Questions and Answers of Information Systems

Show your understanding of the commercial OSS market. How do Red Hat, Oracle, Oracle's Sun division, and IBM make money via open source?
Think of firms you've worked for, or firms you would like to work for. Do SaaS offerings make sense for these firms? Make a case for or against using certain categories of SaaS.
How do SaaS vendors earn their money?
List the circumstances where cloud computing works best and where it works poorly. When would each alternative make more sense-SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS? What sorts of firms would use a private cloud? A
What are marginal costs? Are there other industries that have cost economics similar to the software industry?
Why do certain entry barriers decrease as a result of cloud computing? What is the effect of lower entry barriers on new entrants, entrepreneurship, and venture capital? On existing competitors?
What are some security-related questions that must be asked when making the make, buy, or rent decision?
List the components of the LAMP stack. Which commercial products do these components compete with (investigate online, if necessary)?
List companies that have virtualization-enabled private clouds.
How has OSS benefited E*TRADE? Amazon? Motorola? Zimbra? What benefits were achieved in each of these examples?
Are smartphones the only products with app stores? What other app stores are available? Do they have the same dynamics at work as those described previously?
Are the OSS efforts you identified above provided by commercial firms, nonprofit organizations, or private individuals? Does this make a difference in your willingness to adopt a particular product?
Visit Mozilla.org. Which open source products does this organization develop? Investigate how development of these efforts is financed. How does this organization differ from the ones mentioned above?
What factors would you consider when evaluating an SaaS vendor? Which firms are more appealing to you and why?
Discuss problems that may arise because SaaS solutions rely on Internet connections. Discuss the advantages of through-the-browser access.
Give examples of enterprise-focused SaaS vendors and their products. Visit the websites of the firms that offer these services. Which firms are listed as clients? Does there appear to be a particular
Research cloud-based alternatives for backing up your hard drive. Which are among the best reviewed products or services? Why? Do you or would you use such a service? Why or why not?
Investigate the revenues and net income of major software players: Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Red Hat, and Salesforce.com. Which firms have higher revenues? Net income? Which have better margins?
What factors make the Columbia River region of the Pacific Northwest an ideal location for server farms?
What are some vendor-related questions that must be asked when making the make, buy, or rent decision?
Why did Microsoft's shift to cloud computing create an unexpected shock among stock analysts who cover the firm? What does this tell you about the importance of technology understanding among finance
How might the rise of OSS, SaaS, and cloud computing impact hardware sales? How might it impact entrepreneurship and smaller businesses?
Can you think of "black swan" events that have caused computing services to become less reliable? Describe the events and their consequences for computing services. Suggest a method and vendor for
Give examples of desktop-focused SaaS vendors and their products. If some of these are free, try them out and compare them to desktop alternatives you may have used. Be prepared to share your
Evaluate trial versions of desktop SaaS offerings (offered by Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft, or others). Do you agree that the interfaces of Web-based versions are not as robust as desktop rivals?
What is the Linux Foundation? Why is it necessary? Which firms are members, underwriting foundation efforts?
Download a popular, end-user version of an OSS tool that competes with a desktop application that you own, or that you've used. What do you think of the OSS offering compared to the commercial
If you were developing a product or service today, would you go "mobile first," concentrating on an app as the customer interface rather than a web-based interface? Why or why not?
Describe how OSS provides a firm with scalability. What does this mean, and why does this appeal to a firm? What issues might a firm face if chosen systems aren't scalable?
Give an example of desktop virtualization.
Why do commercial firms contribute to open source consortia and foundations?
In what ways are apps superior to browser-based alternatives? In what ways is app development and maintenance more challenging than writing code for the browser?
List the reasons why Linux is installed on only a very small fraction of desktop computers. Are there particular categories of products or users who might see Linux as more appealing than
List the cost-related benefits to users that accrue from using SaaS.
Why do cloud computing vendors build regional server farms instead of one mega site?
Why must factors be evaluated over the lifetime of a project, not at a single point in time?
How is Microsoft combating the threat of open source software and other free tools that compete with its commercial products?
List the benefits other than cost-related that accrue to users from using SaaS.
Why would a firm build a container-based data center?
Conduct additional research online. What is the dominant open source database software product? How has stewardship of the leading OSS database effort changed in recent years? Who oversees the effort
List the benefits realized by vendors that offer SaaS services instead of conventional software.
List some of the risks associated with using OSS. Give examples of firms that might pass on OSS software, and explain why.
Why might cloud computing be greener than conventional computing alternatives? Research online and share examples suggesting that cloud firms could be less environmentally taxing than if a firm built
Why would a firm use a loyalty card? What is the incentive for the firm? What is the incentive for consumers to opt in and use loyalty cards? What kinds of strategic assets can these systems create?
How might information systems impact mergers and acquisitions? What are the key issues to consider?
List the issues that need to be addressed in order to design, develop, deploy, and maintain data warehouses and data marts.
What are some of the tools used to convert data into information?
Name and define the terms that are supplanting discussions of decision support systems in the modern IS lexicon.
How are the terms artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning related?
Define the following terms: table, record, and field. Provide another name for each term along with your definition.
List the functions performed by Retail Link. What is its benefit to Walmart?
Make a list of the kind of data you might give up when using a cash register, a website, or a loyalty card, or when calling a firm's customer support line. How might firms leverage this data to
Discuss the possible consequences of a company having multiple plants, each with a different information system using different part numbers and naming conventions for identical products.
What is meant by "data relevance"?
Is data a source of competitive advantage? Describe situations in which data might be a source for sustainable competitive advantage. When might data not yield sustainable advantage?
What is the difference between a canned report and ad hoc reporting?
What factors are leading to the new explosion in machine learning now used by organizations and making its way into consumer products? Research firms that provide low-cost access to machine learning
Which supplier metrics does Retail Link gather and report? How is this valuable to Walmart and suppliers?
Why does it take longer, and require more processing power, to analyze sales trends by region and product, as opposed to posting a sales transaction?
What is meant by "data governance"?
Are advantages based on analytics and modeling potentially sustainable? Why or why not?
How do reports created by OLAP differ from most conventional reports?
Do any of the products that you use leverage artificial intelligence? What kinds of AI might be used in Netflix's movie recommendation system, Apple's iTunes Genius playlist builder, or Amazon's
Research to find additional examples of organizations that made bad decisions based on bad data. Report your examples to your class, and tweet links to the most interesting examples to #BizTechBook.
Name the technology that Walmart requires partners to use to track and coordinate inventory. Do you know of other uses for this technology?
What is the difference between a data mart and a data warehouse?
Think about the amount of data that is collected about you every day. Make a list of various technologies and information systems you engage with and the organizations that use these technologies,
List the key areas where businesses are leveraging data mining.
Research business applications of machine learning and come to class prepared to discuss new developments, organizations using this technology, and their current plus potential long-term impact.
What steps has Walmart taken to protect its data from competitors?
Why is an understanding of database terms and technologies important, even for nontechnical managers and staff? Consider factors associated with both system use and system development. What other
Why are data marts and data warehouses necessary? Why can't an organization simply query its transactional database?
What role do technology and timing play in realizing advantages from the data asset?
What is market basket analysis?
Are you excited about the future of machine learning? Frightened? Why? How might these technologies create social change and spawn new business opportunities?
Research Walmart's current e-commerce efforts as compared to Amazon and other rivals. Do you think Walmart will catch Amazon? Does it need to? What advantages does Walmart enjoy by blending retail
List the criticisms leveled at Walmart. Do you think these critiques are valid or not? What can Walmart do to counteract this criticism? Should it take these steps? Why or why not?
How can something as simple as customer gender be difficult for a large organization to establish in a data warehouse?
What is customer churn?
What do you think about dynamic pricing? Is it good or bad for consumers? Is it good or bad for businesses? Explain your answer.
What ethical issues are created through public data-sharing sites like GEDmatch? List the positives and negatives. Do you feel sharing your personal data should be regulated? Why or why not? Could
What is Hadoop? Why would a firm use Hadoop instead of conventional data warehousing and data mart technologies?
For data mining to work, what two critical data-related conditions must be present?
Have you visited a retailer or other venue using iBeacons? If so, describe your experience. If not, research the technology and come to class prepared to discuss its implications for collecting data
Research the current state of "Big Data" analysis. Identify major firms leveraging Hadoop or similar technologies and share high-impact examples with your classmates and professor.
Discuss occurrences of model failure caused by missing or incomplete historical data.
Research firms that are effectively using analytics, "big data," or machine learning for competitive advantage. Share interesting examples with your class and tweet links to the #BizTechBook hashtag.
Think about examples where "Big Data" seems to have been used to target you or improve your experience with a firm or organization. Research the effort online to see if you can uncover any details.
Why do researchers think Google's flu predictions became less accurate over time? How does this inform managerial caution on business intelligence projects? How can one avoid making similar errors?
Discuss Tesco's response to their discovery that "milk loaf" was a money-losing product.
List the three critical skills a competent business analytics team should possess.
One of the most popular analytics tools is a product called Tableau. Fortunately, the folks at Tableau allow college students to download a free version. A small exercise has been prepared for any
Find the Web page for your school's information systems department. What is the URL that gets you to this page? Label the host name, domain name, path, and file for this URL. Are there additional
How can the Internet consist of networks of such physically different transmission media-cable, fiber, and wireless?
Research online for the latest country rankings for broadband service. Where does the United States currently rank? Why?
Go to a registrar and see if someone has registered your first or last name as a domain name. If so, what's hosted at that domain? If not, would you consider registering your name as a domain name?
What is the difference between TCP and UDP? Why would you use one over the other?
Which broadband providers can service your home? Which would you choose? Why?
Investigate cases of domain name disputes. Examine a case that you find especially interesting. Who were the parties involved? How was the issue resolved? Do you agree with the decision?
Would you recommend a VoIP phone system to your firm or university? Why or why not? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages? Can you think of possible concerns or benefits not mentioned

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