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Topic outline

  • Unit 5: Emerging Technology Trends

    No course in the strategic use of information technology in business would be complete if it did not cover technology trends. These trends impact businesses through innovative and forward-looking use of technology. The future of virtually every modern business or organization depends on how they choose to utilize advancing technological tools in ways that maintain and extend competitive advantage. This unit focuses on understanding technological advances such as cloud computing and mobile processing.

    Completing this unit should take you approximately 3 hours.

    • Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

      • explain cloud computing, including server hosting;
      • identify why an organization might want to use cloud computing; and
      • analyze how current trends in e-commerce technologies, including cloud computing, online transactions and user interface, influence an organization's competitive advantage.
    • 5.1: Cloud Computing

      • Deciding to utilize the cloud as part of the technology package supporting strategic goals and processes requires an understanding of how software, communications, and other technology devices will integrate to support the enterprise, especially data storage requirements and business intelligence and analysis. Each aspect of a strategic plan has its technology requirements to create a holistic approach. This chapter will help you understand the types of software for strategic decision-making.

      • Read this overview of cloud computing.

    • 5.2: Cloud Computing as a Competitive Advantage

      • Read this section, which discusses how cloud computing fits into a business organization's software strategy.

    • 5.3: Trends in Cloud Computing

      • Cloud networks have many uses: internally in business organizations (private clouds), externally with customers (public clouds), and to link systems that support business applications (enterprise). There are differences, primarily in the individual or company's level of control over the data stored on the cloud servers. This video from Wikibon Whiteboard helps you visualize how businesses make decisions to employ different forms of the cloud for other purposes, hopefully meeting their individual or corporate needs.

      • While the cost of storing data for later manipulation and analysis has decreased in recent years, the amounts of data needed often make local storage prohibitive or slow. In recent years, the technology and communications industries have become common to run or lease space in the cloud to run applications, store data, or host one or more servers. This article describes five of the largest providers in the industry and briefly highlights the services each company offers. Most, if not all, of these 'giants' touch on millions of lives and similar numbers of companies each day. How many of these providers do you know, and what services do they provide? Think about your own business or even yourself as you use cloud services. What other cloud computing providers do you use regularly? How do you go about selecting which provider suits your needs best?

    • Unit 5 Assessment

      • Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.

        • This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
        • You will see the correct answers when you submit your answers. Use this to help you study for the final exam!
        • You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.