Chapter 4: Hardware, Software, and Mobile Systems

It wasn't until recently that we thought of computer hardware as just a laptop, desktop, or server. Now, tablets and even phones have become computer hardware as well. Phones have incredible processing power that we never thought could have been possible 25 years ago. Electronic components and related gadgetry that input, process, output, and store data according to instructions encoded in computer programs or software is called computer hardware.

Hardware Components
Central Processing Unit (CPU) - "The brain" of the computer. Selects instructions, processes them, performs arithmetic and logical comparisons, and stores results of operations in memory.

Dual Processor - Computer with two CPUs

Quad Processor - Computer with four CPUs

*Some high-end computers have 16 or more CPUs.

CPU reads data and instructions from memory and then stores the results of computations in main memory. Main memory is sometimes called RAM, for random access memory.

All computers include storage hardware, which is used to save data and programs. Magnetic, or hard, disks are the most common storage device. Optical disks such as CDs and DVDs are popular storage media.

Types of Hardware


Computer Data
Computers represent data using binary digits, called bits. A bit is either a zero or a one. They are used because they are easy to represent physically.


Bits are grouped into 8-bit chunks called bytes. One character will fit into one byte. Bytes are used to measure sizes of non character data as well. Data can be numbers, characters, currency amounts, photos, recordings, or whatever. All are simply a string of bits. Specifications for size of main memory, disk, and other computer devices are expressed in bytes.



•Disk capacities specified by amount of bytes.
–500 GB•CPU speed expressed in cycles called hertz.–Slow personal computer speed of 3 Gigahertz.
–Fast PC 3.5+ GHz.


Three new hardware developments that have the potential to disrupt existing organizations: 

Internet of Things - the idea that objects are becoming connected to the Internet so they can interact with other devices, applications, or services. The impact of IoT forces companies to make new protocols, add more bandwidth, and tighter security, as well as better battery-life.

Self driving cars - will make things easier, cheaper, and safer. Automobile accidents, in time, will become non-existent. Household will no longer need multiple cars. No risk of DUI, traffic tickets, or parking tickets. With fewer cars on the road, auto sales will decrease dramatically. More jobs will open up for engineers, programmers, systems designers, etc.

3D Printing - able to mold plastics, metals, ceramics, foods, and biological material. Can benefit aerospace, defense, entertainment, and healthcare industries. 


Operating system (OS) - program that controls a computer's resources. Functions include reading and writing data, allocating main memory, and performing memory swapping.

There are two types of application programs: Native application & Web application
Native applications are programs that are written to use a particular operating system. Microsoft only runs on Windows. Some apps come in multiple versions: Windows and Mac versions of Microsoft Word. Native apps are sometimes called thick-client apps.

Web application, or thin-client app, is designed to run within a computer browser such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc. 

Major Operating Systems


Non-moile clients are used on personal computers. Some version of Windows resides on more than 85% of the world's desktops.

Virtualization

•Virtualization: process by which one computer hosts the appearance of many computers. One operating system, called the host operating system runs one or more operating systems as applications. Hosted operating systems are called virtual machines (vm).

•Each virtual machine has disk space and other resources allocated to it. Operates as if installed on own computer.

•Host operating system controls activities of virtual machines to prevent them from interfering with one another.

Own Versus License

Buying a computer program really means you are buying a license to use the program.

Large organizations do not buy a license for each computer user. Instead, they negotiate a site license,

a flat fee that authorizes company to install the product on all company computers.

•Horizontal-market application software provides capabilities common across all organizations and industries. Word processors, graphics programs, spreadsheets, and presentation programs are all horizontal-market application software.

•Vertical-market application software serves the needs of a specific industry. Example of such programs are those used by dental offices to schedule appointments and bill patients.

•One-of-a-kind application software is developed for a specific, unique need.

•Because of the risk and expense, custom development is the last-choice alternative, used only when there is no other option.

Firmware - computer software installed into devices such printers and other types of communication devices. They are coded into special, read-only memory. Program becomes part of device's memory.

GNU - tool by Richard Matthew Stallman for creating free Unix-like operating system.

GNU general public license (GPL) agreement - standard license agreement for open source software.

Open Source - source code of program available to public.

Source code - computer code written by humans and understood by humans.

Machine code - compiled source code that is not understandable by humans and cannot be modified.

Open source is viable depending on the requirements and restraints of the situation.

Native applications run on just one operating system. Web applications run in browsers. In the

latter case, the browser provides a more or less consistent environment for the application; the

peculiarities of operating systems and hardware are handled by the browser’s code and hidden

from the Web application.

Five Components of Mobile Change and Opportunity

Challenges of Personal Mobile Devices at Work

Chapter 3: Strategy and Information Systems

In Chapter 3, we begin to learn about competitive strategy and how it is used to achieve an organization's goals and objectives.

Researcher Michael Porter's Five Forces helps us understand what determines an industries structure. The forces can be broken down into two sets, competitive and bargaining. These five forces are:

1. Bargaining power of customers
2. Threat of substitutions
3. Bargaining power of suppliers
4. Threat of new entrants
5. Rivalry

Here is a table that shows examples of Five Forces:

What we can see here is that for the three competitive forces, each of them show concern about losing their customers to other businesses.

Porter shows us that organizations can focus their competitive strategies on either being a cost leader or differentiating their products. Furthermore, they can choose to either focus their strategy across an industry or just an industry segment itself.

In the text, value is defined as the amount of money a customer is willing to pay for something. The difference between the value and the cost of a resource, product, or service is called a margin. Five primary activities and four support activities creates a value chain. They are found here:

A business process generates value by transforming inputs into outputs. Each activity in a business process receives inputs and produces outputs.

An example of three processes are materials ordering, manufacturing, and sales processing.

Organizations gain competitive advantage by creating new products or services, by enhancing existing products or services, and by differentiating their products and services from those of their competitors.

Organizations can lock in customers by making it difficult or expensive for customers to switch to another product. This is known as switching costs. Orgs can also lock in suppliers by making it difficult to switch to another organization.

Companies are able to use IS to create competitive advantages:

• Enhances existing products
• Differentiates products
• Locks in customers
• Raises barriers to market entry
• Increases profit margins by decreasing costs and decreasing errors
• Maintains customer account data
• Package & information delivery system

Chapter 2: Collaboration Information Systems

In Chapter 2, we learn that while we think that organizations accomplish strategy, it is actually the people in the organizations that accomplish it by working with other people. Technology has grown to support group work over the years. We learn how information systems support collaboration, a group of people who work together to achieve a common goal.

There are two key characteristics of collaboration. Prior to uncovering them, we need to first understand what cooperation means and how it differs from collaboration. Cooperation is a group of people working together, doing the same work, to accomplish a job. Collaborators work together to achieve their common goal by using the process of feedback and iteration. Feedback helps the group revise their work and make it better. The work as a whole becomes done in stages, or iterations. This, too, leads to revising and producing more drafts that therefore becomes part of the final product. The reason why this works is because the group is criticizing each member's work from different perspectives. Cooperating, on the other hand, is like having 5 members work on 5 separate things on their own, and put it together without checking to see if it flows or if their are any mistakes. Situations like this do not typically go well and that's why collaboration is preferred.

There are three criteria for successful collaboration. In J. Richard Hackman's book Leading Teams, he listed those primary criteria as:

1. Successful Outcome
2. Growth in team capability
3. Meaningful and satisfying experience

Unlike in school, where students measure successful outcome by their grade, business professionals determine success accomplishing their objectives: to make a decision, solve a problem, or create a work product. Their criterion is to determine "Did we do it?" and "Did we do it within the time and budget allowed?" These questions are crucial to solve when it comes to handling jobs in the business world.

Team growth is extremely important, especially in the workforce where most employees plan on working there for a long time. Asking if the team got better lets the group know how efficient they have become over the course of time. A team gets better by being able to eliminate errors or unnecessary steps, develop better work processes, and provide perspectives that each member needs.

Lastly, there is meaningful and satisfying experience. Putting out work that means something to the team is very meaningful, according to Hickman. However, being able to do work that means something to you, the team, and everyone else is very satisfying especially when you get credit for it. Getting recognition for your work is very meaningful while camaraderie amongst the team is a sign of satisfaction.

There are four primary purposes of collaboration. They are:

1. Become informed
2. Make decisions
3. Solve problems
4. Manage projects

Members need to be able to share information and communicate well with each other to share interpretations. Also, the team should document how they conceive specific information in case team members leave. This eliminates the chances of having to go "over and over" a topic or discussion.

There are three different levels that lead to making a decision. They are:

1. Operational
2. Managerial
3. Strategic

Operational decisions support activities that happened day-to-day. Examples are: How many supplies should we order for product x? What chapter should the class read today?

Managerial decisions deal with resources and how they are allocated and utilized. Examples are: How much are we willing to pay for new desks for the employees? How many of the sales team should we send to the trade show this week?

Strategic decisions deal with organizational issues in a broad-scope. Examples are: Should we acquire this company? Should we open up a new location on the East Coast?

There are two types of data components, project data and project metadata. Project data is data that is part of the collaboration's work product, such as product designs and documents. Project metadata is data used to manage projects, such as schedules, tasks, and budgets.

There are two different types of team communication. One is synchronous communication, where everyone meets up at the same time, in-person or on a conference call. The other is asynchronous communication, where members don't meet at the same time due to different work schedules or living in different time zones.

Technology allows us to participate in virtual meetings where members do not have to be in the same place at the same time. Google Hangouts and Go-To Meetings have been great applications for meetings when you have a camera on your laptop or phone. Applications that screen-share allow members to see what you're writing, typing, etc. Asynchronous teams rely on emailing each other and getting responses at a later time.

Shared content has become popular with the use of Google Drive. Members can share files and collaborate work when granted access. Each file is managed by versions and can show what edits have been made and by who. There are also files that can limit activity by permission granted.

There are three sets of collaboration tools. The minimal set lacks support from software and proper management. The good set allows you to use virtual meetings and presentation files. However, you would need to rely on the internet for blogs, wiki, pictures, etc. Lastly, the comprehensive set is the best out of the three. You are able to manage and control content, workflow, and online meetings with sharing. This premium set has everything you need, however it comes with a price. Unlike the others, which usually come for free, you would expect to pay a minimum of $10 a month per user.

Collaborating in 2026 would look different, especially with the us of augmented and virtual reality. Things such as studying space life or examining the human body can be so much easier with technology evolving to contribute collaboration. We see this with the emergence of Microsoft's HoloLens.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 introduces us to Management Information Systems and its importance to the business world. It was only up until recently that working for tech companies was the hottest job to acquire.  These days, the economy is driven by producing, distributing, and controlling information, otherwise known as the Information Age. The rise of digital devices has increased dramatically during the Digital Revolution, that mechanical and analog devices are slowly becoming obsolete. With that being said, the Bell's Law was created. This law states that a new form of computer device or class will emerge roughly every decade. We see this with PC's to cellular phones to smart devices.

Technology is constantly growing rapidly. Moore's Law tells us that "as computers are getting exponentially faster, the cost of processing data is approaching zero". The price to performance ratio is dramatically decreasing as processing power increases. When more digital devices are able to connect with each other, the value of the network is squared in size. This is known as Metcalfe's Law, and we saw this law hold true as the internet exploded with more users gaining access. Social media, especially, would not have survived without having large amounts of users.

We learn that routine skills are not considered marketable skills, and that any of these skills can and will be outsourced to the lowest bidder. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, lists four non routine cognitive skills that are strong to maintain job security. They are: abstract reasoning, systems thinking, collaboration, and ability to experiment. Having these key skills increases your chances of landing a well-paid position related to Management Information Systems, which is definitely in high demand.

Management Information Systems is often confused with IT and IS. Information system is the assembly of software, hardware, data, procedures, and people that produces information. In contrast, information technology is what produces information through products, methods, inventions and standards. 

The difference between the three systems is that IT is purchasable, while IS is not. IS is the ability to use the IT, which cannot be bought. Once these two components are in sync, this is when MIS is created.

The model of components in an information system is called the five-component framework, and it includes, computer hardware, software, data, procedures, and people. However, the most important component is us. Our cognitive skills determine how we think and conceive information. Data is just data until we turn it into information. We, as humans, are the only ones that can produce information.

Information and data are not the same. Information is knowledge derived from data. Data is recorded facts or figures. Information cannot be drawn or written on a piece of paper, it can only be in the mind of a human. Different perceptions and views are in result of strength of cognitive skills. This is extremely crucial in the business world.

Security guide gives us advice on how to create great passwords to ensure safety and reliability. Using your name is a huge no, while using special characters is a huge plus. It is never a good idea to write down your password as anyone can find it and steal your information. Successfully doing so, ensure that you are securing information well.