Large-scale computing systems study

abstract: The State of Arizona has made great advances in the use of technology to improve and enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and timeliness of those processes which are critical to the management of information technologies

Soft policies and hard competition: Government, industry, and user impacts on the development of Japan's software industry

The paper analyzes the development and structure of the Japan's software industry, focusing particular attention on the failure of government support policies to nurture an internationally competitive industry and the success of foreign software producers in the Japanese market. The research adopts an evolutionary approach to explain Japan's problems in building a competitive software industry except in games, challenging the validity of standard explanations such as cultural disadvantage and failure to adopt best practice. The pattern of development in the Japanese software industry results from strong user preference for customized software over packaged products. Large users develop highly customized software systems that reflect their unique organizational structures and operating advantages. Software is viewed as an input into the production process, rather than an output to be independently marketted. As such, the structure of the software reflects the administrative heritage of major industrial users as much as developments in computer technology. The tendency to emphasize customization favors intra-industry software advances over interindustry expansion. Moreover, high demand for customization combines with large variation in operating systems to fractionalize the industry and frustrate government support policies. Even though the Ministry of International Trade and Industry followed the same industry support model that proved so successful in manufacturing, an independent world class software industry has not developed. The preference for customization has also allowed foreign software producers to successfully pursue a hub and spoke strategy. Foreign producers have been able to expand their user base, thereby lowering unit cost and putting local software developers at a further disadvantage. The research suggests that this situation will continue

State of IT Report 2015

This report was made to inform the University of Maine System community with an overview of the US:IT Organization, updates on major projects and service enhancements completed or undertaken over the past year, partnerships facilitated and a vision of the future for the US:IT team

Open Source Software: From Open Science to New Marketing Models

-Open source Software; Intellectual Property; Licensing; Business Model.

Governance Framework for Cloud Computing

In the current era of competitive business worldand stringent market share and revenue sustenance challenges,organizations tend to focus more on their core competencies ratherthan the functional areas that support the business. However,traditionally this has not been possible in the IT management areabecause the technologies and their underlying infrastructures aresignificantly complex thus requiring dedicated and sustained inhouse efforts to maintain IT systems that enable core businessactivities. Senior executives of organisations are forced in manycases to conclude that it is too cumbersome, expensive and timeconsuming for them to manage internal IT infrastructures. Thistakes the focus away from their core revenue making activities.This scenario facilitates the need for external infrastructurehosting, external service provision and outsourcing capability.This trend resulted in evolution of IT outsourcing models. Theauthors attempted to analyse the option of leveraging the cloudcomputing model to facilitate this common scenario. This paperinitially discusses the characteristics of cloud computing focusingon scalability and delivery as a service. The model is evaluatedusing two case scenarios, one is an enterprise client with30,000 worldwide customers followed by a small scale subjectmatter expertise through small to medium enterprise (SME)organisations. The paper evaluates the findings and developsa governance framework to articulate the value propositionof cloud computing.. The model takes into consideration thefinancial aspects, and the behaviors and IT control structures ofan IT organisation

Case Studies in Thin Client Acceptance

Thin Client technology boasts an impressive range of financial, technical and administrative benefits. Combined with virtualisation technology, higher bandwidth availability and cheaper high performance processors, many believe that Thin Clients have come of age. But despite a growing body of literature documenting successful Thin Client deployments there remains an undercurrent of concern regarding user acceptance of this technology and a belief that greater efforts are required to understand how to integrate Thin Clients into existing, predominantly PC-based, deployments. It would be more accurate to state that the challenge facing the acceptance of Thin Clients is a combination of architectural design and integration strategy rather than a purely technical issue. Careful selection of services to be offered over Thin Clients is essential to their acceptance. Through an evolution of three case studies the user acceptance issues were reviewed and resolved resulting in a 92% acceptance rate of the final Thin Client deployment. No significant bias was evident in our comparison of user attitudes towards desktop services delivered over PCs and Thin Clients

Complex systems virtualization in the current’s economical context

How can we dramatically improve the efficiency and availability of resources and applications in our organization? Today, the answer is very simple: virtualization. Reducing your capital and IT operational costs by virtualizing your IT infrastructure in a „virtual infrastructure” while increasing the efficiency,utilization and flexibility of your existing assets. Go beyond server consolidation and deploy a standard virtualization platform to automate your entire IT infrastructure. Virtualization IT infrastructure delivers resources, applications and even servers when and where they are needed. Use the power of virtualization to better manage IT capacity, provide better service levels, and streamline IT processes. Respond to market dynamics faster and more efficiently than ever before with an automated virtualization platform

Strategic Choices in IS Infrastructure: Corporate Standards Versus Best of Breed Systems

A key IS infrastructure policy decision is whether to let each department select its own \u27Best of Breed system solutions, which may be incompatible with each other, or to mandate the adoption of a uniform corporate standard, which may not be deemed suitable by some departments. Our paper examines the salient trade-offs involved in makingsuchcriticaldecisions. Weidentifycaseswhereinstallationofdisparatesystemsispreferablefromanoverall corporate perspective and those where all departments are required to adopt the same system. The paper shows that: (I) If the organization requires all departments to use the same standard system, then it is always better off delegating this choice of a particular standard to a negotiating process among the departments. (ii) ha certain situations, the organization benefits by letting departments install different systems that are best suited to their needs (Best of Breed). (iii) Site-licensing may adversely affect the adoption of a standard system as a result of a dysfunctional response which we term shadow-rider behavior: deparunents initially mask their true preferences and do not contribute to the purchase of site licenses, but later try and switch to gain cheap usage of the system once it is licensed

Consumer-Centric Reengineering at the Colorado Department of Revenue

In the summer of 1993, the Colorado Department of Revenue, in response to a directive by then Colorado Governor Roy Romer was faced with the following questions: How to transform a bureaucratic state agency into a customer- friendly\u27 organization at a time when public confidence in the government is deteriorating? How to instill a work culture within the organization that encourages proactive change and improves transparency and accountability in our operations? How to reengineer work processes and antiquated systems in the department in a way that adds value to our constituents and improves employee retention? How to accomplish these changes within the budgetary, staff, and resource constraints set by the State Legislature? This article describes three projects that addressed these issue