In the article “GPS, GIS, VR, and remote sensing technologies continuing to evolve” the author named Robinson Elton, mainly focuses on the advantages of GPS, GIS and few more developing technologies used for precision farming in U.S.

This article points out that, the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System, a network of satellites was launched as a 24^th satellite, by U.S Air Force in 1993. Earlier, GPS was a key tool in U.S military and now-a-days it is playing a crucial role for precision farming in U.S. With the help of this technology anyone with a GPS receiver will be able to determine his location on Earth in three dimensions namely longitude, latitude, and altitude at an accuracy within one inch.

This article also states that precision farming uses four other technologies to gain a widespread use in agriculture. They are, Geographical Information Systems, variable-rate technology, the yield monitor, and remote sensing.  Importance of all these technologies is discussed in this article.  “The geographical information system (GIS) is a way to make maps that show variability of field or crop characteristics. The remote sensing technology uses satellite imagery to capture the spectral reflectance of a crop and correlate it to the nitrogen levels, plant health and soil type” (Robinson, 2007).

This article further states that the cotton yield monitor was introduced commercially in 1998. The yield monitors are linked with GPS to create yield maps for crops. A yield map was considered as a great educational tool in an academic point of view. Information gathered from farmer experience, research and yield monitoring can be used to take proper decisions regarding the crops to be harvested. “”MY IDEAL WORLD would be for every piece of equipment to have GPS, tracking of as-applied data, and relay all that information wirelessly to my central computer. The technology is there to do this — we just need to get it all put together.” says Ed Barnes, associate director of research. Cotton Incorporated” (Robinson, 2007).

This article concludes by stating the big challenge of precision farming is to manage all the information it creates. This article also discusses about some equipment-mounted sensors known as Green seeker and Crop Circle, which are used to detect nitrogen levels in soil. GPS is user friendly and also it can sense direction and speed. This is another key aspect making it more useful for the farmers. As navigation technologies do not require management skills, GPS navigation plays a crucial role in precision farming.

Reference:

Robinson, E. (2007). GPS, GIS, VR, and remote sensing technologies continuing to evolve. Southwest Farm Press, 34(24), 12

In the article “The price of Internet EDI” author Malcolm Wheatley, mainly focuses Internet-based electronic data interchange (EDI). It is an attempt made to discuss facts related to EDI and different views of some specialists in EDI are put forward.

The author points out that people tend to think that their business processes will become easier to execute and less expensive when they are moved onto Internet. But the author says that this assumption is only half right when it comes to Internet-based EDI. He supports his statement by discussing a case related to a company named “The Scott Company” located in Marysville, Ohio. With the request made by its biggest customer, Wal-Mart, this company adopted internet-based EDI that conforms to a particular standard known as AS2. AS2 is emerging as a single method used to packaging internet-based messages anytime in a faster way. Adopting this technology fetched lots of benefits to Wal-Mart but Scott Company had very little savings.

Different views about EDI stated by various technicians are discussed in this article. Some of them are as follows: “”Internet EDI is a very loose term,” complains Jim DeMin, technical manager at Infonet Services Corp” (Wheatley, 2004). “Eric Austvoid, research director at AMR Research, says some manufacturers see internet-based EDI “giving them more work to do without any immediate benefit” ” (Wheatley, 2004). Austviod also says that instead of using a private network, trading partners are making use of a public network for communicating with each other.

This article defined EDI as “Electronic data interchange: an automated method of exchanging business documents that bridges the gap between computer systems used in different companies” (Wheatley, 2004). Definitions to various terms like EDI Standard, VAN, Direct Connection, and AS2 are also stated in this article. Advantages and disadvantages regarding EDI are also discussed. This article concludes by discussing various EDI networks.

Reference:

Wheatley, M. (2004). The price of Internet EDI. MSI, 22(2), 48-50

In the article “Data Mining and the Death of Privacy” the author  John C. Dvorak, mainly discusses Google Inc. and the disadvantages of data mining.  The disasters that might be faced by the customers using the services of Google are discussed in this article.

The author says that Google has access to all the documents searched using its search engine. Google also has an access to all the messages sent by its customers using the Google email service. The article mainly focuses on the danger that might be caused due to gathering of private information using the data mining tools.

This article points out that the deep information related to the customers, gathered using data mining tools is used by the marketers to sell targeted advertising. By getting access to the messages sent using the Google email service, there is possibility to find the private information related to its customers. The data collected may include likes, dislikes, banking information, personal interests, habits and all such information related to its customers. The author feels uncomfortable using Google email service and being data-mined.

The author further states that if Google buys Twitter, the links posted by the customers can be used to record their interests. This will fetch more valuable information for the marketers to advertise and sell their products efficiently. He says that the Google’s motive behind buying Twitter is to do more data mining. Already Google has the information regarding documented searches, emails written, and it will have links posted by customers after buying Twitter. This will help Google to learn more about its customers and gather much more information.

In conclusion, the article is written to make people aware about the hazards of data mining and its power of extracting personal information. It also alerts the customers of Google services that they should be aware about the fact that their deep information can be accessed by Google. Hence, at most care should be taken while using such services so that it won’t lead to any disaster.

References:

Dvorak, J. (2009, May). Data Mining and the Death of Privacy. PC Magazine, 28(5), 1-1. Retrieved September 15, 2009, from Business Source Premier database

Written by Prasad Addagatla

In the article “Marketing Strategies in the Virtual Worlds”, author comes up with the importance of “virtual experience” of the products when compared to the real time experience.

“3D” technology is rapidly developing in the internet world which can also be expected to contribute bountifully in the field of marketing products.

It is being discovered that the usage of the 3D technology in the marketing industry has brought a drastic change in the thinking of customers towards a product. Consumers are coming to a good understanding regarding the product and that brand, which is influencing them to go for that product. With these consequences more of the companies are looking forward to use this technology in the development of their businesses.

All the products cannot be expressed in the virtual world as it depends on the class of the products. The author describes an example regarding the products which cannot be expressed in the 3D world. The taste of wine cannot be experienced in the virtual world when compared to the real world. There are some “product attributes” which are to be suitable to the virtual environment and which can decide the intensity of the virtual experience. Depending on this intensity, managers come to a decision whether to use the virtual world for a product or not.

The author finally concludes that the companies may market the product in the virtual world but they should also be marketed in the real world making their businesses successful.

Work Cited:

Lui,Tsz-wai., Piccoli,Gabriele., Ives,Blake (2007) Marketing Strategies in the Virtual Worlds,Vol.38, New York, NY, USA. ACM Press: 77-80.

Written by Praneeth Perna

The article  When Agile Projects Go Bad talks about the bad effects that occur due to implementing agile project management in an erroneous way. He also talks about dangers of implementing Agile techniques as quoted without understanding the principles and spirit of it. He discusses the same with the original authors of the 2001 Agile Manifesto for their advice. The authors of Agile Manifesto give their insight on what could go wrong with the project if Agile is used mechanically and not paying attention to how things are going in the process.

One of the authors of Agile Manifesto Alistair Cockburn says acquisition of skills by people tends to be in 3 stages they are, in the first stage people need to follow a recipe, in second stage that is nice but need more and in the final stage if people ever get there, they don’t know where they are but finally they can borrow and blend.

Alistair Cockburn says in agile projects people won’t succeed if they don’t know where they are going that means they do not succeed if they do not have a project plan, requirements and project scope. Author also mentions that using agile techniques developers use all the tools in the project although they really don’t need them. He also mentions that it is possible people may focus more on processes by neglecting the Agile principles. He also talks about using Agile principles may broke the relationships between the programmers and managers. He also mentions that Agile is not suitable for all types of projects such as Franchises like McDonalds.
Finally Cockburn says Agile works for processes that go through multiple iterations, needs a careful planning and sometimes agile principles may be misinterpreted

Written by Prasad Addagatla.

In the article “Barter is a timeless practice”, the author describes the importance of the barter system in these days by considering the example of “exchangemall.com” which has evolved as a new trend for bartering online. If a good or a service is interchanged then it is called barter system. Now-a-days exchangemall.com has become a legitimate means of goods/services exchange for the consumers and the business people.

The exchangemall.com has become a revolution in the online marketing of the goods without the cash and internet as the means of communication. In the exchangemall.com the users are provided with the user created “store” to exchange the goods. The users of this site may also barter currency to exchange the services. The site also takes care of the customers’ interchange of goods making all the transfers successful.

The author concludes the article stating that according to International Reciprocal Trade Association (IRTA) in the coming ten years about 1.2 million companies are expected to follow the trend of online bartering system. Hence with this system a transaction can be performed at any place or location in the world.

Citation:

Link-Up ( Jan/Feb2001). Barter is a timeless practice., Vol. 18, Issue 1 Retrieved September 29, from Business Source Premier database.

http://www.nwmissouri.edu/Library/IPChecking.asp?http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=4024484&site=bsi-live

Written by Prasad Addagatla

In the article “File Management with Hierarchical Folders and Tags” Shanshan and Susan emphasizes the importance of managing and organizing files with the hierarchical folders which are prominent in the digital data files and tags which helps in easier search process of files. Hierarchical folders involve subfolders where the files are stored and one can find a particular file by checking each and every level of subfolders and folders. The author identifies risks involved in the hierarchical folders. Users have to use the search to “re-find files” which are already been saved. Hierarchical folders cause confusion and some files may be difficult to find because of deeper levels and also there are restrictions on the folder names. Some new systems are developed to avoid this problem which are “recall and recognition” and tagging. In the first one, the users have a rough idea of location of the file and they can identify the file by recognition. Tagging is a process of assigning the users own description to the files which is proven to be a good system for the file organization. This method overcomes almost all the problems of the hierarchical files and it’s the mostly used. Finally, the author concludes the article by conducting an experiment to find out which one of the systems hierarchical, tagging and hybrid (both hierarchical and tagging) is the best. The results show that there are quite a few people who use hybrid but the tagging system is the dominantly used system. But still research is going on to determine which system is the best one for the file management.

Work Cited:

Shanshan, M., Susan, W (2009) File management with hierarchical folders and tags. Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. Boston, MA, USA. ACM Press: 3745-3750.

Written by Prasad Addagatla.

In the article, “Evolution of Portals and Stability of Information Ecology on the web” the author stresses on the evolution of search portals and their use in “Community- Based Search” which hampers the development of the other information sources on the web.

The author discusses about some portals like WebCrawler, Lycos and Infoseek which are used in earlier days and says that Google has come up with the very good search portal which is user friendly and displays the search results in the “logical order based on the users’ click choice”. The search portals are compared to “satellite” sites in terms of the users accessing the data. Portals have advantage of the “User-Created-Content” which provides adequate information for the search criteria without any need of the external information sources. If the situation prevails the same way, then the future of the satellite sources would be bleak.

A model is described by the author to determine the information exchange between the satellite sources and the portals and which one of them is predominant among the users. “Cost Functions and Profit Functions” are explained in two cases one with fixed number of users and the other case with growing number of users.

Finally, the author concludes from the two cases discussed in the above paragraph that there is a tough competition between the portal and satellite “traffic” and both of them will disappear after some time. The increase in the satellite users may increase the maintenance cost so, they should be less satellites which in turn ceases the use of the portals as they have information accrued from the satellite source.

Work Cited:

Shim,S., Lee,B. Evolution of Portals and stability of information ecology on the web. Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Electronic commerce. New Brunswick, Canada. ACM Press: 584 – 588.

Written by Prasad Addagatla

In the article “Servicing Software-as-a-Service” author, J. David Lashar, throws light on how software-as-a-service (SaaS) helps organizations set out customer relationship management(CRM) applications without much involvement from their technical staff. It doesn’t mean that SaaS can eliminate the need of technical staff, it is with their collaboration that SaaS and CRM can be effectively integrated.

The author identifies the risks involved with SaaS CRM applications. It is noted that small scale organizations can easily implement SaaS CRM applications. But in the case of large scale organizations the technical aspects like data migration and integration make Saas CRM implementation difficult. Interface design, data mappings and data migration are the important aspects that need to be taken care of as they affect the functionality of SaaS implemented CRM application.

Finally he concludes the article by identifying the technical constraints and suggestions to make SaaS CRM a success at the organization. SaaS CRM core value lies in “no infrastructure, rapid deployment, regular upgrades and on-demand scalability”. As SaaS minimizes the role played by technical staff in its applications, it affects the performance and reliability. This can be best identified at the database layer as technical staff are not given the rights to control SaaS CRM applications for optimal performance.

Work Cited:

Lashar, J. D. (2009, August). Servicing Software-as-a-software. CRM magazine, 13(8), 18-19.
Retrieved September 7, 2009, from Business Source Premier database.

Written by Prasad Addagatla

Meridith Levinson in his article “”focuses on the current buzz word “recession” and its impact on the outcome of the projects. The reports of “The Standish Group” are stated in the article which clearly shows how bad the situation of the IT industry is now.

The chairman of the Standish Group Mr.Jim Johnson states that the IT projects success rates increased from 1994 to 2000 and then dropped down for the next two years and got up until 2006. According to a Boston based firm, who conducted a survey on 400 IT firms confirms that there is increase in project failure rates in the last couple of years and only 32 percent of the projects are successful, 44 percent are challenged and the remaining are failures. These failures are due to only one factor, the fear factor of the present economy called “recession” which began in December 2007.

The projects are “cancelled” a lot in these days when compared to earlier due to the current state of the economy. There are several reasons for this which may be related to limited or insufficient funds and in last two years due to the recession many of the projects are forced to be cancelled. The firing of the employees in the IT firms is causing project managers to take a lot of burden on them by which they don’t have enough time to spend on the project which in turn may result in project failure. The longer one take to complete the project the most probable is the case of project failure. The “business value” of a project cannot be expected if the project is a failure.

Levinson, M. (2009, June 18). Recession Causes Rising IT Project Failure Rates. Retrieved from http://www.cio.com/article/495306/Recession_Causes_Rising_IT_Project_Failure_Rates_