Infosys v3n010 (April 4, 1996) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/infosys/infs-v3n010 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * INFOSYS: The Electronic Newsletter for Information Systems * * Volume 3, Number 10 ISSN: 1173-3764 April 4, 1996 * * * * Editor: Dennis W. Viehland, Massey University, New Zealand * * Listowners: Greg Welsh, American University, Washington DC * * Peter M. Weiss, Penn State * * Sponsor: boyd & fraser publishing, Danvers, Massachusetts * * * * Current Subscribers = 4,981 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TABLE OF CONTENTS * * * * * * * * * * * * * EDITOR'S NOTE - News Overload * * NEWS - From Edupage * * NEWS - From Innovation * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * EDITOR'S NOTE - News Overload * * Dennis Viehland, Massey University * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I believe that a lot of INFOSYS readers will enjoy this issue as it is devoted exclusively to NEWS articles from Edupage and Innovation. The feedback I get from readers indicates that NEWS articles are the most popular and closely read articles in INFOSYS. A backlog of NEWS articles from Flash Information will be published in next week's INFOSYS. Edupage and Innovation are both written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. In addition to the IS-oriented articles published in INFOSYS, Edupage includes a number of articles related to the computer and telecommunication industries, the Internet and information technology use in higher education institutions. Many Innovation articles not in INFOSYS are management-oriented. If you like what you read in INFOSYS you might give the full issues a try, but many INFOSYS readers will find that will lead to information overload. Which is why I take the time to be your information filter. Information on how to subscribe to Edupage and Innovation is included at the end of each article. In addition to the three electronic newsletters noted above, I also receive Ken Laws' The Computists Communique. Space limitations prevent me from publishing extracts from TCC, but the following quotes from various issues in March deserve INFOSYS publication. "If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in." [Trevor Best , 11/95.] "Any program written by a truly gifted programmer cannot be maintained." [Robert D. Bliss, Computer, 12/92, p. 120.] "The fact of the matter is, we scientists are simply not all that interesting. If I may generalize wildly, we are usually dull people with interesting ideas -- as distinguished from artists (interesting people with dull ideas) and dancers and athletes (dull people with dull ideas and magnificent physical skills)." -- James S. Trefil, Scientific American, 11/95. [Keith Bostic , QOTD, 2/29/96.] Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job. If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. -- Milton Berle. \EOA * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NEWS - From Edupage * * Dennis Viehland, Massey University * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NEW PROCESS YIELDS STURDIER, FASTER CHIPS: Engineers at the University of Illinois have discovered that a simple substitution in the computer chip manufacturing process could increase chips' lifespan by 10 to 50 times, or alternatively, allow them to operate at faster speeds. By treating a chip with deuterium instead of hydrogen in the final stage of the manufacturing process, the resulting product is better able to weather the battering it takes from the electrons that store and transmit messages. "The tantalizing thing will be to use the trade-off between lifespan and performance to make the chip work even faster," says one researcher, who estimates the substitution process would add only about $1.50 to the cost of a wafer of chips. (Investor's Business Daily 15 Feb 96 A9) TIME BOMB STILL TICKING FOR YEAR 2000: The Gartner Group predicts that half of all companies affected by the year 2000 date field problem will still be unprepared when the fateful day arrives. "A lot of companies are like deer frozen in the headlights of a big truck coming right at them," says a Gartner analyst. Some industry experts estimate the cost of fixing the problem at $40 million per large corporation, with the global price tag pegged at $400 billion to $600 billion. Many corporations are wondering if their old systems are worth all the trouble: "Do we just fix the millennium bug, or should we take this as an opportunity to put in some new systems?" asks one CIO. (Information Week 5 Feb 96 p30) EDUCATION IS KEY TO HOME PC MARKET: An American Learning Household Survey says that over 80% of intended family household PC buyers in its study cited children's education as the primary reason for purchase, relegating work-at-home and home financial applications to a distant 40% level. The survey also found that children's use of the PC is shifting away from games and toward more complex uses of the computer as an information access tool. Info: peter@grunwald.com. (The Red Herring Dec 95) APPLE SAYS IT HAS A COMPUTER FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD: New Apple CEO Gil Amelio says the company is now targeting parts of the world that have not yet entered the computer age: "The battle has just begun. We live in a world where only about half the people alive today have ever used a telephone let alone used a computer. There is an enormous untapped market." As part of the strategy Apple is licensing its Mac/OS operating system to Motorola, which will be allowed to sublicense the system and to market a Mac-based system in China, through a joint venture between a Motorola subsidiary in China and the Panda Electronics Group in that country. (New York Times 20 Feb 96 C2) IBM SERVES UP AN INTERNET STRATEGY: IBM has developed new software that will transform its mainframe, minicomputers and computer workstations into Web servers, allowing large companies that have mountains of data stored on corporate mainframes the option of making that information directly accessible to customers on the Web. The move also eliminates the difficulties of bridging incompatible systems, making the Web a common platform for information transfer. "It breaks down all the complex barriers that existed in the computing world," says the president of a computer consulting company. (Wall Street Journal 20 Feb 96 A3) MICROSOFT SHIFTS SOFTWARE FOCUS: The management structure of its software operations, which had previously been organized by customer grouping (Business, Consumer, Personal Systems, and Developers), is being reorganized into three industry-specific divisions: Desktop and Business Systems Division; Internet Platform and Tools Division; and Consumer Platforms Division. (New York Times 21 Feb 96 C3) HOT TECHNOLOGIES FOR '96: First Albany-Meta Technology has drawn up its own list of hot technologies for the coming year: data warehousing and online analytical processing software; business process reengineering software, client-server network management software; object-oriented programming tools; frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode, and integrated services digital network technologies; and of course, anything to do with the Internet. (Investor's Business Daily 22 Feb 96 A8) PICTURE PHONE MAKERS TARGET DESKTOP VIDEO: With prices of all computer-related peripherals continuing their downward spiral, desktop video conferencing equipment is no exception. A group manager for Connectix, a software company that sells a video-phone system for $150, says: "Within five years, every PC will have a built-in camera." Elliott Gold, who's covered the teleconferencing business for years, says, "We still don't know if people really want picture phones," but predicts that whether or not they want it, desktop video communications "will sneak up on them, like fax did." (Wall Street Journal 27 Feb 96 B1) OFFSHORE PROGRAMMING: India, Brazil, Ireland and Russia are countries whose software engineers increasingly are used as a resource by U.S. companies. India has about 130,000 software engineers; Brazil, 64,000; Ireland, 13,000; Russia, 60,000. A skilled programmer in India with five years' experience is paid about $10,000 (U.S.); top programming salaries in the other countries are: Brazil, $32,500; Ireland, $45,000; and Russia, $12,000. (Computerworld 26 Feb 96 p1) INTEL WORKS ON PENTIUM PRO PROBLEM: Intel Corp. says it will work with computer manufacturers to correct a problem in the Pentium Pro chip set that causes some Pentium Pro-equipped computers to operate much slower than they should. The company says it doesn't know how many computers are affected, but estimates it's a very small number. "We're working with computer makers to be sure any user who has a concern about this situation gets their problem resolved," says a company spokesman. (Investor's Business Daily 1 Mar 96 A4) POST MORTEM ON COMPUTER CHESS MATCH: Garry Kasparov, winner of a six-game chess match against IBM's Deep Blue computer, says, "I did not expect that it would be that tough." After losing his first game, Kasparov adjusted his playing style, deliberately creating crowded conditions that gave the computer few options. A human player might have reacted to the situation by gambling on a strategy to trick the opponent into making a mistake, but Deep Blue was programmed to assume its opponent would play perfectly. The IBM team was not able to re-adjust Deep Blue's program during the match. "I think the main distinction between us and computers is that we can learn," says Kasparov. "I learned a lot from game 1 and game 2." (Science News 24 Feb 96 p119) E-COMMERCE WITH A HUMAN FACE: NTT Software is pilot-testing an electronic commerce system that uses avatars -- electronic representations of users -- to move through virtual stores, banks or other electronic environments, simulating activities such as shopping, banking or even hiking through the mountains. Tower Recors is testing the Interspace technology to create virtual stores, where avatars can shop, interact with sales clerks, and preview CDs and videos. Levi Strauss is using the system for a virtual reality game that's part of its ad campaign. Users must have a PC equipped with a video camera, and some report difficulty in navigating the virtual environments (although avid video game players are said to have an edge in maneuvering their characters). (New York Times 4 Mar 96 C3) NEW DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY FROM XEROX: Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center has unveiled a new display technology that manages to cram 7 million pixels onto a 13-inch screen using active matrix technology. That's more than three times the number of pixels in today's state-of-the-art displays, and offers 15 to 30 times the resolution available on current laptops. The screens are expensive -- $15,000 apiece, say analysts -- and Xerox has decided to pursue niche marketing, such as commercial aviation and medicine, in an effort to establish a customer base and get the price down. (Wall Street Journal 11 Mar 96 B6) MICROSOFT BOOST FOR ISDN: Microsoft is planning to promote acceptance and use of the high-speed digital phone service called Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), by coordinating with most of North America's telephone companies, a number of communications manufacturers, and several Internet access providers so that customers can more easily use ISDN on PCs running the Windows 95 operating system. (New York Times 12 Mar 96 C2) PEOPLE REALLY DO WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH THEIR COMPUTERS: Two Stanford University professors have delved into the pile of research literature on how people interact with computers, and have concluded that people interact with computers much as they do with other humans. Subjects who were asked to perform a task on a computer and then were asked to rate that computer's performance, gave better evaluations if they were using "their" computer to do it. They insisted they were not trying to be polite to the computer, but the researchers concluded that in fact that's just what they were doing, similar to the way people tend to evaluate a co-worker's performance higher if that person is present. (Chronicle of Higher Education 15 Mar 96 A12) INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE REPORT: A new report released by the National Research Council concludes that government will continue to be a major player in information infrastructure development, but notes that its role is still evolving. "The Unpredictable Certainty: Information Infrastructure Through 2000" notes: "Across the range of issues relating to information infrastructure there is evidence of imperfect performance both in markets and by government. Therefore, the serious debate and commentary center on what imperfect government actions to remedy imperfect markets are justified." Suggestions include: deregulating telecommunications services and avoiding regulating new technologies; contributing as an "enlightened customer and participant" to NII construction efforts, in particular supporting both basic and applied university research; and sponsoring consensus-seeking activities and finding ways to incorporate objectives in the NII structure. . (BNA Daily Report for Executives 12 Mar 96 A26) HOME-GROWN SOFTWARE STILL TOPS: Despite dire predictions that most software programming jobs are moving overseas, U.S. programmers are still cranking out software at a phenomenal rate, with twice as many programmers employed in the U.S. as in Japan, No. 2 on the list. The key to U.S. programmers' success in keeping jobs home lies in exploiting leading-edge technologies. "The Internet and new programming techniques are giving us a new lease on life," says the author of "The Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer." "Americans are showing an unbelievable burst of creativity," says a Czech computer expert. "By relying on sophisticated tools, Americans have shifted the competitive arena from sweat labor to imaginative design." (Wall Street Journal 13 Mar 96 A3) MICROSOFT IS TIED TO THE NET: Dataquest analyst Chris LeTocq says Microsoft's Internet strategy will include making its major application programs, Word and Excel, tie into the Net (and into internal corporate intranets), and letting its customers use all popular Internet technologies, even those from competitors, such as Sun Microsystem's Java language. "They don't want to give people any reason to move away from Windows," says Montgomery Securities analyst David Readerman. (San Jose Mercury News 16 Mar 96) HOME PC GROWTH TO STALL NEXT YEAR: Growth in the home PC market is expected to slow significantly this year, to 8%, and by 1998 could actually be declining, according to market research firm Dataquest Inc. Growth for 1997 is predicted to be flat, at about 0.7%. The U.S. home market grew 22% last year, and 42% in 1994. The decline is blamed on market saturation among households earning more than $100,000, the group most likely to buy a PC. (Investor's Business Daily 19 Mar 96 A9) LAPTOP SALES ON THE RISE: After moderate (in computer market terms) growth last year of 15%, the worldwide laptop market is expected to increase by 30% in 1996, according to Dataquest Inc. Up until now, most laptops have been sold with a 486 processor, but Dataquest expects the transition to Pentium chips to be completed this year. The top seller last year was Toshiba, with Compaq, NEC, and IBM following. (Investor's Business Daily 21 Mar 96 A17) Editor's Note: Edupage, a summary of news items on information technology, is a service of Educom. This is an abbreviated list of news items of interest to the IS community from the February 8, 11, 15, 18, 20, 22, 27, March 3, 5, 12, 14, 17, 19 and 21, 1996 issues. \EOA * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NEWS - From Innovation * * Dennis Viehland, Massey University * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * THE COMING AVALANCHE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Calling new attention to a 1990 report from Stanford University's Center for Economic Policy Research called "Computer and Dynamo: The Modern Productivity Paradox In A Not Too Distant Mirror," futurist David Pearce Snyder says that three powerful insights of the report are: first, that it takes one to two generations to fully mature and assimilate the productive potential of a fundamental new technology, such as computers; second, that during the first half of this transformational period, general levels of economic performance and prosperity plunge before they go up; third, that the greatest beneficial impacts of a new technology don't materialize until two- thirds of the way through the transition. Snyder says: "For America, that moment is just ahead, in the next five to 10 years. The new integrated information technology, highly refined and matured, is about to avalanche into all of our homes and workplaces, enriching and complicating life for everybody. It will be wonderful, but it is not quite here yet, and most people need some hope." Instead, too many leaders talk about bottom lines and biting bullets, about cutting back and getting back to basic values -- as though we could go "back to the future." (Gary Pearce Snyder, "The Revolution In The Workplace: What's Happening To Our Jobs?", The Futurist Mar/Apr 96 p8) GOOD TECHNOLOGISTS BUILD BRIDGES: Michael Earl, who specializes in the management of information systems, says that the emergence of "power users" -- people who are capable of building and maintaining their own models and systems on PCs -- has changed the nature of the relationship between users and MIS specialists, and he quotes a CIO who says that "the users are now the innovators. We are the sweepers up." But another word for "sweeper up" is "bridge builder": Earl and his colleague David Feeny say that it is those CIOs "who have been transplanted from other areas of the business who have struggled, uncomfortable with their careers, and typically equipped to operate as forceful managers, rather than as bridge builders and facilitators." (Financial Times 26 Feb 96 p10) BRIDGING THE TECHNOLOGY GAP: A survey conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide shows the majority of American managers suffering from a "technical knowledge gap." "This is a classic knowledge gap, in which important new technology is available but not universally adopted due not so much to financial barriers as to intellectual barriers," says a Roper senior VP. Only about 20% of the managers surveyed said they knew "a lot" about networking, online services or the Web, although 90% said they thought technology and teamwork "will be critical to success in the global economy." And while technology can be tremendously valuable in facilitating a team approach to brainstorming creative and alternative solutions to problems, researchers are finding it can "slow us down a lot" when the goal is to narrow options and reach decisions, says a professor of information systems at Case Western Reserve. "Face to face is a far richer way to get those things done." (Washington Post 25 Feb 96 H5) NOT YOUR FATHER'S FAX: Fax machines are getting an update, with new features such as e-mail-to-fax services, Internet-to-fax services, fax encryption and even color fax. With color monitors now commonplace, and a color scanner and color-enabled copier already on the desktop, color fax technologies will move into the mainstream, predicts an analyst for Giga Information Group. (Information Week 19 Feb 96 p54) ROCKET SCIENTISTS HIT WALL STREET: "Quants" -- quantitative analysts -- are moving from theory to praxis, using lab tools such as neural networks, supercomputers and visualization to perform "real world" financial trading. "Business has become a gray-matter game," says the president of an investment technology firm. Quants search out trends, patterns, correlations and anomalies in market data that can be used to make a profit or minimize risk, using mathematical models that incorporate historical and high-frequency data -- numbers that move across financial trading screens. "By analyzing historical data you may find a pattern indicating that when IBM stock goes up, Unisys's price follows suit," says a Citibank VP. "If you're right 52% of the time, you can make a lot of money." (Information Week 26 Feb 96 p40) WHAT IS THE SYSTEM FOR AND WHAT ARE THE PEOPLE FOR? The director of the information management program at the University of Texas at Austin advocates the creation of specialists he calls "social systems analysts," to be communicators and change-agents who can both talk to the technologists and understand corporate strategy. Some of the tasks for the social systems analyst: learn what managers and workers really need from systems and what they will really do with them; work with systems designers to make sure that the design truly fits the organizational structure, culture and behavior; work with the users to make sure they are part of the system; and take a hard look at the new system and make any changes that are necessary so that it actually performs as promised. (Tom Davenport, "Software As Socialware," CIO 1 Mar 96 p24) WHAT REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERS SHOULD BE REQUIRED TO KNOW: Requirements engineering -- which is the attempt to incorporate an engineering orientation into systems analysis -- needs to be revised to account for organizational context, incompleteness of information, and the evolutionary nature of the process of understanding requirements in the real world. Instead of thinking of requirements engineering as the development of a "contract" representing a precise, unambiguous statement of what a development will build, you should think of it as something that will realistically support the organization's overall market /product strategies; clarify the relative importance of different "requirements" (i.e., necessary or "nice"); and tolerate the inevitable "incompleteness" of requirements definitions in real-life environments. (Jawed Siddiqui & M. Chandra Shekarian, "Requirements Engineering: The Emerging Wisdom," IEEE Software Mar 96 p15) KEEPING UP WITH THE JAVAS: Boston College management professor Mary Cronin says that some Web sites have "one look one day and another the next. That's not planning, that's just keeping up with the Javas. Companies already on the Web need to step back and evaluate the experience to date. If it hasn't paid off as much as was hoped or expected, they need to figure out what's missing and what are the next steps that will make the most difference. That's not a decision you make based on what was today's announcement -- that's something that should reflect where your company needs to go." Being first in something on the Net is not as important as doing it the best. (Interview, "Getting Your Company's Internet Strategy Right," Fortune 18 Mar 96 p72) JOB BURNOUT IS HOT TOPIC IN IS DEPARTMENTS: The proliferation of communications modes -- from laptops to cell phones -- is responsible for increasing job burnout rates, with employees feeling they can never really get away from it all. High on the list of burnout candidates are information systems managers and operators, who are expected to keep all technical systems running in tip-top shape, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In addition to being overwhelmed by technological demands, information systems specialists also bear a burden of guilt, knowing that many of their enhancements lead directly to layoffs, as technical systems make it possible to accomplish the same work with fewer employees. Burnout is expensive in human terms, but also shows up on the bottom line. Stress-related ailments, including those stemming from job burnout, cost U.S. corporations as much as $300 billion a year, according to a Cornell University professor of occupational psychiatry. (Information Week 4 Mar 96 p34) MOORE'S SECOND LAW: "Moore's Law" (which says that the number of transistors that could be squeezed onto a silicon chip would double every 18 months) has proven itself over the past 20 years, as ever- more-powerful microprocessors hit the market with predictable regularity, fueling the exponential growth of the computer industry over the past two decades. And as engineers devise ever-more-clever ways of squeezing more transistors onto a chip, the cost has gone up, leading Intel founder Gordon Moore to announce Moore's Second Law: If the trend toward miniaturization continues, chip fabrication plants soon will become so expensive ($10 billion and up) that the costs/benefits will no longer make sense for the average computer buyer. One industry executive predicts: "The price per transistor will bottom out sometime between 2003 and 2005. From that point on, there will be no economic point to making transistors smaller. So Moore's [First] Law ends in seven years." In addition to a major contraction in the number of chip makers, Moore's Second Law may also lead to a realignment in the software industry, where programmers will no longer be able to rely on consumers' rapid upgrades to faster machines to run their power-hungry code. (Forbes 25 Mar 96 p116) Editor's Note: Innovation offers a weekly summary of trends, strategies, and innovations in business and technology. This is an abbreviated list of news items of interest to the IS community from the March 4, 11, and 18, 1996 issues. Subscriptions are available at $15 a year. For a trial copy of Innovation, type the word "subscribe" in the body (not subject) of a message to innovation- request@newsscan.com. \EOA * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ABOUT INFOSYS * * INFOSYS is an electronic newsletter for faculty, students, and * * practitioners in the field of Information Systems. INFOSYS * * publishes news items, requests for assistance, calls for papers * * announcements of professional meetings and conferences, position * * announcements, journal table of contents, and other items of * * interest to the Information Systems community. * * * * INFOSYS is published biweekly, more frequently if volume requires * * it. INFOSYS operates as an electronic mailing list on listserv * * software at American University in Washington, DC. The editor is * * Dennis W. Viehland . * * * * INFOSYS is sponsored by boyd & fraser, publishers of educational * * materials for computer and information education. Contact Bill * * Lisowski or visit http://www.bf.com/bf.html * * or gopher.bf.com for more information about boyd & fraser. * * * * To subscribe to INFOSYS send the following one-line e-mail * * message to listserv@american.edu: subscribe infosys yourfirstname * * yourlastname (e.g., subscribe infosys John Smith). You will * * receive a welcome letter that will tell you more about INFOSYS * * and listserv. To cancel your subscription send the following * * message to listserv@american.edu: unsubscribe infosys * * * * Guidelines for submitting articles to INFOSYS are published in * * the Welcome message each new subscriber receives (or e-mail "get * * infosys welcome" to listserv@american.edu). Send articles to * * infosys@american.edu or d.viehland@massey.ac.nz. * * * * The INFOSYS Calendar of Upcoming Events is updated fortnightly * * and can be obtained in the following ways: * * --E-mail: send the following one-line message to * * listserv@american.edu: get infosys calendar * * --FTP: anonymous FTP to ftp.american.edu; file is pub/infosys/ * * infosys.calendar * * --Gopher: gopher to listserv.american.edu; choose INFOSYS * * --WWW: forthcoming * * * * INFOSYS Back Issues are archived by Robert McArthur at: * * AUSTRALIA: http://www.fit.qut.edu.au/~mcarthur/infosys/ * * by Eric Morgan (N Carolina State Univ) at: * * USA: ftp://ftp.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/infosys/ * * USA: wais://wais.lib.ncsu.edu/infosys * * USA: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/infosys-index.html * * by Brian Fitzgerald (University College Cork) at: * * EUROPE: http://www.ucc.ie/htbin/infosys * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *