1. List and explain all the various options now available for an organization to enjoy the services of an IS.

2. Few organizations would develop an application in-house or pay another company to develop it if a similar application can be licensed. Why?

3. What are the benefits and risks of outsourcing IT services?

4. The major hardware and software makers, such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard, derive an increasing portion of their revenue from outsourcing contracts. Analyze and explain why they focus more of their efforts in this direction.

5. What might cause a client to ask to renegotiate a long-term outsourcing contract?

6. You are the CIO of a large manufacturing company. A software vendor approaches you with an offer to have your company serve as a beta site for a new human resource application. What would you consider before making a decision?

7. What is an RFI? What is the difference between an RFI and an RFP? The ideal response to an RFP is one that can be easily transformed into a contract. Why?

8. What is the purpose of benchmarking? Often, benchmarking involves visiting other organizations that have applied the system under consideration. Why?

9. What would you benchmark in a system whose purpose is to enter customer orders and accept customer credit-card account numbers for payment at your web-based site?

10. When purchasing an off-the-shelf application, to which phase of the SDLC is the postimplementation support and service equivalent?

11. Some organizations charge the purchase price of an application that serves only a particular organizational unit back to the unit. Why does the existence of a charge-back arrangement make an incentive to have users develop their own applications?

12. Why don't users commonly document the applications they develop? Why is poor documentation a problem?

13. List and explain the benefits and risks of using the services of an on-demand software provider.

14. Some companies use software as a service (SaaS) because they want to concentrate on core competencies. What is a core competency? How would you determine what an organization's core competencies are?

15. What is a storage service provider (SSP)? How is it different from an ASP?