17After the important opening chapter, which sets the stage for the entire book, the three chapters in Part I
focus on today’s information technologies. A number of technical concepts will be introduced, and a
large vocabulary of technical terms will be employed. However, Chapter 2 to 4 have been written with
the objective of conveying to all readers what managers need to know about IT—and the data manipu-
lated by that technology—in a straightforward way.
For those of you who have a background in information systems (IS), computer science,
engineering, or one of the physical sciences, much of this technology material might already be
familiar to you. For those of you without this background, our objective is to provide you with the
terminology and concepts needed to understand the managerial issues in the remainder of this
textbook, as well as to communicate with IS leaders and specialists today and in the future. These
chapters will also enable you to be a knowledgeable reader of IT articles in The Wall Street Journal,
BusinessWeek,Fortune, and similar publications.
Our IT overview begins with a consideration of computer systems. Chapter 2 covers the basics of
both computer hardware, the physical pieces of a computer system, and computer software, the set of
programs that control the operations of the computer system. New technology developments and
major IT industry vendors, as well as current trends in the hardware and software arenas, are highlighted.
Among the newer hardware developments are the rise of smartphones, the growth of tablet PCs and
netbooks, and the proliferation of blade servers—and, of course, the continuing dramatic increases in
speeds of supercomputers. On the software side, the newer developments include the growing impor-
tance of the XML language, the development of Web services, and the movement toward open source
software (such as Linux).
As a computer user, your interface with the computer system is through the software, whether you
are working with microcomputer packages, enterprise systems, or a Web browser. As a manager, you
will be involved in acquiring and developing applications software for running your business. This
chapter surveys the key types of software available today—including applications software, personal
productivity packages, Web software, fourth generation languages, object-oriented languages, and
database management systems.
Telecommunications and networking are the topics of Chapter 3. Virtually all computers of all
sizes communicate directly with other computers (at least part of the time) by means of a variety of
networks, including the world-spanning Internet. In fact, “network-centric computing” is a characteristic
of the computer industry today. Chapter 3 describes the main elements of telecommunications and
networking, including transmission media and wireless communication, network topology, types of
networks, and network protocols. Recent developments in wireless networks, Voice over Internet
Protocol (VoIP) telephony, the Internet2 network, as well as Web developments such as blogs, wikis,
and social networking applications, are also discussed. The chapter focuses on the business need for