Reference no: EM133732698
Assignment 1
Chapter 2- Strategy and Technology: Concepts and Frameworks for Achieving Success
1. Choose a technology-based company. Discuss its competitive advantage based on the resources it controls.
2. Define and diagram the value chain.
3. How can information technology help a firm build a brand inexpensively?
4. Is there such a thing as the first-mover advantage? Why or why not?
5. What are Porter's "five forces"?
Assignment 2
Chapter 15- Software in Flux: Open Source, Cloud, Virtualized, and App-Driven Shifts
1. How might the rise of OSS, SaaS, and cloud computing impact hardware sales? How might it impact entrepreneurship and smaller businesses?
2. List the components of the LAMP stack. Which commercial products do these components compete with (investigate online, if necessary)?
3. 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?
4. 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 when job hunting?
5. Describe the impact of OSS on the IT market.
Assignment 3
Chapter 10- Social Media, Peer Production, and Leveraging the Crowd
1. What distinguishes social media and peer production sites from the prior generation of Internet sites? How have you seen social media sites impact businesses, large and small?
2. Search online to find out which blogs are currently the most popular. Why do you suppose the leaders are so popular?
3. Visit the major social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest). What distinguishes one from the other? Are you a member of any of these services? Why or why not?
4. Why would a person or organization choose to use Twitter over Facebook's status update, or other services? Which (if either) do you prefer and why?
5. What is crowdsourcing? Give examples of organizations that are taking advantage of crowdsourcing and be prepared to describe these efforts.
Assignment 4
Chapter 6- Moore's Law And More: Fast, Cheap Computing, and What This Means for the Manager
1. What is Moore's Law? What does it apply to?
2. Search online to assess the current state of quantum computing. What kinds of problems might be solved if the promise of quantum computing is achieved? How might individuals and organizations leverage quantum computing?
3. How does grid computing using slack or excess computing resources change the economics of supercomputing?
4. What is e-waste? What is so dangerous about e-waste?