The software that controls the interaction between the input and output hardware is calld BIOS,which stands of().
A.Advanced Input Output System
B.Basic Input Output System
C.Classic Input Output System
D.Junior Input Output System
A.Advanced Input Output System
B.Basic Input Output System
C.Classic Input Output System
D.Junior Input Output System
第1题
Why many corporations have bought computers and switched their software?
A.Because their computers were outdated
B.Because Y2K will cause trouble
C.Because their computers broke down
第2题
EMI is ______.
A.the world's first major music company
B.the world's third largest record company
C.the world's largest on -line music provider
D.the world's largest software company
第3题
Introduction
The following is an interview with Mick Kazinski, a senior marketing executive with Bridge Co, a Deeland-based construction company. It concerns their purchase of Custcare, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software package written by the Custcare Corporation, a software company based in Solland, a country some 4,000 km away from Deeland. The interview was originally published in the Management Experiences magazine.
Interviewer: Thanks for talking to us today Mick. Can you tell us how Bridge Co came to choose the Custcare software package?
Mick: Well, we didn’t choose it really. Teri Porter had just joined the company as sales and marketing director. She had recently implemented the Custcare package at her previous company and she was very enthusiastic about it. When she found out that we did not have a CRM package at Bridge Co, she suggested that we should also buy the Custcare package as she felt that our requirements were very similar to those of her previous company. We told her that any purchase would have to go through our capex (capital expenditure) system as the package cost over $20,000. Here at Bridge Co, all capex applications have to be accompanied by a formal business case and an Invitation to Tender (ITT) has to be sent out to at least three potential suppliers. However, Teri is a very clever lady. She managed to do a deal with Custcare and they agreed to supply the package at a cost of $19,995, just under the capex threshold. Teri had to cut a few things out. For example, we declined the training courses (Teri said the package was an easy one to use and she would show us how to use it) and also we opted for the lowest level of support, something we later came to regret. Overall, we were happy. We knew that Custcare was a popular and successful CRM package.
Interviewer: So, did you have a demonstration of the software before you bought it?
Mick: Oh yes, and everyone was very impressed. It seemed to do all the things we would ever want it to do and, in fact, it gave us some ideas about possibilities that we would never have thought of. Also, by then, it was clear that our internal IT department could not provide us with a bespoke solution. Teri had spoken to them informally and she was told that they could not even look at our requirements for 18 months. In contrast, we could be up and running with the Custcare package within three months. Also, IT quoted an internal transfer cost of $18,000 for just defining our requirements. This was almost as much as we were paying for the whole software solution!
Interviewer: When did things begin to go wrong?
Mick: Well, the implementation was not straightforward. We needed to migrate some data from our current established systems and we had no-one who could do it. We tried to recruit some local technical experts, but Custcare pointed out that we had signed their standard contract which only permitted Custcare consultants to work on such tasks. We had not realised this, as nobody had read the contract carefully. In the end, we had to give in and it cost us $10,000 in fees to migrate the data from some of our internal systems to the new package. Teri managed to get the money out of the operational budget, but we weren’t happy.
We then tried to share data between the Custcare software and our existing order processing system. We thought this would be easy, but apparently the file formats are incompatible. Thus we have to enter customer information into two systems and we are unable to exploit the customer order analysis facility of the Custcare CRM.
Finally, although we were happy with the functionality and reliability of the Custcare software, it works very slowly. This is really very disappointing. Some reports and queries have to be aborted because the software appears to have hung. The software worked very quickly in the demonstration, but it is painfully slow now that it is installed on our IT platform.
Interviewer: What is the current situation?
Mick: Well, we are all a bit deflated and disappointed in the package. The software seems reasonable enough, but its poor performance and our inability to interface it to the order processing system have reduced users’ confidence in the system. Because users have not been adequately trained, we have had to phone Custcare’s support desk more than we should. However, as I said before, we took the cheapest option. This is for a help line to be available from 8.00 hrs to 17.00 hrs Solland time. As you know, Solland is in a completely different time zone and so we have had to stay behind at work and contact them in the late evening. Again, nobody had closely read the terms of the contract. We have taken legal advice, but we have also found that, for dispute resolution, the contract uses the commercial contract laws of Solland. Nobody in Bridge Co knows what these are! Our solicitor said that we should have asked for this specification to be changed when the contract was drawn up. I just wish we had chosen a product produced by a company here in Deeland. It would have made it much easier to resolve issues and disputes.
Interviewer: What does Teri think?
Mick: Not a lot! She has left us to rejoin her old company in a more senior position. The board did ask her to justify her purchase of the Custcare CRM package, but I don’t think she ever did. I am not sure that she could!
Required:
(a) Suggest a process for evaluating, selecting and implementing a software package solution and explain how this process would have prevented the problems experienced at Bridge Co in the Custcare CRM application. (15 marks)
(b) The CEO of Bridge Co now questions whether buying a software package was the wrong approach to meeting the CRM requirements at Bridge Co. He wonders whether they should have commissioned a bespoke software system instead.
Explain, with reference to the CRM project at Bridge Co, the advantages of adopting a software package approach to fulfilling business system requirements compared with a bespoke software solution. (10 marks)
第4题
The comparison is both a compliment and a reproach. It is a compliment because it implies that Google has now become the company that defines the environment in which other technology firms operate, just as IBM and Microsoft once did. As with Microsoft in its heyday, Google is the technology firm where the smartest geeks aspire to work; it embodies the technological zeitgeist; and it is a highly regarded company that has become a household name. But the comparison is also a reproach, because it highlights growing concern that Google is now powerful for its own good, or that of the industry, or indeed that of the world at large.
For many people, Google provides the front door to the internet. For many online businesses, their position in its search ranking—the workings of which are a closely guarded secret—is a matter of life or death. Too much power is thus concentrated in Google's hands, say critics, including Microsoft's Bill Gates. Microsoft and other big internet firms, including eBay, Amazon and Yahoo!, are now said to be negotiating various alliances in order to provide a counterweight to the new behemoth. Smaller firms feel even more vulnerable. As soon as Google says it is moving into a particular market, small fry in that market now dart for cover, unless they are lucky enough to be acquired by Google.
Yet there are some crucial ways in which Google differs from Microsoft. For a start, it is a far more innovative company, and its use of small, flexible teams has so far allowed it to remain innovative even as it has grown. Microsoft, in contrast, has stagnated as a result of its size and dominance. It is least innovative in the markets in which it faces the least competition—operating system, office software and web browser—though it is, curiously, still capable of innovating in markets in which it has strong rivals (notably video gaming).
More important, however, are the differences that suggest that Google will not be able to establish an IBM—or—Microsoft-style. lock on the industry. IBM's dominance was based on its ownership of the proprietary hardware and software of its mainframe. computers. In the PC era hardware became commodity and Microsoft established a lucrative monopoly centered on its proprietary operating system, Windows. But in the new era of internet services, open standards predominate, rivals are always just a click away, and there is far less scope for companies to establish a proprietary lock-in.
Try to avoid using Microsoft's software for a day, particularly if you work in an office, and you will have difficulty; but surviving a day without Google is relatively easy. It has strong competitors in all the markets in which it operates: search, online advertising, mapping, software services, and so on. Large firms such as Yahoo!, which previously farmed searches out to Google, have switched to other technologies. Google's market share in search has fallen from a high of around 80% to around 50% today. Perhaps the clearest evidence that Google's continued dominance is not inevitable in the fate of Alta Vista, the former top dog in internet search. Who remembers it to today?
Without a proprietary lock-in to protect its dominant position, Google will have to work hard to stay on top. And that, ultimately, is where the co
A.Google dominates the online business and plays a vital role in the market.
B.Too much power is concentrated in Google's hands.
C.Google can decide the life and death of Microsoft and other big internet firms.
D.Google exerts great pressure on its rivals.
第6题
A.constructive
B.destructive
C.to prove there is no faults in the software system
D.to cover faults in the software system
第7题
A.Software is transplantable
B.Software is a kind of concrete physical entity
C.The faults in a software system come from wearing out
D.Software is something mysterious mastered by some geniuses
第9题
A.system and language software
B.network and application software
C.system and application software
D.language and network software
第10题
What is the role of Internet in software piracy?
A.It is a weapon against software piracy.
B.It is an accessory to software piracy.
C.It is the most important cause of software piracy.
D.It has nothing to do with software piracy.
第11题
From the passage we learn that ______.
A.most practitioners are taught software security in school
B.the standard of software safety and reliability are written in a very complicated style
C.people should be aware of the present software reliability standards
D.the average reader understands the current software security and reliability standards easily