He is the president of the National Business Review Foundation, a management and computer consulting firm. The professional success of a business manager depends on keeping abreast of the latest thinking and applications in information technology.
C ONTENTS
The Seven Main Types of Software and How They Work • 60 Presentation Software • 61 Word Processing Software • 61 Spreadsheet Software • 61 Database Software • 61 Communication Software • 62 Desktop Publishing • 63 Graphics Software • 63 Packaged, customized or. Global Positioning System (GPS) • 82 Pagers and mobile phones • 82 Modems and other devices • 82 Local Area Network (LAN).
C HAPTER 1
I NFORMATION S YSTEMS ?
Other application software can then be loaded into the computer using the operating system. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STRATEGIC PLAN.
C HAPTER 2
M ANAGEMENT I NFORMATION S YSTEMS AND D ECISION -M AKING M ODELS
EXAMPLE 2.5 DECISION TREE EXAMPLE Suppose that XYZ Corporation wants to introduce one of two products to the market this year. These random numbers are further manipulated to represent parts of the model that are not deterministic.
S IMULATION M ODEL
C HAPTER 3
M ICROCOMPUTER S YSTEM
It looks like a notebook computer without a keyboard, although it can be connected to a keyboard and a mouse. Therefore, computer servers can be designed to manage only several microcomputers in a local area network (LAN) or several hundred computers in a wide area network (WAN). Parallel Ports: A parallel port allows a line to be connected so that many bits can be transmitted at once.
A single USB port can be used to connect up to 127 peripherals, such as mice, modems and keyboards. CPU power can greatly determine the performance of the entire system. MIPS is used to measure how many millions of instructions can be processed in one second.
On some portable devices this is a separate device that snaps onto the side of the keyboard. Images can be modified by the computer software after they have been digitized and saved as a file.
C HAPTER 4
Booting refers to the process of loading an operating system from the hard drive into a computer's main memory. Utilities are used to help end users with a "toolbox" to fine-tune hardware components or modify system software functions, and they are usually associated with the operating system. Windows XP is an operating system launched in 2001 from the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems, the previous version of Windows being Windows Me.
Along with a redesigned look and feel of the user interface, the new operating system is built on the core of Windows 2000, providing the user with a more stable and reliable environment. Although IBM system platforms traditionally use microprocessors made by Intel and use DOS or Windows in terms of OS, Apple computers typically use Motorola processors and a proprietary Apple operating system such as System 7. However, this advantage was eliminated when Microsoft released a Windows series operating system that has a graphical user interface and multitasking environment similar to the Mactosh version.
Microsoft's next-generation operating system for Windows, codenamed Longhorn, is Windows' answer to Mac OS X Tiger. 1970s, AT&T was not allowed to market the operating system due to federal regulations that prohibited the company from competing in the computer market.
C HAPTER 5
P RACTICAL G UIDE TO A PPLICATION
S OFTWARE
Public domain software is software that is not protected by copyright law and can be duplicated by anyone. Presentation software is designed to generate graphical presentation slides to communicate or make a presentation of data to others. Database software is a program that controls the structure of a database and access to the data.
In general, database software is much better than the old file managers because it can access multiple files at once (also known as flat file management systems). The main reason for custom software is that similar software is not available on the market or the user group is so small that it would not be worthwhile for any software company to develop it. The trade-off between custom software and packaged software is having software that provides a common structure.
Online help contains instructions or explanations that can be retrieved directly from the program. Since the various software are bundled into a single package, users do not have to pay the full price of each individual software program.
C HAPTER 6
D ATA AND D ATABASES
However, like the hierarchical database, the data record relationships must be predefined before using the database and must be redefined if records are added or updated. The data dictionary stores the data definitions or a description of the structure of data used in the database. Managers can check the data dictionary and retrieve necessary information about the characteristics and character of the database.
Some data dictionaries may also monitor data that is entered into the database management system to ensure that it conforms to that definition, such as field name, field size, and data type ( text, numeric, date, logic, etc.). The database dictionary can also help the database administrator (DBA) and other database designers with security concerns such as who has the right to access what kind of information. A qualified DBA must be able to understand the hardware configuration (such as the client/server environment) and take advantage of the existing hardware capability to improve database management performance.
The database administrator helps define the database design including fields, tables, and keywords. Because data loss or a database crash can vitally affect the organization, a database system must be able to recover if the system crashes.
C HAPTER 7
D ATA C OMMUNICATIONS
For example, an image can be converted to a digital file and sent to a destination using analog signals. In other words, computer digital signals can be converted to analog signals and transmitted over current telephone networks. A LAN consists of many workstations, each of which can be used as a server, terminal, or microcomputer.
Electronic mail: Email can be sent anywhere in the world to users with an Internet address. Discussion and newsgroup: Thousands of discussion topics can be discussed in the Internet bulletin board. The advantage of electronic commerce is that business transactions can be very efficient and fast.
A digital camera can be useful when a photograph is taken and needs to be transferred to a digital file. A large database that is not time-sensitive can be stored on a CD-ROM for later retrieval.
C HAPTER 8
N ETWORK AND T ELECOMMUNICATIONS
Network configuration or topology is the physical form of the network in terms of the placement of connecting stations. Hierarchical topology (also called vertical or tree structure) is one of the most common networks. One of the main advantages of a ring network is that bottlenecks like those in hierarchical or star networks are relatively rare.
The main disadvantage of the ring network is that a single channel connects all the components in a network. The World Wide Web (Web) portion of the Internet has a rapidly growing series of online business databases. It is available online from the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) and is updated daily.
Produced by the Commission of the European Communities, Office for Official Publications, Luxembourg (telephone). Another feature of the AICPA website is the “AICPA Documents on Call via Fax.” The code numbers for each of the documents are given.
C HAPTER 9
The Intranet publishing model involves a much shorter process, skipping many of the steps involved in the traditional publishing model. In the Intranet model, revision becomes part of the update process while the original content is available to end users, thus dramatically reducing the time it takes for information to become available to users. Providing information to field salespeople and managers in various branches (eg, sales and profit reports, product tracking, transaction analysis).
Communicating corporate information to employees, such as company policies and forms, operating instructions, job descriptions, time sheets, human resource records and documents, business plans, newsletters, marketing manuals, telephone directories, schedules and performance reports. An Intranet requires the development of web applications for its internal network, such as appropriate web servers. Most web applications work through a mechanism on the web server referred to as the Common Gateway Interface (CGI).
In this regard, the following websites, among others, provide useful information for business managers:. If the pilot project looks promising, additional content can be migrated to the intranet server.
C HAPTER 10
A CCOUNTING P ACKAGES
AccountMate Software: Visual AccountMate (http://www.accountmate.com/EN/products/) Client/server software available for almost any business. Great Plains Software: Great Plains Accounting (http://www.greatplains.com/accounting/) Twenty modules and tools for automating labor-intensive processes. Integrated development environment; provides customization tools for customer-specific solutions. http://www.peachtree.com/peachtree2000/).
Designed for larger businesses or company divisions (100 to 1000 employees); integrates Microsoft Office and BackOffice suites. http://www.solomon.com/product/series/. -level package for the small office/home office user. http://www.intuit.com/products_services/. Features include time tracking, job costing and estimates; integrated with Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook and Symantec ACT. http://www.myob.com/us/products/plus/. index.htm).
Accounting Technology (http://www.electronic accountant.com), an excellent site for industry news, special reports and product reviews. One Source Information Services (www.onesource. com) is the first provider to provide a fully .NET-enabled web service for XBRL information on the US.
C HAPTER 11
F INANCIAL M ANAGEMENT I NFORMATION
S YSTEMS AND P ACKAGES
Score Model
The main advantage of the percentage of sales method of financial forecasting is that it is simple and inexpensive to use. However, to obtain a more accurate projection of the firm's future financing needs, the preparation of a cash budget is required. If the financial statements for the period for which the reports are being prepared are not included in the tables, the corresponding figures can be entered manually in the corresponding cells of the spreadsheet with relative ease.
You then move on to the next period's financial statements that you want to analyze and enter those numbers into the calculation spreadsheet. Spreadsheets can perform a number of functions to help define two different bottom lines. The spreadsheet is used to calculate projections for some elements of the profit and loss statement and income tax calculation.
What will be the additional cash requirements of the business if current plans are followed. This can help in making the best decision, as the lower present value of net cash outflows of the two given options is the cheaper one.
