Questions and Answers of Information Systems

The issue of civil liberties versus national security may be one of the most defining tensions of modern times. Research the US government's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and related
Investigate Amazon's performance over the last decade. How has the firm done with respect to revenue, net income, and share price? How does this compare with competitors mentioned?
What advantages does Amazon enjoy by being able to consider various shipping options at the time a package is to be shipped?
Both Amazon and Apple would like you to store books, music, and other media in their "cloud." What critical key strategic advantage comes to a firm when consumers adopt one firm's cloud versus the
How do Amazon warehouse staff know where to find items? How does technology help make the process most efficient?
Do you use personal cloud services? Do you use Amazon products, or products provided by rivals? Why have you made these choices regarding cloud platforms?
How have robots changed the way Amazon warehouses operate? What are the benefits these robots bring to Amazon? Which firm supplies Amazon's shelving robots and why might this be important for Amazon?
Amazon prices Kindle hardware at or below cost. Conduct research to find out Apple's margins on iPad hardware. How does Amazon make money from the Kindle? Which firm do you think will win the battle
Why is Amazon leasing planes that are painted with the "Prime Air" logo? Why is it involved in ocean freight shipping? What advantages does this give the firm? Should Amazon fear other e-commerce
What are some of the advantages in having a longer time horizon? What are some of the challenges? What needs to happen to enable Amazon to continue to "think long term"? What could derail this
How is Amazon using Whole Foods? How is the firm creating synergies between the grocery chain and its existing businesses? What benefits, other than more sales through groceries, does Amazon get
What is AWS, and what services are provided? Investigate online and report back on the costs associated with key services such as EC2 and S3.
Why is e-ink useful in an e-reader?
Does Amazon buy most of its warehouse automation software from others, or is most of the software written in house? Why do you suppose this is the case?
What sort of customer would use Amazon Key or Amazon Key In-Car (auto-delivery) options? Would you? Do you think this will be successful? Why or why not?
What does the accounting term "goodwill" mean? What was included in the goodwill category when Amazon acquired Whole Foods?
Consider Amazon WorkSpaces: Why would a firm want a virtual version of Windows served in a browser? How might AWS AppStream help the firm's Fire efforts?
What operating system do Fire devices use? How does this impact the firm's network effects from complementary products?
Do firms that dominate their markets with network effects risk government intervention? Why or why not? Explain through an example.
Why does Adobe allow the free download of Acrobat Reader?
Visit a wiki, either an established site like Wikipedia, or a wiki service like Socialtext, PBworks, or Atlassian Confluence. Make an edit to a wiki entry or use a wiki service to create a new wiki
Have you used Facebook apps for the browser? For Messenger? Which are your favorites, or why don't you use them? What makes some Facebook apps successful? Have you used Facebook apps for the browser?
What other areas could Rent the Runway expand into? Would you recommend these? What about men's fashion? Casual fashion?
In what ways do retail storefronts help the firm? In what ways are Rent the Runway stores like Apple stores?
How does Rent the Runway price product? What other firms use this approach and why?
Research and find additional women-led or -founded tech firms, and share these with your class.
It's been suggested that younger consumers spend less on fashion and prioritize experiences like food and travel. Do you think this is the case? What do these trends mean for retailers? Is Rent the
Describe the concepts of agile software development and continuous deployment. Why do they make sense in an entrepreneurial environment like Rent the Runway? What do these techniques imply about the
Describe the resources Rent the Runway is building for sustainable competitive advantage. Which of these do you think is exceptionally strong and will keep the firm at the top of the industry? Why?
Research examples of firms that have created new store- based retail experiences like Bonobos and Warby Parker, where customers shop in a smaller footprint store, but get items shipped to their home
Explain the difference between hardware and software.
Interview a systems development person at your university or at another organization. Does the firm use software development methodologies? If so, do they use one approach for all projects? What
What does an operating system do? Why do you need an operating system? How do operating systems make a programmer's job easier? How do operating systems make life easier for end users?
Search online for examples of failed information systems development efforts. Come to class prepared to describe the failure, give its size and scope, the perceived reasons for the failure, and what
What is the difference between desktop and enterprise software?
Differentiate the term "server" used in a hardware context, from "server" used in a software context.
List popular programming languages.
Why should a manager care about software and how software works? What critical organizational and competitive factors can software influence?
Investigate scrum. Is it possible to get scrum training online? What alternatives have you discovered? Does this seem like something you would want to pursue? Why or why not?
Healthcare.gov was clearly botched at the start. Some have claimed this suggests private enterprise is better suited to lead such projects than the government, but are there examples of corporations
What kinds of operating systems are used in the devices that you own? On your personal computer? Your mobile phone? The set-top box on top of your television? Are there other operating systems that
Who are the two leading ERP vendors?
Describe the "client-server" model of distributed computing. What products that you use would classify as leveraging client-server computing?
What are programming frameworks, and why would you use one? Name some of the more popular programming frameworks used for web development, and name the programming languages they are used with.
What role has software played in your decision to select certain products? Has this influenced why you favored one product or service over another?
Scrum isn't limited to technology projects. Would scrum work for projects that you are working on-including school group projects or more complex tasks in other organizations? If so, try using scrum
For your list in the prior question (and to the extent that you can), diagram the hardware/software "layer cake" for these devices.
List the functions of a business that might be impacted by an ERP.
How are firms using APIs to transform from being a product to being a platform? How can APIs and web services enhance a firm's competitive advantage?
What's an IDE? Why do programmers use IDES? Name IDEs popular for Windows and Mac users.
Find the Fortune 500 list online. Which firm is the highest ranked software firm? While the Fortune 500 ranks firms according to revenue, what's this firm's profitability rank? What does this
Investigate some of the other approaches that are sometimes combined with agile development, such as paired programming and team programming. Would you prefer to use these approaches? Why or why not?
For this same list, do you think each device's manufacturer wrote all of the software that you use on these devices? Can you add or modify software to all of these devices? Why or why not? What would
What do the acronyms ERP, CRM, SCM, and BI stand for? Briefly describe what each of these enterprise systems does.
List the advantages that APIs have brought to Expedia and its partners.
What is the difference between a compiled programming language and an interpreted programming language?
Operating system market share is notoriously difficult to calculate. Do some research on major OS markets (PCs, tablets, smartphones, or other products). Gather data and share with your class. Is
Where in the "layer cake" analogy does the DBMS lie?
What are the security risks associated with connectivity, the Internet, and distributed processing?
Name one advantage and one disadvantage of scripting languages.
Which mobile OS has a larger global market share: Android or iOS? Which has returned more money to developers through its app store? Is this data what you'd expect? Why or why not?
Name two companies that have realized multimillion-dollar benefits as a result of installing enterprise systems.
In addition to computers, on what other technology has Java been deployed? Why do you suppose Java is particularly attractive for these kinds of applications?
Some ATM machines use Windows. Why would an ATM manufacturer choose to build its systems using Windows? Why might it want to avoid this? Are there other non-PC devices you've encountered that were
Name two companies that have suffered multimillion-dollar disasters as a result of failed enterprise system installations.
What's a JVM? Why do you need it?
What are embedded systems? When might firms want to install software on chips instead of on a hard drive? Why are embedded systems important for the Internet of Things?
How much does the average large company spend annually on ERP software?
What if a programmer wrote perfect Java code, but there was a bug on the JVM installed on a given computer? What might happen?
It's important to understand how technology impacts a firm's strategy and competitive environment. Consider the description of Otis elevator's use of embedded systems. Which parts of the value chain
How do efficient enterprise systems help firms with respect to partnering with other organizations, as well as decisions around M&A?
Why would developers choose to write applications in Java? Why might they skip Java and choose another programming language?
Can you think of other firms that can or do leverage embedded systems? Provide examples and list the kinds of benefits these might offer firms and consumers.
Why isn't Java popular for desktop applications?
Research the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (or investigate if your nation has a similar law), and the implications of this legislation for software developers and website operators. Have
Go to http://www.java.com. Click on "Do I have Java?" Is Java running on your computer? Which version?
Interested in building apps? Your author has written a video- based online text to learn to program in the Swift language while also learning app programming development. The first three chapters are
Firms that buy conventional enterprise software spend money buying software and hardware. What additional and ongoing expenses are required as part of the "care and feeding" of enterprise
What is cloud computing? What kinds of services are described by this term? What are other names for this phenomenon?
What major trends, outlined in this section, are reshaping how we think about software? What industries and firms are potentially impacted by these changes? Why do managers, investors, and technology
Describe how the shift to cloud computing may impact traditional computing hardware firms.
What are the options available to managers when seeking to meet the software needs of their companies?
Who developed Linux?
List the benefits to a firm from using virtualization.
What advantages does OSS offer TiVo? What alternatives to OSS might the firm consider, and why do you suppose the firm decided on OSS?
How big is the worldwide smartphone market? Do you use a smartphone? Which one, and why did you choose that product?
Make a brief list of commercial product categories that an individual or enterprise might use. Are there open source alternatives for these categories? Are well-known firms leveraging these OSS
Consider the following two firms: a consulting startup and a defense contractor. Leverage what you know about SaaS and advise whether each might consider SaaS efforts for CRM or other enterprise
Describe the impact of OSS on the IT market.
Identify and contrast the categories of cloud computing. Which typically requires the most support and maintenance, and why? Why would firms choose a platform that requires more support and
In what ways can firms using SaaS products dramatically lower costs associated with their information systems?
Which firms are the leading providers of cloud computing services? How are clients using these efforts?
Which organizations might benefit from these trends? Which might be threatened? Why?
Describe the shift in skill sets required for IT workers that is likely to result from the widespread adoption of cloud computing.
What are the factors that must be considered when making the make, buy, or rent decision?
Who develops it today?
What is the average utilization rate for conventional data centers?
What's meant by the phrase, "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"? Provide evidence that the insight behind this phrase is an accurate one. How does this phrase relate to the Heartbleed bug?
How are smartphone cost trends and capabilities changing over time?
Why is open source so important for software development and IS professionals? How should programming students leverage resources available to improve learning, job prospects, and their credibility

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