[Abstract]
The purpose of this document is to analyze trends and technologies based upon the recommendation I made for a company to utilize a collaboration system in order to improve communications throughout their organization. The recommendation was made based upon a scenario of a company called Kucera Clothiers whose IT strategy was to improve IT communications throughout the organization of 3,500 locations with 100,000 employees worldwide. The company narrowed down the options to three projects under consideration. One project is to use wireless networks in order to access data faster. Another project involves using a collaborative system that allows for synchronous and asynchronous communications. The third project involves using a customer resource management system, however this project requires replacing previous systems and a lot of lead-time to deliver the system for operations. This document utilizes a scenario and a recommendation that was made based upon the scenario to analyze trends of technologies that are currently being used today in order to find the technologies merits and shortcomings. This document is intended for anybody looking to gain a basic knowledge or understanding of merits and shortcomings of a collaboration system technology that can be used to improve communications throughout an organization.
[Content]
The collaboration system was chosen as the most ideal solution that aligned with the Kucera Cothiers corporate IT strategy to improve communications between all of the field offices and the corporate headquarters. Since this technology was chosen it is important to understand how well this technology aligns with current trends of businesses using different technologies. There are different trends that many different businesses are using, some are software-based trends, others are hardware-based trends, and some are even in the methods of which data is accessed. These trends can help keep Kucera clothing on the cutting edge of the market in order to keep up with any competitors.
When analyzing business trends as they apply to different software technologies it becomes apparent that companies are looking for solutions that will provide a multi-platform solution with ease of modification. A programming technology that meets these business requirements is Java. Java is an open-source object oriented programming language that provides a great solution for multi-platform support. This means that an application written in Java can easily be executed on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, Linux, BSD, or numerous mobile devices. By cross-platform functioning Java proves itself to be a valuable asset to many businesses as the businesses are able to provide solutions that meet their business needs without rewriting software applications to function on each individual platform. Due to Java being open source many business are moving the direction of utilizing Java in more enterprise applications because there are no high priced licensing costs involved with developing software that is written in Java. Java can be found anywhere from mobile devices to super computers and is especially strong in web applications and enterprise applications (Preimesberger, 2002). Java provides a platform for enterprise applications to be written in and meets many business needs of being a cross platform solution that can be ran on anything from low-end handheld devices to high-end supercomputers.
Trends in computer hardware have identified that many businesses are moving to scalable high performance computing where multiple servers are clustered together to act as a single server. Clustered servers provide businesses a low-cost solution for providing services throughout the organization. Virginia Technical University was able to cluster 1,100 Apple computers together and rank as high as 7th on the world’s 500 list of the most powerful computers in the world, computing a whopping 12.25 teraflops, at only one-fifth the cost (Gibson). Although this may seem too realistic for most business needs, it does illustrate that a low-cost server cluster can produce extremely high performance that can handle almost any businesses computing needs. Having multiple computers clustered together, sharing network load, process load, memory, hard drive space, and other resources allows these computers to act as a single system in order to provide services, such as web service, e-mail service, or even services that are needed for a collaboration system. When an organization grows larger and there becomes too much of a load on the cluster, the company can simply add additional servers to scale with their business needs. Clustered servers are not isolated to one specific vendor of servers and they can vary from Apple, Dell, IBM, Intel, AMD, HP, Sun Solaris, and the list goes on. Centralized clusters of servers provide an advantage of having services, security, files, users, permissions, etc. of the systems managed from one centralized location. Long are past of the days of mainframe computers, however the information technology trend seems to be going full-circle back to high performance computing from one centralized location. Business trends show that many computers clustered together in order to appear as one large high-performance computer that is scalable to meet any business needs is where companies are turning in order to enhance their IT strategies.
With globalization what it is today many companies are looking at collaboration systems their top priorities. Collaboration systems provide many companies the ability to reduce corporate process latency times. Collaboration systems provide companies the ability for subject matter experts to communicate directly or indirectly with personnel needing their expertise. Through the use of online collaboration companies are able to provide better customer service that can lead to more sales or increased revenue. When companies purchase an online collaboration system they are able to reduce their total cost of ownership and increase their return on investment (Cisco, 2009). Collaboration systems provide companies the ability to communicate in real-time from anywhere in the world, across multiple platforms, and securely accessing critical data. Many businesses have turned to collaboration systems to provide a means of communication, in conjunction with current network infrastructure, so that products can be purchased or sold in a globalized market and providing fast and efficient customer service.
In conclusion, the decision to use a collaboration system for Kucera Clothiers provides the company a cutting-edge solution to meet their IT corporate strategy, while having the ability to improve their customer service. With viewing current trends of businesses Kucera Clothiers is on the right track to follow IT trends of providing a cross platform system that is capable of high performance computing and is able to be easily modified to meet any current or future needs of the organization. If Kucera Clothiers were to have chosen any other option rather than the collaboration system the company would have been crippling their business goals, customer service, IT strategy, and allowing any competition to gain a major advantage in today’s globalized market.
References
Preimesberger, Chris (2002, June 5th). Five emerging Java development trends. Retrieved May 9, 2009, from Tech Republic Web site: http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1046208.html
Gibson, Barbara System X Takes on the Grand Challenge. Retrieved May 9, 2009, from Apple – Science – Profiles – Virginia Tech Web site: http://www.apple.com
Collaboration-Enabled Business Transformation. Retrieved May 10, 2009, from Cisco Web site: [URL Removed Broken link]