Information technology (IT) is probably the force the rampant globalization and economic internationalization. Whereas the world was already destined to becoming a global village even before the eruption of the World Wide Web (WWW) and other digital networks, the Internet has largely facilitated this sojourn and it continues to do so with the new inventions that rock the world each day such as electronic commerce, social networks, and other technological gizmos. Influence of Information Technology on Businesses That Operates in a Global Environment The general answer to this question is that Information technology has revolutionized the operation of businesses in the global environment. Considering that ‘global’ comprises of compounded ‘locals’, perhaps it is prudent to begin this analysis from the minuscule level of local businesses and the effect that information technology has on them. Local businesses are now creating company websites to advertise the services and products that they have Continue reading
Information Technology
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Model
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is a reference model developed by ISO (International Organization for Standardization) in 1984, as a conceptual framework of standards for communication in the network across different equipment and applications by different merchants. It is now considered the primary architectural model for inter-computing and inter-networking communications. There are seven layers within the OSI model that serve to differentiate the various hardware and software functions that a network provides. Each layer depends on the proper functioning of the layer immediately below it to provide its raw functionality, which is enhanced and then passed to the next higher layer. Status messages may be communicated up or down the various layers, although each layer only communicates with its immediate neighbors. As each layer is solely dependent on the layer below it for lower-level services, higher layers are shielded from system, hardware, and software implementation details. This leads to the Continue reading
Major Perspectives of Information Organization
People understand information organization from four main perspectives, viz. data, relationship, operating system, and application architecture. The data perspective of information organization In the data perspective, people consider the organization of data in terms of their descriptive and graphical elements. Therefore, the two elements possess distinctive features necessitating different storage requirements as well as storage options. A person thus needs to understand the correct sequence in which entities occur and build up until they eventually form a data file. A data item that falls under descriptive data is one of the most basic elements in the organization of information. It is the smallest unit of storage in a database and it goes by the term ‘stored field’ in the database terminology. It may appear in the form of a number, date, an expression, or character string. A group of related data items forms a record and often appears in the Continue reading
Impact of Information Technology on Organizations
The impact of information technology will have significant effects on the structure, management and function of most organisations. It demands new patterns of work organisation and effects individual jobs, the structure of groups and teams, the nature of supervision and managerial roles. Information technology results in changes to lines of command, authority and the need for reconstructing the organisation structure and attention to job design. Computer based information and decision support systems influence choices in design of production or service activities, hierarchical structures and organisations of support staffs. Information technology may influence the centralization or decentralization of decision making and control systems. New technology has resulted in a flatter organisational structure with fewer levels of management required. In the case of new office technology it allows the potential for staff at clerical/operator level to carry out a wider range of functions and to check their own work. The result is Continue reading
New Trends In E-Business
E-business changed the way business was being done over the years. It created more and more avenues and opportunities. E-business changed the competitive platform. While the old competitive barriers are diminishing it created new entry and competitive barriers. The hard competitive barriers are becoming weak while the soft competitive barriers became more and more prominent. It is believed that not even 50% of the potential of e-business is to be unleashed yet. This definitely indicates that e-business has lot more to offer. E-business has appealed the businesses and customers from all segments. E-business increased the connectivity among different businesses. The integration among departments, different businesses, and different sectors through e-business made it possible to offer variety of services to customers. The new technologies, high speed internet made the transactions possible. Improved integration and interoperability needs of next generation e-business systems are met by new e-business solution architectures. New technologies of Continue reading
Data Mining Functionalities
Data mining has an important place in today’s world. It becomes an important research area as there is a huge amount of data available in most of the applications. This huge amount of data must be processed in order to extract useful information and knowledge, since they are not explicit. Data Mining is the process of discovering interesting knowledge from large amount of data. The kinds of patterns that can be discovered depend upon the data mining tasks employed. By and large, there are two types of data mining tasks: descriptive data mining tasks that describe the general properties of the existing data, and predictive data mining tasks that attempt to do predictions based on inference on available data. The data mining functionalities and the variety of knowledge they discover are briefly presented in the following list: Characterization: It is the summarization of general features of objects in a target Continue reading