Information Technology and the Firm 541run on mainframe technology, using programs written in COBOL; in fact,
there are billions of lines of COBOL programming code still functional in U.S.
business.
These “legacy” systems have become a major issue for many, though, and
were the key issue behind the Y2K problem. In many instances, they have
grown like patchwork quilts, as they have been written and modified by pro-
grammers who are no longer with their firms. More often than not, documen-
tation of these changes and enhancements is not available, and the guidelines
for many of these software applications no longer exist. Replacing these appli-
cations is cost prohibitive, and the distraction to the organization caused by the
need to retrain workers would be tremendous.
Nonetheless, as a result of the Y2K problem, many of these systems were
replaced, but large volumes of them were merely patched to allow for the mil-
lennium change. These systems will eventually have to be replaced. If history
is a lesson, many of these systems will not be replaced, though, until it is too
late. In any event, the business community should not face the singular dead-
line it faced at the end of 1999.
Today, most programmers write in C++, C, or fourth-generation program-
ming languages. C++is an object oriented programming language; object ori-
ented languages provide the programmer with a facility to create a programming
object or module that may be reused in many applications. Fourth-generation
programming languages are usually provided with sophisticated relational data-
base systems. These database systems provide high-level tools and programming
languages that allow programmers to create applications quickly without having
to concern themselves with the physical and logical structure of the data. Ora-
cle, Informix, Sybase, and Progress are some of the more popular relational
database package companies.
INTERNET TECHNOLOGY
Nothing has impacted technology and society in the past 10 years more than
the Internet. When Bill Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993, there were
50 pages on the Internet. Today, there are more than 200 billion pages. The un-
derlying technology behind the Internet has its roots in a project begun by the
U.S. government in the early 1970s. The network was originally developed by a
consortium of research colleges and universities and the federal government
that was looking for a way to share research data and provide a secure means of
communicating and for backing up defense facilities. The original network was
called ARPANET. ARPANET was sponsored by the Department of Defense’s
Advanced Research and Planning Agency (ARPA). It was replaced in the 1980s
by the current network, which was originally not very user friendly and was
used mostly by techies. The Internet’s popularity exploded with the develop-
ment of the World Wide Web and the necessary software programs that made
it much more user friendly to explore.