3) the explosion of the Internet.
Broadband networks violate almost all of the assumptions that we used to make in designing distributed database systems. The network is no longer the bottleneck, since network speeds can exceed I/O speeds. Some have suggested that the emergence of broadband networks signals the death of distributed databases by making access to a remote centralized database feasible. These arguments miss the point, in my view, since bandwidth and latency are different things and there are motivating factors other than bandwidth and speed for distribution of storage and maintenance of data. However, there is no question that important architectural reevaluation is necessary. There is some work, for example, that investigates the tradeoffs of accessing data from a `neighbor's' cache rather than retrieving it from disk if network speeds make this advantageous. More work on issues such as this, which might turn some of the underlying assumptions of DBMSs on their heads, is necessary.
Mobility is emerging as a major force in the marketplace. Most mobile data management research assumes an environment where data are located in computers on the wireline network with the mobile stations, with limited capabilities, `downloading' data as needed. This is a realistic scenario for a limited number of applications and one that poses no major challenges for data management, since data resides primarily on wireline computers. What is more interesting is the environment in which mobile stations are more powerful and store native data that may need to be shared by others (the so-called `walkstation' case [7]). This case poses significant data management difficulties due to the characteristics of the mobile environment. Mobile computing environments are characterized by three issues [8]: communication characteristics, mobility and portability. Communication is over wireless networks that are prone to disconnections, noise, echo, and low bandwidth. Mobility of some of the equipment on the network causes static data in wireline networks to become dynamic and volatile in wireless networks. Mobility raises issues such as address migration, maintenance of directories and difficulty in locating stations. Finally, portability places restrictions on the type of equipment that can be used in these environments. For example, easy portability and the desire for long operation between battery recharges usually restrict the possible type and size of storage. Dealing with the effects of these is a major R&D issue.
A particular difficulty to be handled is that these two technologies are entering the fray at the same time. Thus, networks of tomorrow will likely be broadband backbones with wireless networks connected to it. Furthermore, some of the broadband backbone may be wireless, going over satellite channels. These networks pose other difficulties since the bandwidth availability is offset by communication latency between earth stations and satellites. In this case, query processing, for example, must take into account quality-of-service considerations. This evironment is not too far in the future; even today, Canada is equipped with a country-wide ATM-based broadband test network. There are many such trials all over the world and the large-scale emergence of these networks will make distributed data management over wide-area networks both feasible and an R&D challenge.
The explosion of the Internet is now the topic of daily newspaper articles and TV programs. Putting aside the hype, the Internet activity is important from a database management perspective simply because of the diversity of repositories that it introduces. Most existing Internet access tools are browsing-based. However, there is a demand to perform complex queries over Internet sites and this poses significant challenges. One of the fundamental problems is the inherent heterogeneity of the information sources and the lack of a schema to guide the querying process. The other difficulty is the variance in the capabilities of the various sites in processing these queries.
Conclusion
In my view, strategic directions for database system research and development efforts can be summarized as follows: We should be addressing the requirements of new application domains by building DBMSs with sufficiently powerful models and flexible and extensible architectures that can exploit and adapt to the technological changes. This is a generic statement that requires fleshing out. The specifics of an R&D agenda along these lines should in my view include the following:
1. We should be spending time learning the specific requirements of the application domains whose needs we try to serve with our systems. These requirements will, we hope, be generalizable and abstractable to a certain extent, allowing the development of generalized systems. I believe distributed object technology provides a significant handle on the problem. However, this technology needs to be extended to provide full DBMS functionality.
2. Systems need to be developed with an open architecture that allows for `easy' extension and fine-tuning as well as scalability. The extensibility property is essential to being able to incorporate into a base system the specific requirements of application domains in which they will be deployed (e.g., temporality, new query primitives, etc). Scalability is one of the fundamental concerns in meeting the challenges of increasing volumes of data and increasing numbers of users.
3. Systems need to be developed to exploit high-speed/high-bandwidth networks and need to incorporate mobility as a fundamental design criterion.
4. Methodologies for interoperability need to be developed. In this regard, distributed object technology can again provide some solutions via industry standards such as CORBA and OLE.

Web 2.0

The bursting of the dot-com bubble ...

2009-04-03T23:31:00.000+05:30

Web 2.0

The bursting of the dot-com bubble in the fall of 2001 marked a turning point for the web. Many people concluded that the web was overhyped, when in fact bubbles and consequent shakeouts appear to be a common feature of all technological revolutions. Shakeouts typically mark the point at which an ascendant technology is ready to take its place at center stage. The pretenders are given the bum's rush, the real success stories show their strength, and there begins to be an understanding of what separates one from the other.
The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What's more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as "Web 2.0" might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.
In the year and a half since, the term "Web 2.0" has clearly taken hold, with more than 9.5 million citations in Google. But there's still a huge amount of disagreement about just what Web 2.0 means, with some people decrying it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, and others accepting it as the new conventional wisdom.
This article is an attempt to clarify just what we mean by Web 2.0.
In our initial brainstorming, we formulated our sense of Web 2.0 by example:
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
DoubleClick --> Google AdSense
Ofoto --> Flickr
Akamai --> BitTorrent
mp3.com --> Napster
Britannica Online --> Wikipedia
personal websites --> blogging
evite --> upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation --> search engine optimization
page views --> cost per click
screen scraping --> web services
publishing --> participation
content management systems --> wikis
directories (taxonomy) --> tagging ("folksonomy")
stickiness --> syndication
The list went on and on. But what was it that made us identify one application or approach as "Web 1.0" and another as "Web 2.0"? (The question is particularly urgent because the Web 2.0 meme has become so widespread that companies are now pasting it on as a marketing buzzword, with no real understanding of just what it means. The question is particularly difficult because many of those buzzword-addicted startups are definitely not Web 2.0, while some of the applications we identified as Web 2.0, like Napster and BitTorrent, are not even properly web applications!) We began trying to tease out the principles that are demonstrated in one way or another by the success stories of web 1.0 and by the most interesting of the new applications.

Prashant Guha
www.enigmaticpieces.blogspot.com

3. E-Commerce was birth out of the World-Wide-Web ...

2009-04-03T23:18:00.000+05:30

3. E-Commerce was birth out of the World-Wide-Web (WWW).In the 1960s, businesses realized that many of the documents they exchange
related to the shipping of goods - such as invoices, purchase orders,
and bills of lading - and included the same set of information for almost
every transaction. They also realized that they were spending a good deal
of time and money entering these data into their computers, printing paper forms,
and then re-entering the data on the other side of the transaction. Although the
purchase order, invoice, and bill of lading for each transaction contained much of
the same information such as item numbers, descriptions, prices and quantities -
each paper form had its own unique format for presenting that information.
By creating a set of standard formats for transmitting that information electronically,
businesses were able to reduce errors, avoid printing and mailing costs, and eliminate
the need to re-enter the data.

Benefits of E-Commerce-
Expanded Geographical Reach
Expanded Customer Base
Increase Visibility through Search Engine Marketing
Provide Customers valuable information about your business
Build Customer Loyalty
Reduction of Marketing and Advertising Costs
Collection of Customer Data

Future of E-Commerce-
Despite the fact that online sales are growing exponentially, some analysts believe that e-commerce is heading for a fall. Laurie Windham justifies her belief that as time goes on, sales will decrease instead of increasing. Windham believes that net consumers are very different than mall shoppers and catalog shoppers. Furthermore, she says that dot-coms are responsible for ruining their own chances to sell because they have spoiled customers to the point that consumers expect cheap prices and freebies and if they don't get them, they just move on to another site. E-commerce, Windham says, is a fickle world with little, if any, customer loyalty (Fortune, 2000).

1. Chalk out the evolution of Database Management ...

2009-04-03T23:08:00.000+05:30

1. Chalk out the evolution of Database Management Systems and their relative merits/ demerits. Also depict the future of Database Systems.

An information system provides its users with accurate and relevant data, i.e data which is free of errors, it is available to the users as and when it is necessary and it should be appropriate for the type of work that requires it. In the earlier days organizations had the traditional file systems. Here every department had its own systems. Each system in turn had certain files in it. Which were maintained by separate division. As years went by the programs started stacking up, with it started the problem of data redundancy and inconsistency, Program-data dependence, inflexibility, poor data security, and inability to share data among applications. Thus the concept of Database came into being. It is a software the allows an organization to keep all the data in one place so that it can be accessed by all, manage it easily and give access to stored data by application programs. It relives the user from the task of searching for the data.
Merits of DBMS:
• Data redundancy and inconsistency is reduced by isolating files which have the same data repeated.
• Access and availability of data is increased.
• It allows an organization to centrally manage their data, its use and security.
• It allows coupling of stored data with the programs
Demerits of DBMS:
• High cost for providing security.
• Multiple user access to data is not possible.
Future of DBMS: It is needed in all fields, in finance as financial transactions, in HR to maintain data on employees, in Information system to provide data management tools and expertise to the organization, in sales and marketing to track customer purchases.

2. Mention the ways in which the E-Commerce has evolved, the early adopters, the benefits served and the future of this technology (do mention corresponding names and years).

E-commerce began in 1995. It refers to the use of internet and web to transact business. Netscape.com accepted the first ads from major corporations and popularized the idea of using the net to advertise and sell. The dot-com bubble burst in March 2001.In 2007 the overall e-commerce revenues looked positive.
In the initial days it transformed the world of books, music and air travel. Then came the telephone, movies, television, jewelry, real estates, hotels etc.
Benefits:
• It is available everywhere. We can shop using it from home, office, car etc.
• It can be conveniently used for commercial transaction to cross cultural and national boundaries and cost effectively.
• The technical standards for conducting e-commerce are universal since they are available to all. They are shared by all nations around the world.
• Richness: Video, audio and text messages are possible.
• It allows two way communications. Buyers can interact with the sellers.
• It reduces the information cost and provides high quality.
• The technology allows personalized messages to be delivered to individuals as well as groups.
After the e-commerce revolution Individuals and organizations are increasingly using the internet to conduct commerce as more products come online and more households switch to broadband. User generated content in the form of blogs and social networks grow to form an entirely new self-publishing forum.

3. Identify the trends in Consumer IT (the IT used in a B2C and C2C context).

E-commerce process model works in four ways:
B2C: Business organization to customer
B2B: Business organization to Business
C2B: Customer to Business organization
C2C: Customer to customer.
The IT used in B2C: It involves retailing products and services to individual shoppers, Barnesandnoble.com, which sells books, software and music to individual customers is an example. The business organizations use the websites or portals to spread information about their products, through multimedia clippings, catalogs, product configuration guidelines. A new customer interacts with the site and uses interactive order processing system for order placement. On placement of order, secured payment systems comes into operation to authorize and permit payment to sellers. The delivery system the takes over to execute the delivery to customer.
The IT in C2C: It involves consumers selling directly to consumers. E-bay permits people to sell their goods to other customers through auctions & the merchandise off to the highest bidder. Personal advertisements of products or services can be done. E news paper website is an example.

ROBINSON JACOB
SMU-“A”SEC
I.S.B.R

(4)
(a)Green IT:
Green IT provides service...

2009-04-03T22:42:00.000+05:30

(4)
(a)Green IT:
Green IT provides services to enable clients to drive measurable financial and environmental benefits from programs for IT Eco-Efficiency and IT Eco-Innovation.
Green IT is a progressive consultancy that serves clients in three primary markets:
•Leaders in IT, Finance, Marketing, and Corporate Social Responsibility actively involved in sustainability initiatives.
•Real Estate Professionals looking to make commercial property more competitive and environmentally responsible.
•IT System and Equipment Providers and Distributors seeking to understand and communicate the sustainability attributes of their products.

(b)Virtualization:
It is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources.
•Platform virtualization, which separates an operating system from the underlying platform resources.
•Resource virtualization, the virtualization of specific system resources, such as storage volumes, name spaces, and network resources.
•Network virtualization, creation of a virtualized network addressing space within or across network subnets.

(c) Cloud Computing
It is Internet ("cloud") based development and use of computer technology ("computing"). It is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.
The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.

(d) Business Analytics:
According to Thomas Davenport, analytics are defined as the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive modeling, and fact-based management to drive decision making. Analytics may be used as input for human decisions or may drive fully automated decisions. Businesses analytics represent a subset of business intelligence. The other part of business intelligence is data access and reporting. The questions that business analytics can answer represent more proactive and higher value questions than questions data access and reporting can answer. Business analytics can answer the questions: why is this happening; what if these trends continue; what will happen next; what is the best than can happpen.

(e) Software as a Service:
It is (SaaS, typically pronounced 'sass') is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web-servers or download the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires. The on-demand function may be handled internally to share licenses within a firm or by a third-party application service provider (ASP) sharing licenses between firms.

(f) Web 2.0 :
Web 2.0 encapsulates the idea of the proliferation of interconnectivity and interactivity of web-delivered content. Tim O'Reilly regards Web 2.0 as the way that business embraces the strengths of the web and uses it as a platform.
Web 2.0 technology encourages lightweight business models enabled by syndication of content and of service and by ease of picking-up by early adopters. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications; such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.

(g) Open Source:
Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge). Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations. The open source model of operation and decision making allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, and differs from the more closed, centralized models of development.

ANSWER NO . 6

TRENDS IN CONSUMER IT - ...

2009-04-03T22:15:00.000+05:30

ANSWER NO . 6

TRENDS IN CONSUMER IT -

There are many ways to electronic commerce transaction.one is by lookin to the nature of the participatants in the electronic commerce transaction.There are 3 major trends in consumer it dat r as follows –

1. Business to-consumer electronic commerce (B2C) involves retailing products and services to individual shoppers. Barnesandnoble.com, which sell book, softhware , and music to individual consumers.
2. Business-to-business electronic commerce(B2B)involves sales of goods and services among businesses. ChemConnects web site for buying and selling natural gas liquids, refined and intermediate fuels, chemicals, and plastic
3. Consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce(C2C) involves consumer selling directly to consumers. For example eBay, the giant web auction site, enables people to sell their goods to other consumers by auctioning the merchandise off to the higgest bidder.

Q.2 –
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a c...

2009-04-03T22:10:00.000+05:30

Q.2 –
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a company-wide computer software system used to manage and coordinate all the resources, information, and functions of a business from shared data stores.
OR
A cross-functional enterprise system driven by an integrated suite of software modules that supports the basic internal business processes of a company.
Some ERP Softwares are:-
• BlueErp, a PHP based ERP System
• Compiere, a Java based ERP-System
• Openbravo, a Java based ERP-System
• Oracle e-Business Suite from Oracle
• GRR (software), a PHP/MySQL -based, web-accessed free ERP system
• JFire, a Java based ERP-System from Night Labs
• PeopleSoft from Oracle
• SAP R/3 from SAP
Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these processes; information about customers and customer interactions can be entered, stored and accessed by employees in different company departments. The CRM goals are to improve services provided to customers, and to use customer contact information for targeted marketing.
OR
Customer relationship management is a cross-functional enterprise system that integrates and automates many of the customer-serving processes in sales, marketing, and customer services that interact with a company’s customers.
Some CRM Software Packages are:-
• EBI Neutrino R1 CRM java
• OpenERP - java
• Compiere - java
• Adempiere - java
• Openbravo - java
• Ofbiz - java
• xTuple - integrated ERP, C++
• Vtiger_CRM - php
• SugarCRM - php
• CiviCRM - php
• Opentaps - java
• eWay CRM - .NET (For single user only)

Supply chain management (SCM) is a cross-functional inter-enterprise system that integrates and automates the network of business processes and relationships between a company and its suppliers, customers, distributors, and other business partners.

Some SCM Software Packages include:-
• 7Hills Business Solutions
• I2 Technologies
• SAP AG
• Oracle Corporation
• JDA
• HighJump Software
• Manhattan Associates
• Industrial and Financial Systems
• Management Dynamics Inc
• Kewill

BY:-
SAURABH SHRIVASTAVA
(SMU 2nd Sem )

Comments on Innovation Evangelist: Quiz On MIS

Respected sir, Established in 1997, St. Gregorious...

1. Chalk out the evolution of Database Management...

Answers subitted by:NAVEEN KUMAR.SSMU-&quo...

Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of...

Evolutions of IT can be divided in Semiconductor T...

The meaning of electronic commerce has changed ove...

Green IT:-Green IT can be defined as research ...

5]ONLINE MARKETINGBusiness-to-cons...

4]Green IT-Also called green computing...

3]The meaning of electronic commerce has changed o...

2]Various ERP packages in market--Adempier...

Ans 1 >>>>>Databases have been ...

Ans 1 >>>>>Databases have been ...

1-->Evolution of DBMS-1st Generation: E...

Answer 3:Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is t...

Software as A ServiceSoftware as a Service...

2. ERP: ERP stands for Enterprise Resource P...

3.Mention the ways in which the E-Commerce has evo...

1. Database management system: A collection of...

Web 2.0The bursting of the dot-com bubble ...

3. E-Commerce was birth out of the World-Wide-Web ...

1. Chalk out the evolution of Database Management ...

(4)(a)Green IT: Green IT provides service...

ANSWER NO . 6TRENDS IN CONSUMER IT - ...

Q.2 –Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a c...

Answers subitted by:
NAVEEN KUMAR.S
SMU-&quo...

Green IT:-
Green IT can be defined as research ...

5]

ONLINE MARKETING

Business-to-cons...

4]
Green IT-

Also called green computing...

2]
Various ERP packages in market-
-Adempier...

Ans 1 >>>>>
Databases have been ...

Ans 1 >>>>>
Databases have been ...

1-->
Evolution of DBMS-
1st Generation: E...

Answer 3:
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is t...

Software as A Service

Software as a Service...

2. ERP:
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource P...

1. Database management system:
A collection of...

Web 2.0

The bursting of the dot-com bubble ...

(4)
(a)Green IT:
Green IT provides service...

ANSWER NO . 6

TRENDS IN CONSUMER IT - ...

Q.2 –
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a c...