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How hardware and software contribute to efficiency and effectiveness

9 September, 2015 - 12:16

Editor: Larry Press ( California State University, Dominguez Hills, USA)

Reviewer: Geoff Dick (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia)

Learning objectives

  • Describe and quantify the improvement in electronic technology used in information processing systems
  • Describe and quantify the improvement in storage technology used in information processing systems
  • Describe and quantify the improvement in communication technology used in information processing systems
  • Describe and differentiate between the major software development platforms: batch processing, time- sharing, personal computers, local area networks and the Internet.
  • Describe and give examples of the following modern, Internet-based software categories: open source, applications with user-supplied content, composite applications, software as a service, mobile, portable and location-aware applications, long tail applications, and collaboration support applications.
  • Describe impediments to innovation and the adoption of new applications: limited communication and data center capacity, inequity in access to information technology, organizations with vested interests in the status quo, and concerns over privacy and security.

Information technology is improving at an accelerating rate. This opens the way for innovative applications, which make organizations and individuals more efficient and effective. This chapter outlines hardware progress, which has led to new forms of software and software development. Software evolution has brought us to the current era of Internet-based software. After describing some of the characteristics of Internet-based software, we ask whether the progress we have enjoyed will continue and conclude with a discussion of some of the non-technical issues, which tend to impede that progress.

  1. Hardware progress
  2. Software progress
  3. Internet based software
  4. Will the progress continue?
  5. Bumps in the information technology road