Business Application Software

Computer Software

2009-11-07T03:13:00.001-08:00

Computer Software
A software program is actually a set of instructions written in various computer languages by programmers.

Software contains sequences of operations the computer will follow.

Before a program can run or be executed, the program must be loaded into main memory of the computer.

After that, programs can be executed to perform certain functions based on how they are design.
For example, the word processing program allows users to enter their typing and edit the content.

A graphic design program is used to perform graphic designs.

Most computer programs are written by people with special training, called computer programmers, who write the necessary instructions in programming languages.

Software is the brains of the computer. It tells the hardware what to do.

In fact, it’s software that determines computer’s personality.
Computer Software

The Information Age

2009-10-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

The Information Age
Managing a command and control organization depends on telling the workers what to do, then seeing that they do it.

It was easy to measure output and quality with a tangible product. Easy also to see if a manual worker was working hard or slacking.

But how do you supervise knowledge workers? If a designer or programmer is staring into space is he or she thinking about a work problem – or planning a holiday? How do you even measure the output or quality of the work as it is being done?

So, of you cannot control knowledge workers, can you command them?

Perhaps but only in broad terms, because the knowledge worker will b e closer to the action and therefore often knows better than the supervisor what needs doing.

Knowledge workers cannot perform well in the secrecy and mistrust of a traditional command and control environment.

They are best motivated by being given the problem and trusted with all the available information, then left to find a solution.

Instead of trying to command and control them, it is better to make sure you hire the right people, then inform and entrust them.

This is not an easy message to sell to chief executives, many of whom feel they are paid to call the shots, and there are still plenty of organizations with scope for better management of their knowledge workers.

However, there is also a growing band of new style organization that have abandoned the command and control model and the multilayer hierarchy.
The Information Age

The Operating System

2009-09-23T16:43:00.001-07:00

The Operating System
The operating system (OS) consists of the master of programs that manage the basic operations of the computer.

These programs provide the control and use of hardware resources, including disk space, memory, CPU time allocation, and peripheral devices.

They are also the interface between computer hardware and application programs, allowing end users can concentrate on their own tasks or application rather than on the complexities of managing the computer.

To be more specific, the operating system is used to control the hardware memory, schedule the execution of programs, and schedule input output traffic between the CPU and other devices.

A good operating system, can dramatically improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of program execution performance.

Many different operating systems are available for computers.

Some operating systems are designed for a microcomputer single user environment, and others are for multiple users.

The complexity of operating system is much higher in a multiple user operating system due to the management of computer memory and CPU time shared by many users.

Today, many computers use what is called an operating environment, which provides end users with a user friendly interface to use.

Some operating systems have a graphical user interface that provide visual clues such as icons and objects the help the users.

Each icon represents a folder, an application package, or file. By clicking icons, users can open a folder or use an application package.
The Operating System

Business Intelligence Functionality

2009-09-02T15:17:00.000-07:00

Business Intelligence Functionality
Business intelligence software is getting increasingly more powerful and although most of the popular solutions on the market share much common functionality, some might be easier to use or to offer more or fewer features than others.

The following list is some of the key features offered by many tools:
Drill-down (on dimension such as time, company trees, products, etc)
Graph, charting and trees
Exception highlighting
Pivot rows and columns
Drag and drop dimensions into current view or to the backyard
Custom calculations (calculate new measures based on existing ones)
Queries
Comments
Combo views
Dashboard
Business intelligence and web portals
Distribution of cubes/reports
Other popular analytical features (ranking, filtering, sorting etc.)

Business Intelligence Functionality

The User Interface

2009-08-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

The User Interface
The operating system performs five basic functions in the operations of computer system providing a user interface, resource management, task management, file management. And utilities and support services.

The user interfaces the part of the operating system that allows you to communicate with it so you can load program, access files and accomplish other tasks.

Three main types of user interfaces are the command-driven, menu-driven, and graphical user interface.

The trend in user interfaces for operating systems and other software is moving away from the entry of brief and user commands, or even the selection of choices from menus options.

Instead most software provides an easy-to- use graphical user interface (GUI) that uses icons, bars, button, boxes, and other images.

GUIs rely on pointing devices like the electronic mouse or touch-pad to make selections that help you get things done.
The User Interface

History of Information Retrieval

2009-07-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

History of Information Retrieval
Information retrieval is the process of searching within a document collection for a particular information need (called a query).

Although dominated by recent events following the invention of the computer, information retrieval actually has a long and glorious tradition.

The earliest document collections were recorded on the painted walls of caves. A cave dweller interested in searching a collection of cave paintings to answer a particular information query had to travel by foot, and stand, staring in front of each painting.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to collect and artifact without being gruesome.

Before the invention of paper, ancient Romans and Greeks recorded information on papyrus rolls.

Some papyrus artifacts from ancient Rome had tags attached to the rolls. These tags were an ancient form of today’s Post-it Note, and make an excellent addition to our museum.

A tag contained a short summary of the rolled document and was attached in order to save readers from unnecessarily unraveling a long irrelevant document.

These abstract also appeared in oral form. At the start of Greek plays in the fifth century B.C., the chorus recited an abstract of the ensuing action.

While no actual classifications scheme has survived from the artifacts of Greek and Roman libraries, we do know that another elementary information retrieval tool, the table of content, first appeared in Greek scrolls from the second century B.C.

As the stories goes, the Libraries of Pergamum threatened to overtake the celebrated Library of Alexandria as the best Library in the world, claiming the largest collection of papyrus rolls.

As the result, the Egyptians ceased the supply of papyrus to Pergamum, so the Pergamenians invented an alternative writing material parchment, which is made from thin layers of animal skin.

Unlike papyrus, parchment did not roll easily, so scribes folded several sheets of parchment and sewed them into books.

Other documents collections sprung up in a variety of fields. This dramatically accelerated with the re-invention of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg in 1450.

The wealthy proudly boasted of their private libraries and public libraries were instituted in America in the 1700s at the prompting of Benjamin Franklin.

More orderly ways of maintaining records of a collection’s holdings were devised.

These inventions were progress, yet still search was not completely in the hands of the information seeker. It took the inventions of the digital computer (1940s and 1950s) and the subsequent inventions of computerized search systems to move forward that goal.

The first computerized search systems used special syntax to automatically retrieve book and article information related to a user’s query.

Unfortunately, the cumbersome syntax kept search largely in the domain of libraries trained on the systems.

In1989 the storage, access and searching of document collections was revolutions by and invention named the World Wide Web by its founder Tim Berners-Lee.

Of course, our museum must include artifacts from this revolution such as a webpage, some HTML, and a hyperlink or two.

The World Wide Web became the ultimate signal of the dominance of the Information Age and the death of the Industrial Age.

Yet despite the revolution in information storage and access ushered in by the Web users initialing web searches found themselves floundering.

They were looking for the proverbial needle in an enormous, ever growing information haystack.

Al this change in 1998 when link analysis hit the information retrieval scene. The most successful search engines began using link analysis, technique that exploited the additional information inherent in the hyperlink structure of the Web, to improve the quality of search results.

Web search improved dramatically, and web searchers religiously used and promoted their favorite engines like Google and AltaVista.
History of Information Retrieval

World Class Performance

2009-06-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

World Class Performance
World class is a term coined by Dick Schonberger, consultant and author of Building a Chain of Customers, to describe organization which is consistently held in the highest regard by its customer, and can therefore compete successfully in world markets.

Tom Peters, another America, author of In Search of Excellence, Liberation Management and Beyond Hierarchy, describes these organizations as excellent.

They both agree that somehow, these organizations are consistently able to meet and often exceed their customers’ expectations.

This kind of exceptional performance cannot happen by chance; it must be made to happen by getting everyone in organization to work constantly toward that goal.

Why? Because customer expectations are constantly rising.

What we as consumers are delighted with today, we come to expect tomorrow and so any organizations that stands still on quality and customer service will soon fall behind.

Unfortunately, however, until recently most western organizations were saddled with a crippling handicap that had to be unburdened before they could hope to achieve excellence.

This handicap was an all-pervading heritage familiar to everyone at work.

It has always been there, we could not imagine life without it, and it was seldom questioned.

It was of course the ‘command and control’ system with these near the top of the tree making the decision for the rest lower down.

It’s incredible to think that towards the end of the twentieth century, most people at work in organizations of any size sill found themselves constrained by a structure first adopted thousands of years ago.

It was appropriate for the Roman army, and for businesses during the reign of Queen Victoria, because then, populations consisted, mostly of uneducated masses, with only a small, educated elite equipped to take charge of them.

But that changed half a century ago, with an educated majority in developed nations.

What a waste of potential: all those educated people in the lower half of the tree with ideas about their jobs and no opportunity to use them.
World Class Performance

New Breed of Business Intelligence Tools

2009-05-30T04:56:00.000-07:00

New Breed of Business Intelligence Tools
The solution to the problem of a poor analytical environment in a company with multiple data source, different report writers and lack of analytical tools can be implemented a data warehouse with modern business intelligence software as a front end for the users.

With modern ETL (extraction, transformation, and loading) tools and most databases vendors now supporting open standards protocols it is finally becoming feasible for companies to implement data-warehouses that can be updated and maintained with relative case.

The result is a common data, repository, which provides decision makers with endless possibilities for investigating (data mining) and analyzing variances, trends and exceptions.

Because a modern business intelligence solution feeds off a frequently updated data-warehouse that includes detailed information it becomes much more than just a tool for executives (like the old executive information systems, but it can become a tool for any person within the organization or related to it who needs easy and fast access to summarized and detailed information from across the company’s databases.
New Breed of Business Intelligence Tools

Operating Systems

2009-05-01T18:11:00.000-07:00

Operating Systems
The most important system software package for any computer is its operating system.

An operating system is an integrated system of programs that manages the operations of the CPU, controls the input/output and storage resources and activities of the computer systems, and provide various support services as the computer executes the application program of users.

The primary purpose of an operating system is to maximize the productivity of a computer system by operating it in the most efficient manner.

An operating system minimizes the amount of human intervention required during processing.

It helps application programs perform common operations such as accessing a network, entering data, savings and retrieving files, and printing or displaying output.

If anybody hands on experience on computer will know that operating system, must be loaded and activated before you can accomplish other tasks.

This emphasizes the fact that the operating system is the most indispensible components of the software interface between users and the hardware of their computer system.
Operating Systems

E-Learning

2009-04-04T15:13:00.001-07:00

E-Learning
In order for web-based e-learning to provide a satisfactory learning environment, it is necessary to make available to user’s computer with sound capability (including headset or loudspeaker) and an internet connection with reasonable speed.

E-learning is also a great tool for repetitive training. Even of users were trained at some point in time. Chances are that they did not frequently use all the features of the software and they will forget certain parts of it.

With all the course modules residing on a web site, the users can log on and retake specific course modules at any time.

Most e-learning providers will offer courses on a per- time basis or on a subscription basis.

If you have a customized or home grown in Business Intelligence solution and no e-learning provider yet offers courses for your software, you can create your own online course and put them on your website, intranet or local area network.

This option can also be if great value if you need to train large number of users in a few modules and you need to show them specific features and functionability.

Depending on the resource available in your organization and their skill level, course development can be handled by your own team, or outsourced to the e-learning software vendor or a consultant.

Depending on the quality required and the amount of custom animations, graphics, and the like that are used, one hour online courses can cost form a few thousand to $50,000 to develop.

The key is to evaluate the cost/benefit and then pick the best alternative.

There is also some very inexpensive and easy-to-use software you or a power user can utilize to create the course yourself.

It all depends on how many people will use the sources and how long they can be used before they are out of date, as well as the time and resources you have available.

Software training (like Business Intelligence) lends itself very well to online courses because you will see that actual screens you will be using in real life, with information, buttons, and menus residing on a screen, and what can be better than showing the real screens and a mouse clicking on items while an instructor’s voice is explaining in the background?
E-Learning

System Software: Computer System Management

2009-02-24T06:54:00.000-08:00

System Software: Computer System Management
System software consists of programmes that manage and support a computer system and its information processing activities.

For example, operating systems and network management programs serve as a vital software interface between computer networks and hardware and the application programs of end users.

System management programs
Programs that manage the hardware, software, network, and data resources of the computer systems during its execution of the various information processing jobs of users.

Example of important systems management programs are operating systems, network management programs, database management systems and system utilities.

System development programs
Programs that help users develop information system programs and procedures and prepare user programs for computer processing. Major development programs are programming language translators and editors, other programming tools, and computer aided software package.
System Software: Computer System Management

Overload of Information

2009-01-31T03:53:00.000-08:00

Overload of Information
There is more information of every type available now than ever before. How often you ‘personally selected’ at home, and at work, for the chance of receiving a fabulous holiday – and some information?

Most of it is junk information – junk mail, e-mail and junk faxes that you file straight away in the waste paper bin – guess who personally selected you?

A computer, of course. They are great for sending out information: more computers are used for word processing than for any other task. Computers are amazingly fast at processing some types of data, in particular financial and numerical data once it has been converted into electronic digital signals.

There are even programs for filtering out, or redirecting, certain classes of e-mail, but computers cannot yet open the morning postbag, sift out the junk and bin it.

So history is repeating itself: the invention of the typewriter with its high output of thirty or forty words per minute did not lead us to employ fewer scribes to write letters and other documents.

Instead we employed more people to produce much more written work and now the word processor is having the same effect. The net result is more people with keyboards skill than ever before, and far more information on every conceivable subject, competing for our attention and often failing to get it.

It seems the computer that help us manage information by processing data after, far from solving our problems, actually create new problems by adding to the volume, variety and complexity of information available.

Nevertheless some organizations thrive in this new environment: they use computers and modern information systems to make better decisions more quickly, allowing them to respond faster to customer requirements, which is markets today brings significant competitive advantage.
Overload of Information

Business Intelligence: Impact on the Internet

2009-01-13T05:43:00.000-08:00

Business Intelligence: Impact on the Internet
Business intelligence will empower users by giving them access to easily analyze and visualize essential financial and statistical data from the company’s different transactional databases.

The internet is making business intelligence applications even more powerful for several reasons:

Data sources such as exchange rates, competitive or industry measures, and so on can be accessed online and use by the business intelligence applications.

Convenience – the business intelligence application itself can be web-based, allowing users to access the system from home, while traveling or from remote offices.

Speed data of distribution or information is available immediately from anywhere.

Speed data collection – budgets, statistics, comments and the like can be entered from anywhere.

There is no need for software installation and maintenance on users’ computers.

Most business intelligence vendors now have a web version of their software, and as long as you have the infrastructure in place, you should seriously evaluate making your business intelligence information available through a web based application.
Business Intelligence: Impact on the Internet

What is a Groupware?

2008-12-25T18:27:00.000-08:00

What is a Groupware?
Groupware is collaboration software, that is software that helps workgroups and teams work together to accomplish group assignments.

Groupware is a fast-growing category of general purpose application software that combines a variety of software features and functions to facilitate collaboration. For example, groupware products like Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchanges, and Netscape Communicator support collaboration through electronic mail, discussion groups and databases, scheduling, task management, data, audio and video conferencing.

Groupware products are changing in several ways to meet the demand for better tools for collaboration. Groupware in now designed to use internet and corporate internet and extranets to make collaboration possible in a global scale by virtual teams located anywhere in the world.

For example, team members might use the Internet for global E-mail, project discussion forums, and joint Web page development. Or they might use corporate intranets to publish project news and progress reports, and work jointly on documents stored on Web servers.

Collaborative capabilities are also being added to other software to give them groupware features. For examples, in the Microsoft Office software suite, Microsoft World keep track of who made revisions to each document, Excel tracks all changes made to a spreadsheet, and Outlooks lets you keep track of tasks you delegate to other team members.
What is a Groupware?

E-Government

2008-12-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

E-Government
In the commercial sphere, business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C) and business to employee (BTE) electronic business has come widely accepted.

Government are also embracing the internet to provide services to business (G2B) and citizens (C2C), as well as government to government (G2G), citizen to citizen (C2C), government to supplier (G2S) and government to employee (G2E).

In year 2000 European Union Summit in Lisbon set ambitious goal of making Europe the world most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy. It resulted in the eEurope Action plan to exploit the full potential of the Internet to promote a competitive economy. The objective is to make it easier to deal with local, regional and national governments by making services available electronically.

The benefits of e Government are reduced costs through more efficient processes, the integration of disparate agencies systems, and improved service to citizens via the internet and other electronic channels. Investment by government will also decrease the cost of doing business through simplification of procedures self-service systems and one stop shop for enterprises. The biggest beneficiaries here will be the small to medium enterprises, which are the backbone of the European economy.
E-Government

Managing Information: Accessible Filing

2008-12-11T07:24:00.001-08:00

Managing Information: Accessible Filing
The reason why computers are sure to take over in more and more areas of organizational life is that they can make any information already collected for one purpose instantly available, to be used for many other secondary purposes. This has opened up totally new ways of using information.

Let us take for example the way information about groceries bought by consumers can be used in a retail outlet. In corner shops the proprietor often operates the till and once the customer has paid for his or her purchases the only record of the transaction is on the till roll – to all intents and purposes inaccessible. It is of little consequence though because the proprietor is close enough to the action for decision making and knows roughly what the day’s taking are, how many customer have been served and whether there has been a run on a particular item.

In the supermarket, however, there may be 30 checkout operators and 10 000 or more different lines stocked. At peak times, purchases may be leaving the supermarket at a rate of 40 000 items per hour.

Stocks of each line must be reordered to arrive at the rate of consumption or changing demand for particular lines caused by promotional; activities or food scarce could be easily lead to empty shelves to throw away ‘till roll’ data collected for the primary purpose of calculating how much to charge the customer.

Once collected it must be used again for stock control, a secondary use. And that’s not the end of the story. Information is expensive to collect, but once held in digital form it costs next to nothing to store and so can be freely used over and over gain for a variety of secondary purpose. For instance, till roll data collected over a period of months or years can be analyzed for long term trends and presented graphically to aid in forecasting and strategic planning. Till roll data becomes valuables for direct marketing when linked to particular customers who presented a loyalty card.

Customer who buys cat food may be interested in special offers in cat litter, and those who buy diapers may try a new range of baby foods. Their addresses are known, so they can be targeted for mail shots customized to their life styles and preferences.
Managing Information: Accessible Filing

Personal Information Manager

2008-12-04T18:46:00.000-08:00

Personal Information Manager
Personal Information Manager is a popular software package for end user productivity and collaborations, and is a popular application for personal digital assistant (PDA) hand held devices. Personal information manager such as Lotus Organizer and Microsoft Outlook help end users, store, organize and retrieve information about customers, clients and prospects, of schedule and manage appointments, meetings and tasks.

The personal information manager will organize data entered and retrieve information in a variety of forms, depending on the style and structure of the personal information and the information wanted. For example, information can be retrieved as an electronic calendar or list of appointments, meeting, or other things to do, the time tables for a project; or a display of key facts and financial data about customers, clients, or sales prospects.

Personal information managers are sold as independent programs or are included in software suites and vary widely in their styles. Structure and features, for example, Lotus Organizer uses a notebook with tabs format, while Microsoft Outlook organizes data about people as a continuous A to Z list. Most personal information managers emphasize the maintenance of contact list, that is, customers, clients or prospects. Scheduling appointments and meetings and task management are top personal information manager applications. Personal information manager are now changing to include the ability to access the World Wide Web also provide e-mail capability.
Personal Information Manager

Damn Small Linux Text Processing

2008-11-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

Damn Small Linux Text Processing
Damn Small Linux can be an excellent tool for learning Linux commands and running the Linux operating system. But what if you are not interested in becoming a computer nerd; can this software still be useful to regular people? The answer is a resounding yes; you can make use of this tiny operating system whether or not you want to learn the sometimes gruesome details of operating systems. This article introduces the text editors that come with your free Damn Small Linux that runs on even obsolete Windows computers. You can use these applications to compose simple text or programs of any level of complexity.

Once you have downloaded and installed Damn Small Linux there are several equivalent ways of launching its text editors. You can click on the DSL button in the lower-left hand corner or on the Apps icon toward the top of the screen. Then open the Editors: there are four, Beaver, Nano, Notepad, and vi (actually vim). We will look at these editors in order plus an additional one.

Beaver is my choice for creating and editing the text files used in my Damn Small Linux tutorials. The name Beaver stands for Beaver is an Early AdVanced EditoR which is the kind of joke that many Linux and Unix people find funny. This editor is particularly useful for programming and web page editing. Among Beaver's special features are color coding and the ability to convert text to Upper Case, Lower Case or to capitalize the first letter of every word. You can convert text among the following formats: Unix, DOS, and Mac. Programmers will be happy to learn that Beaver formats code for the following programming languages: C/C++, HTML, Perl, JavaScript, PHP, and Bash. Unfortunately the Help function is not available.

The nano program is especially used for email messages. It stems from the widely used Pico email program that is not available for some versions of Linux. I have not had the pleasure of working with nano but am told that many Linux and Unix people like it.

What the Damn Small Linux people call Notepad is actually another text processor that is similar to the DOS/Windows Notepad. I haven't used it because Beaver is more powerful, and just about as easy to use.

The final application in this group is VIM, vi IMproved. The original vi was a very-widely used text editor for Unix and Linux systems. Today most Unix and Linux people work with other, more sophisticated text editors. When I teach Linux on systems other than Damn Small Linux I teach a reduced version of vi. This editor is cumbersome, but you make like the improved version. Damn Small Linux offers you a choice.

The Office folder contains Ted, a word processor that is compatible with Microsoft Word. Ted saves documents in RTF (rich text format) that can be read by Microsoft Word and other word processors including Open Office. Ted and Beaver belong to different worlds; you can't take documents back and forth between these two applications.

Damn Small Linux Text Processing

About author:
Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet. He loves the occasional glass of wine as exemplified by his wine websites including www.theworldwidewine.com. He teaches Linux and Windows operating systems plus other computer courses at an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his new website http://www.linux4windows.com which enables you to download and run Damn Small Linux on even outdated Windows computers.

Managing Information

2008-11-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

Managing Information
All organization must manage information, just as all businesses must make a profit, but for a chief executive to tell you to improve your information management, like telling you to improve profits, is no help at all. What you need is more specific direction on the route to those overall goals.

Is it fair to suggest that managing information is as important as making profit? However well you manage information, without profits your business will fail. But profits depend upon good decisions based on accurate information.

Decisions are impossible without information and manager are constantly seeking more and better information to support their decision making. Hence the growth of information systems – a term that generally means networks of computers, but strictly speaking should also include non-computerized channels or communication such as regular meetings, the in and out trays full of memos and reports and of course the phone.

To survive, every organization must have an information system. All organization must be able to collect information, communicate it internally and process it so that managers can make decisions quickly and effectively in pursuit of organizational objectives in a changing, competitive environment. The information system is the nervous system, which allows an organization to respond to opportunities and avoid threats. To be effective it must reach every part of the organization, and beyond, into the furthest extremities of the extended enterprise.
Managing Information

Multimedia Software Technologies

2008-10-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

Multimedia Software Technologies
Hypertext and hypermedia are software technologies for multimedia presentation. By definition, hypertext contains only text and a limited amount of graphics. Hypermedia are electronic documents that contain multiple forms of media, including text, graphics, video and so on. Key topics and other presentation in hypertext or hypermedia documents are indexed by software links so that they can be quickly searched by the reader. For example, if you click your mouse button on an underlined term of hypermedia document, your computer may bring up another display using text, graphics and sound related to that term. Once you finish viewing that presentation, you can return to what you were reading originally, or jump to another part of the document.

Hypertext and hypermedia are developed by using software packages that rely on specialized programming languages like Java and the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which create hyperlinks to other parts of a document or to other documents and multimedia files. Hypertext and hypermedia documents can thus be programmed to let reader navigate though a multimedia database by following a chain of hyperlinks though various multimedia files. The websites on the World Wide Web of the Internet are popular example of this technology. Thus, we use of hypertext and hypermedia software in Web browsers and other program provides an environment for online interactive multimedia presentations.
Multimedia Software Technologies

History of Business Intelligence

2008-10-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

History of Business Intelligence
In the 1970s and 1980s analytical software packages started showing up in the market place. However, lack of computing power, poor user friendliness and cumbersome and manual integration with the transaction system providing the data kept business intelligence tools from widespread usage. The release of spreadsheet software like Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel in the 1980s opened up for end users creating their own data models for business analysis. Spreadsheets are still widely used in this area today, and probably will be for many years to come.

For a period in the 1980s and early 1990s so called executive information systems (EIS) grew in popularity with the promise that they would put key information on the desktops of executive. The idea was that colorful software screens with big buttons and sometimes touch screen, so that the user did not ever have to use a mouse. Should put data directly in the hands of top management to reduce the need for secretaries and assistants to write and print reports for them. However, one of the biggest problems with executive information system (EIS) systems was that it took a lot of manual work to convert and lead data from the data sources, as well as to maintain customized versions of the user screens. Major effect in maintaining the EIS made implementations short-lived. In the 1990s and the new millennium, with the widespread usage of SQL (standard query language) databases; datawarehouse technologies; extraction, transformation, and loading tools; as well as new and powerful end-user analytical software, the stage is set for fast growth in usage of business intelligence tools in the next decade.

Furthermore, most of the business intelligence software vendors have released web-based versions of their solutions. Companies can easily and at a low cost give users access to large amount of corporate data and sophisticated analytical tools. By providing access to the internet or an intranet connection, a person can investigate and analyze data from home, when traveling, or from any other location at which they may happen to be.
History of Business Intelligence

Presentation Graphics and Multimedia

2008-09-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

Presentation Graphics and Multimedia
Presentation graphics packages help us to convert numeric data into graphics displays such as line charts, bar graphs, pie charts, and many other types of graphics. Most of the top packages also help you prepare multimedia presentations of graphics, photos, animation and video clips, including publishing to the World Wide Web. Not only a graphics and multi media displays easier to comprehend and communicate that numeric data but multiple color and multiple–media displays also can more easily emphasize key points, strategic differences, and important trends in data. Presentation graphics has proved to be much effective than tabular presentations of numeric data for reporting and communicating in advertising media, management reports, or other business presentations.

Presentation graphics software packages like Microsoft PowerPoint, Lotus Freelance, or Corel Presentations give you many easy to use capabilities that encourage the use of graphic presentations. For example, most packages help us design and manage computer generated and orchestrated slide shows containing many integrated graphics and multimedia displays. Or we can select from a variety of predesigned template of business presentations prepare and edit the outline and notes for a presentations, and manage the use of multimedia files of graphics, photos sounds and video clips. And of course, the top packages help us tailor graphics and multimedia presentation for transfer in HTML formats to websites on corporate intranets or the World Wide Web.
Presentation Graphics and Multimedia

Marketing Information System

2008-09-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

Marketing Information System
Every firm organizes the flow of marketing information to its marketing manager as a support for his marketing interventions. Companies are studying their manager’s information needs and designing Marketing Information Systems to meet these needs. Marketing Information Systems is that part of Business Information Systems which meets the information needs for an organization in sales, distribution, advertising, market analysis, market intelligence, product research, service management, customer profile and other marketing functions. A Marketing Information Systems consists of people, equipment and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate and distribute needed, timely and accurate information to marketing decision making.

The Role of Marketing Information Systems is to assess the marketing manager’s information needs, then develop the framework for collecting information and distribute the information gathered to the end-users in time. The marketing information system is generally carried out marketing need analysis, planning, implementation, and control functions of marketing managers. The needed information is developed through internal company records analysis.

Relevance of Marketing Information Systems
Three crucial developments render the need for Marketing Information Systems.

Firstly, when companies expand and diversify into new markets, the marketing managers have to necessarily deal with new situations both from the companies and from the customer’s point of view. Therefore, there would be greater need for marketing information.

Secondly, when there is a perceptible and significant increase in the level of income of the buyers, consumers tend to get more selective and discriminative in their buying process. The marketers should be fully aware of what makes a buyer prefer a brand and what distinguished his brand from that of the close competitors. This awareness is possible only with the help of a well designed effective Marketing Information Systems.

Thirdly, as the markets develop and the competition moves from price to non price grounds, it becomes increasingly important to find the moves adopted and implemented by the competitors and the response of the consumers towards them. Analyzing the needs for Marketing Information Systems from a third person’s angle, three more factors come to the front viz., the information explosion, increasing complexity in decision making and the technological developments.

Marketing Information System

Database Management

2008-09-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

Database Management
Microcomputer versions of database management programs have become so popular that they are now view as general purpose application software packages like word processing and spreadsheet packages. Database management packages such as Microsoft Access, Lotus Approach, or Coral Paradox allow customer to set up and manage databases in PC, network server, or the World Wide Web.

Most database managers can perform four primary tasks.
Database development
Define and organize the content, relationship and structure of the data needed to build a database, including any hyperlinks to data on Web pages.

Database interrogation
Access the data in a database to display information in a variety of formats. End users can selectively retrieve and display information and produce forms, reports and other documents, including Web pages.

Database maintenance
Add, delete, update, and correct the data in a database, including hyperlinked data on Web pages.

Application development
Develop prototypes of Web pages, queries, forms, reports and labels for a proposed application. Use application generator to program application.
Database Management

Desktop Publishing

2008-08-28T02:28:00.000-07:00

Desktop Publishing
End user and organizations can use desktop publishing (DTP) software to produce their own printed materials that look professionally published. That is they can design and print their own newsletter, brochures, manuals and books with several types, graphics, photos and colors on each page. Word processing packages and desktop publishing packages like Adobe PageMaker and QuarkXPress are used to do desktop publishing. Typically, text material and graphics can be generated by word processing and graphic packages and imported as texts and graphics files. Optical scanners may be used to input text and graphics from printed material. Files of clip arts also can be used, which are redrawn graphic illustrations provided by the software package or available from other sources.

The heart of desktop publishing is a page design process called page makeup or page composition. Video screen becomes an electronic paste-up board with rulers, column guides and other page design aids. Text materials and illustrations are then merged into the page format that has been design before. The software will automatically move excess text to another column or page and help size and place illustrations and headings. Most desktop publishing packages provide WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) displays so user can see exactly what the finished document will look like before it is printed.
Desktop Publishing