New Technology Reviews!.: Challenges

Technology Challenges In K-12 Education

The marriage of technology and education has proved to be a challenging endeavor. This is especially true for large urban school districts that are faced with the task of incorporating technology on two fronts. The business side needs it to manage student data, finances, infrastructure, and food services. The teaching side needs it to keep up with the society's demands on how their children are educated.Some of the larger school districts serve over 175,000 students and a complimentary staff of 20,000. The finances to manage these organizations usually come from federal, state, and local governments by way of taxes, bonds, etc. There is an ongoing debate about how the money being poured into public education is being spent. That debate became even louder after the government began collecting and distributing billions of dollars with its E-rate program.When school districts began to receive that windfall, the public expected that the issue of technology in schools would be immediately addressed. That did not happen. In fact, for the large school districts it presented new challenges for technology directors. The E-rate program is very complex participate in and report on. The funds are directly related to the number of children receiving free or reduced price lunch (another government program).In a typical large urban school district, you will have schools at both ends of the spectrum. Those in the well to do neighborhoods will have a robust PTA, active participation by neighborhood businesses, and students eager to learn. At the other end of the spectrum, you will have schools with little parental participation, old facilities, a high concentration of poor children, and little business/community participation.The E-rate funds are targeted for the latter group of schools. It provides for things like internal wiring, Internet services, and network equipment. What it does not provide for are computers or software to connect to those systems. The thought process was that schools could use the funds that they saved on E-rate provided items to purchase computers and software. Sounds good, except, not many districts budget for wiring upgrades, increased bandwidth, or router replacements.In the early days of E-rate, some districts worked the system by purchasing the same items for the same schools each year. They would then transfer the older equipment to schools in the district that did not qualify for E-rate. That loophole and many others were soon closed. The large school districts are now scrambling to meet technology demands with fewer dollars available.Some district leaders are concentrating their efforts on the schools where there is the most need. They are getting the new computers, new software, and the new instructional technology. The schools in the well to do neighborhoods have similar efforts started, except they have to rely on parents, PTA's, and local businesses to make it happen. Those schools are now asking for an equitable distribution of district technology funds.It is incumbent on district leaders to engage technology professionals who know how to remedy this and other technology issues. Semi-retired educators or an appointed hack is not the way to resolve such problems. Immediate attention is needed. Remember, that for each four-year plan that means that a child starting kindergarten will be halfway though elementary school before something happens and a ninth grader will be gone from the system.

Technology Challenges In K-12 Education

The marriage of technology and education has proved to be a challenging endeavor. This is especially true for large urban school distric...

The Challenges For Data Security Faced by Firms and Their Customers Working and Trading Online

Data security is a huge responsibility for firms which indulge in online trading. There are various ways in which security can be breached, enabling hackers to access sensitive data. A study in America, found that when a company's security is breached online, its market value drops 2.1% within 2 days of the announcement of the breach, and average loss of $1.65billion (The Effect of Internet Security Breach Announcements on Market Value: Capital Market Reactions for Breached Firms and Internet Security Developers). Credit card fraud has increased 29% in the past year, according to a report by the Association of Payment Clearing Services (Apacs), the fraud being via phone, mail and internet. Clearly there are several challenges faced by firms in order to keep data secure and to keep the trust of their customers. Online security is defined as, "...the protection of assets on the Internet from unauthorised access, use, alteration, or destruction". There are two types of security, physical and logical. Physical security includes guards, fireproof doors, security fences etc. Data security on the internet, obviously deals with logical security.The internet was never designed to exchange value i.e. money, this makes it more of a challenge. Also, the fact the internet is 'always on', thanks to broadband and wireless internet. This means firms face much more complex security issues. One of the largest and increasingly popular methods of the fraudsters obtaining information is through a method known as "phishing." In September 2005, 106 brands were reported to have been phished, notable rises in the use of the larger banks names as well as many credit unions. Financial services made up 81.2% of reported incidents, Internet Service Providers made up 11.8%, Retail 3.5% and the final 3.5% was reported as miscellaneous. Phishing involves a customer being sent a 'spoof' email from an institution with which they have dealings with. The email will usually explain that there is an issue with their account, and asks the customer to click on a link which will take them to a spoof site. For example, they may send you can email from Natwest saying there has been suspicious activity on your bank account and so unknowingly, you would click and sign in. This then sends an email to the fraudster with all your details. This type of security breach is fairly hard to defend against; the only way in which firms can beat this system is through educating customers how to recognise a secure website. There are ways of tracking where the email came from, by doing this, the source of the email can be found and prosecuted. The most common firms which are targeted are Visa, eBay and PayPal.Another threat faced by firms is the threat from "script kiddies." Script kiddies are inexperienced hackers who use common hacking tools to find known holes in a web server or network's security and exploit them. By hacking into the system, they are then able to maliciously alter text or graphics and access data which they shouldn't have access to. Script kiddies can access credit card information and any other sensitive information, depending obviously on how secure the website or network is. Script kiddies use basic hacking to gain unauthorised access to data, however there are several other forms of hacking. One of these is Packet Sniffing. A Packet is a fragment of data. Data transmissions are broken up into packets. Each packet contains a portion of the data being sent as well as header information which includes the destination address." A packet sniffer was originally designed for a system administrator to monitor the network and seek out any problematic packets and prevent any bottlenecks in the network and to ensure the fluent transmission of data. However, a packet sniffer can also be used maliciously. The sniffer reads the information packets which can contain passwords and usernames which are often in clear text. Normally, the packet sniffer will capture only those packets meant for that machine; however, the packet sniffer can be set up to intercept all packages moving around the network, regardless of their destination. Clearly packet sniffers are a risk to customers buying from firms online, as their passwords can be viewed and their accounts accessed.In order for a hacker to access the secure data, they must first use a technique called "IP Spoofing." By IP Spoofing, the hacker sends messages to the intended computer. The receiving computer thinks it is coming from a safe source. This is because the hacker's computer has assumed the IP of a trusted computer. Using IP spoofing, the hacker can gain access to packets designed for a different computers. The hacker can disrupt the connection between the customer and, for example, its bank, and then steps in and communicates with the bank. The banks system believes it is communicating with the customer, as the attacking computer has taken the customer's computer's IP.All of these systems of breaching a firm's security are used to obtain sensitive data. Firm's can lose a lot of business and income through having their website sabotaged. A Zombie attack, also known as a DoS (denial of service) attack is a way in which an attack can be launched which temporarily paralyses a website. The attacker sends a 'Zombie' through an open port. The attacker then instructs that zombie computer to send the target system a huge amount of packets of useless information, usually around 500 packets per second. The huge number of packets overloads the system as it tries to take in all of the information and find some information that makes sense. During this time, the system is unable to operate and therefore 'crashes.' This will obviously cause massive problems for firms trading online, because they are unable to make any sales until the problem has been sorted out. There are around 4000 DoS attacks per week, aimed at home users, small foreign internet service providers, although larger firms such as AOL and Amazon have been hit. Although these DoS attacks can cause huge problems for firms, they are not actually illegal. In a case currently ongoing in the UK, a teenage boy is being charged with the Computer misuse act because he sent his ex-boss 5million emails and thus forcing the email server offline. The process of sending spam emails to consumer's email addresses is illegal; the Computer Misuse Act does not protect businesses. Clearly, in this case, the firm which was targeted would have lost contact with its clients through email; people would not have been able to contact the firm through email; and clients may have been put off from doing business with them because of the problem.Other way hackers can affect a network or computer is by using a Trojan horse. Trojan Horses are sent to people and they are tricked into opening them as they are disguised as harmless programs. Trojan horses, like worms and viruses, have varying severity. Some can just have annoying effects such as changing desktop features, and other effects can be more serious such as deleting files and damage hardware and software. Trojans are also capable of "creating a backdoor on your computer that gives malicious users access to your system, possibly allowing confidential or personal information to be compromised." This can obviously jeopardise customer's details on their computers or they could gain access to a network with customer's data on it.Clearly there are several challenges faced by firms, when attempting to ensure internet security. The most simple to do, is to ensure that the firm's customers who use their online services are educated in internet security. For example, almost all banks have warnings on their websites. They have messages saying, "Remember NatWest will never ask you for your PIN or Password in an e-mail. The website also offers other information to customers with regards to staying safe online. It warns about relying on the padlock icon at the bottom of the window when accessing a website, to judge whether it is safe or not. This icon alone is not proof of security, customers must also look at the address bar at the top of the window, 'http://' is not a secure site, whereas 'https://' is. An http website uses a plain text system socket, this is the easiest form of text to transfer, as it is used by almost all applications on a computer, however, it is also easily read by hackers. Therefore, the https system was developed. The data is encrypted by either the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol or Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. This ensures that the customer has some protection from people trying to gain access to sensitive data; this encryption is known as cryptography.The most basic for of encryption is single key cryptography. This method of encryption uses one key to encrypt and decrypt a message. For example, if user A is sending a message to user B, then user A must send user B his/her key. User B will then encrypt the message and send it to user A, who will decrypt the message. This method clearly has several problems, one of which being that user must trust the person they are sending their key to. They could easily send the key to rivals. A more advanced system for encrypting is the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). This system uses two keys, one which is freely available (Public Key) and so customers use it to send their data and encrypt it, and this data can only be decrypted with the other key which is the 'private key.' The firm receiving the data has that key, and obviously without it, the data sent cannot be decrypted, so preventing anyone gaining unauthorised access to it.All of these methods of security prevent hackers from packet sniffing and gaining access to secure data, however in order to provide a more secure system, the user must also protect themselves with a firewall. Firewalls are widely available and one of the most well known methods of protection. A firewall is used to scan all messages coming into and going out of a network or a computer, and it checks to ensure that they meet the security requirements as chosen by the user. The firewall has several methods of protecting the customer, one of which being Packet filtering. The firewall looks at each packet entering or leaving the network and it will either allow it or deny it access, depending on the user's settings. Packet filtering does have its drawbacks, for example IP Spoofing can sometimes beat the firewall, and it can also be fairly complex to set up. Another technique that firewalls use is an Application Gateway. Application GatewaysApply security mechanisms to specific applications, such as FTP and Telnet servers. This is very effective, but can impose performance degradation.Clearly, there are a lot of problems faced by firms and customers to ensure that data is secure. A recent survey in America stated that one in four customers won't shop online due to security concerns. From this, it is clear that despite all the security measures, customers do not have total faith in the security, although, the same survey found that 81% of those interviewed do use some form of security on their computer. This shows that customers are aware of the dangers of security on the internet. The most important thing for both customers and firms is to ensure that their internet security features are up to date. It is never possible to have a fully secure website safe from any hackers because hackers are always finding new ways to beat security systems, therefore those who provide internet security and fight the hackers have to continue to find new ways to combat them.	 	 		 			 				 					 						A article by Paris Wells Website Manager for <a href="http://www.AJbiz.co.uk" target="_new">AJbiz.co.uk</a>, a virtual assistant company who provides <a href="http://www.AJbiz.co.uk" target="_new">secretarial services</a>.

The Challenges For Data Security Faced by Firms and Their Customers Working and Trading Online

Data security is a huge responsibility for firms which indulge in online trading. There are various ways in which security can be breache...

VOIP & Its Challenges

Problems with VoIP at present are:a.	not getting a dial tone b.	not sure that the call is going to the correct party c.	echo d.	caller ID reporting a completely different number e.	poor sound dropped calls f.	intermittent loss of service g.	voice or data packets getting lost h.	latency*, jitter**, delay***, and dropped packets i.	problems with internet routers affecting the quality of the call j.	VoIP goes down when your power, internet connection, broadband connection goes down; also depend on the resources of the computer if you are using "soft phones" like Skype k.	viruses, worms, hack attacks that bring down the internet can also bring down your phone system when it is IP-basedYou can increase VoIP reliability by:a.	power backups b.	redundant internet connections c.	dedicated internet connection from VoIP; separate from your data network d.	redundant VoIP linesThe technology that VoIP & PSTN use...PSTN uses circuit switching technology; whereas VoIP uses packet switching technology In circuit switching technology (PSTN), there is a dedicated circuit that stays open between the caller and receiver for the entire time; that circuit cannot be used by anyone else during that time.In packet-switched network (VoIP), there is no constant connection maintained; the voice signal is digitized and broken into small packets that are sent through a series of routers. The packets are reassembled at the destination and turned back into voice.In total, the small amount of bandwidth used by one PSTN phone call can be shared by several VoIP calls.The security strategy that should be implemented to protect VoIP from hacks...Multi-layered security strategy of your VoIP, which slows down the process involves: a.	firewall packet filters b.	application filters c.	encryption protocols d.	decryption protocols e.	authentication access control mechanismAlthough each of these layers delays the process a little bit, you should not skimp on your VoIP security as the effect is cumulative and can be enough to affect call quality.The first step in creating a more secure VoIP network is to separate VoIP network from your data network using VLAN-capable switches. This means: a.	put VoIP phones on a separate virtual LAN with non-routable (private) addresses b.	do not allow interaction between Internet-connected PCs and VoIP components c.	use access control lists (ACLs) to prevent communication between the VLANsVoIP is more vulnerable to attacks than the PSTN network because of the public nature of the IP network and its protocols; but by taking carefully planned, multi-layered approach security strategies, companies can make VoIP as secure as traditional phone systems.*Latency refers to amount of time it takes for a packet to reach its destination. According to ITU, the maximum acceptable delay for work for voice transmissions is about 150 ms. Even dialup is adequate in regard to lag time; however, cellular, with delays of up to 600 ms, does not work so well until you get up to the 3G level.**Jitters refer to uneven transmissions, with data flowing in quickly at times and being delayed at other times. Jitter results in echo.***Delay results in high latency. Packets can be delayed at a router or other gateway that they pass through or travel more slowly along a low-bandwidth link or one that is crowded with a large amount of traffic.	 	 		 			 				 					 						Resources:<a href="http://wordbag.blogspot.com/" target="_new">My Blog</a>

VOIP & Its Challenges

Problems with VoIP at present are: a. not getting a dial tone b. not sure that the call is going to the correct party c. echo d. caller I...

Current Management Opportunities and Challenges in the Software Industry

During the past 30 years the world went through a very dynamic technological transformation. In retrospective, it can be stated without exaggeration that the emergence of electronic devices and the Internet have greatly impacted daily life as well as managerial practice to an unforeseen extent. The computerization of multiple business processes and the creation of large scale databases, among many other radical technological advances, have lead to enormous cost savings and quality improvements over the years. The interconnection of financial markets through electronic means and the worldwide adoption of the Internet have greatly reduced transaction and communication costs and brought nations and cultures closer to one another than ever imaginable. Computers are now fundamental tools in almost all businesses around the world and their application and adaptation to specific business problems in the form of software development is a practice that many companies perform on their own. In the past, such computerization and automation efforts were very costly and therefore only practiced by large corporations. Over the years, however, the software industry emerged to offer off-the-shelf solutions and services to smaller companies. Today, having survived the massive dotcom crash of the year 2000, software development businesses established themselves as strong players in the technology industry.The emergence of numerous computer standards and technologies has created many challenges and opportunities. One of the main opportunities provided by the software sector is relatively low entry barrier. Since the software business is not capital intensive, successful market entry largely depends on know-how and specific industry domain knowledge. Entrepreneurs with the right skills can relatively easily compete with large corporations and thereby pose a considerable threat to other, much larger organizations. Companies, on the other hand, need to find ways to reduce turnover and protect their intellectual property; hence, the strong knowledge dependence combined with the relatively short lifespan of computer technologies makes knowledge workers very important to the organization. Knowledge workers in this industry therefore enjoy stronger bargaining power and require a different management style and work environment than in other sectors, especially those industries that have higher market entry capital requirements. This relatively strong position of software personnel challenges human resource strategies in organizations and it also raises concerns about the protection of intellectual property.The relatively young industry is blessed with sheer endless new opportunities, such as the ability of companies to cooperate with other organizations around the globe without interruption and incur practically no communication costs. In addition, no import tariffs exist making the transfer of software across borders very efficient; however, the industry with its craft-like professions suffers from lack of standards and quality problems. The successful management of such dynamic organizations challenges today's managers as well as contemporary management science because traditional management styles, such as Weberian bureaucracies, seem to be unable to cope with unstable environments.Challenges in the Software IndustryMany studies indicate that present-day software development practices are highly inefficient and wasteful (Flitman, 2003). On average, projects are only 62% efficient, which translates to a waste of 37 %. The typical software development project has the following distribution of work effort: 12% planning, 10% specification, 42% quality control, 17% implementation, and 19% software building (2003). There are many possible interpretations of the nature of this distribution of resources. First, the extraordinarily high share of 42% for quality control purposes can indicate a lack of standards and standardized work practices. This large waste of effort may also be the result of inefficient planning and specification processes. Because the share of 19% for software building is a function of software complexity, hardware, and tools used, there is a chance to reduce it by carefully managing and standardizing internal work processes. The disappointing share of only 17% for implementation, however, should be alarming to business owners, since implementation activities are the main activity that results in revenue. The relatively low productivity level reported by Flitman (2003) seems to be also reflected in the fact that the average U.S. programmer produces approximately 7,700 lines of code per year, which translates to just 33 per workday (Slavova, 2000). Considering that a large software project, such as Microsoft Word, is reported by Microsoft to require 2 to 3 million lines of code, it becomes obvious how costly such projects can become and that productivity and quality management are major concerns to today's software businesses. The challenge for contemporary software managers is to find the root of the productivity problem and a remedy in the form of a management practice.A plethora of recent studies addresses software development productivity and quality concerns. Elliott, Dawson, and Edwards (2007) conclude that there is a lack of quality skills in current organizations. Furthermore, the researchers put partial blame on prevailing organizational cultures, which can lead to counterproductive work habits. Of the main problems identified, project documentation was found to be lacking because documents are deficient in detail and not updated frequent enough. Quality control in the form of software testing is not practiced as often and there seems to be a lack of quality assurance processes to ensure that software is built with quality in mind from the beginning. Organizational culture was found to be deficient in companies were workers tend to avoid confrontation and therefore avoid product tests altogether (2007).Since knowledge workers are the main drive in software organizations, creating a fruitful and efficient organizational culture constitutes a main challenge to today's managers. The relationship between organizational culture and quality and productivity in software businesses was recently investigated by Mathew (2007). Software organizations tend to be people-centered and their dependency on knowledge workers is also reflected by the enormous spending remuneration and benefits of more than 50% of revenue. As the industry matures and grows further, the challenge to organizations is that larger number of employees need to be managed which brings culture to the focus of management. Mathew (2007) found that the most important influence on productivity was achieved by creating an environment of mutual trust. Higher levels of trust lead to greater employee autonomy and empowerment, which strengthened the existing management view that trust and organizational effectiveness are highly related. Those companies with higher trust and empowerment levels benefitted from more intensive employee involvement and thereby achieved better quality products (2007).Product quality, however, depends on other factors as well that reach beyond the discussion of work processes. Relatively high employee turnover was found to have a detrimental effect on product quality and organizational culture (Hamid & Tarek, 1992). Constant turnover and succession increase project completion costs, cause considerable delays, and expose organization to higher risks because their development processes can be severely disrupted. While human resources strategies should help find ways to retain key personnel in the company, organizations need to nevertheless be prepared for turnovers and minimize their risks. One of the greatest risks for people-centered, knowledge worker organizations is the loss of knowledge when employees leave.Knowledge management has evolved into a relatively new discipline in the last two decades but is mostly practiced by large, global organizations only (Mehta, 2008). As corporations realized the importance of knowledge management activities to mitigate the risk of know-how loss within their organizations, they started employing chief knowledge officers and crews with the goal of collecting and organizing information. By building custom knowledge management platforms, companies can benefit from increased transfer, storage, and availability of critical business information. Such activities can help companies innovate and build knowledge capital over time (2008). The challenge remains, however, to set up such systems and to elicit employee support for knowledge management systems. In addition, these systems leave another critical question open. What happens when top performers take all the knowledge with them when they leave?Another crucial variable affecting software product and service quality is top management involvement. Projects in the software industry commonly fail due to one or a combination of the following three major causes: poor project planning, a weak business case, and lack of top management support and involvement (Zwikael, 2008). Software projects are similar to projects in other industries by focusing on timely project completion, budget, and compliance to specifications, the industry requires specific support processes from top management to facilitate projects. These processes are summarized in Table 1. Key support processes, such as the appropriate assignment of project managers and the existence of project success measurement, indicate that successful companies demonstrate a higher level of project progress control than others; however, Zwikael acknowledges that top managers rarely focus on these key processes and instead prefer to deal with those processes that are easier for them to work on personally.Table 1The ten most critical top management support processes in the software sector (Zwikael, 2008). Those processes marked with an asterisk (*) were found to be the most important.Support ProcessAppropriate project manager assignment *Refreshing project proceduresInvolvement of the project manager during initiation stageCommunication between the project manager and the organization *Existence of project success measurement *Supportive project organizational structureExistence of interactive interdepartmental project groups *Organizational projects resource planningProject management office involvementUse of standard project management software *Opportunities in the Software IndustryThe advent of low cost communication via the Internet and the diversification of the software industry into many different branches brought a multitude of new market opportunities. Some of the main opportunities are rooted in the low costs of communication, while others originated from the possibility of geographic diversification and international collaboration.One major opportunity which especially larger organizations seek to seize is geographic diversification in the form of globally distributed software development. Kotlarsky, Oshri, van Hillegersberg, and Kumar (2007) have researched this source of opportunities that is mainly practiced by multinational companies; however, an increasing number of small companies is also reported to be benefitting from dispersed software development across national boundaries. The study revealed that software companies can achieve significantly higher levels of productivity by creating reusable software components and reducing task interdependencies. By reducing interdependence, the produced modules are more likely to become useful in future projects on their own; furthermore, this reduction of intertwined computer code also has a positive effect on project teams. Teams in companies that globally distribute their developments benefit from increased autonomy and reduced communication requirements. The authors point out, however, that the prerequisites to distributing software development are not only good project planning but also the standardization of tools and development procedures. Without such prearrangements it may become almost impossible to manage and consolidate the various distributed team activities (2007). Especially for teams working across countries away from one another, it may pay off to deploy video or other Internet-based conferencing technologies and exploit huge savings potentials. But are these means of communication effective?In the last decade a new form of organization has emerged that has taken the most advantage of the Internet. Virtual organizations exist entirely in cyberspace and their team members communicate mostly, if not exclusively, via the Internet using webcams and messaging software. The challenge for managers in virtual organizations is to exploit the new technology but also to find ways to motivate and direct the workforce and work processes. A study by Andres (2002) compared virtual software development teams with face-to-face teams and identified several challenges and opportunities for virtual managers. Managing work from a different time zone can be problematic due to the lack of physical presence. Communication will need to be asynchronous or can only occur at work hours that overlap in both time zones. Virtual teams facilitate this process by using email and voice/text messaging but more importantly by reducing the interdependency of tasks. Andres (2002) suggested that these types of communication have lower "social presence" meaning that humans have a need and ability to feel the presence of others in the group. The problem with many computerized communication channels is that visual clues, utterances, body language clues and clues from the person's voice are missing. When placed on a social presence continuum, the various communication types rank as follows from the lowest to the highest: email, phone, video conferencing, and face-to-face meetings. Andres' comparison between development teams using video-conferencing versus face-to-face meetings revealed that the latter group was far more efficient and productive, even though the video-conferencing team benefitted from reduced travel costs and time.The study conducted in 2002, however, has several shortcomings. First, it is already seven years old and Internet costs have dropped and speeds have improved significantly since then. Considering the improvements in video quality and availability and computer speeds, this form of communication became more feasible recently. In addition, today's managers are just now starting to learn how to use these means of communication efficiently. For example, even though email technology has been around for two decades now, many managers still find that emails can create a lot of ambiguity. The challenge to future generations of managers will be to change their writing style to match the limitations of email and other text messaging technologies. Another important factor to consider is that written communication may be stored indefinitely and have legal consequences; hence, more often than not, managers may intentionally prefer to avoid such communication channels for political or legal reasons. The study by Andres (2002), however, resulted in a negative view of video conferencing probably because the technology was not yet matured and the team members were not yet comfortable with it.For video conferencing to work well, all participants need to be knowledgeable of the peculiar characteristics of that technology and adjust their communication style and speech accordingly. Regardless of meeting type, another important factor is preparation. What could be researched in conjunction with Andres' study in the future is the degree of preparation of the group. Do team members invest enough time in preparing questions and answers for their teammates before coming to the meeting? Video conferences may require more preparation than face-to-face meetings in some circumstances.Another opportunity for software businesses and challenge for managers worldwide is outsourcing. In the year 2007, $70 billion were spent globally for outsourced software development (Scott, 2007). Given the extreme shortage of IT skills in the U.S. and Europe, many companies take advantage of globalization by choosing international suppliers for their software development tasks. Outsourcing, however, requires elaborate coordination between the organization and its many supplier groups. The idea is that in total, coordination costs and problems are less costly than in-house development; however, this goal is not always achieved. While outsourcing, when it is deployed and coordinated correctly, can result in 24 hour development worldwide and thereby provide continuous services to the organization around the clock, it may result in the loss of intellectual property. While mechanic parts are patentable in most countries that support intellectual property rights, software is not patentable in most countries outside North America.In addition to the challenge of managing outsourcing, software organizations exploit technologies in various ways to save costs, for example by offering remote access, telecommuting, and service-oriented architectures (SOA) (Scott, 2007). Remote access and telecommuting has increased six-fold between 1997 and 2005 and resulted in $300 million annual savings due to a reduction of office space (2007). SOA is a similar concept and involves a software rental for customers. Instead of buying, installing, and maintaining software and servers, customers can rent a service online and reduce the total cost of ownership because these activities are no longer required on the customer side. Gradually the virtualization of the software business opens new horizons and provides further opportunities but it also presents managers with endless challenges.Some of the strengths and weaknesses of offshore and virtual team development were studied by Slavova (2000). In the year 2000, India and Ireland were the largest offshore software development locations. Offshore companies can offer up to 60% cost reduction, a faster completion of development tasks by distributing them around the globe, and specific domain knowledge which they acquired over the years providing similar services to other customers. The integration of work from external sources, however, constitutes a major hurdle. Furthermore, language and cultural issues can cause serious communication problems that put the project at risk, especially when misunderstandings cause misinterpretations of project specification documents. Slavova (2000) found that the most common remedy and strategy avoiding problems with offshore suppliers is to visit them frequently face-to-face; however, this tactic results in higher travel costs and disruptions of the managers' workflows and hence may offset the benefits gained for outsourcing altogether. Managers in the software business need therefore to balance the risks and opportunity potentials before engaging in outsourcing because for many companies this strategy failed to pay off in the end.A huge opportunity that emerged in the last decade is online innovation. The collective innovation effort of many individuals and companies is generally known as open-source on the Internet and it has lead to many advances in the computer technology, such as the free Linux operating system. At first businesses felt threatened by this wave of developments on the market because the businesses perceived that open-source solutions were in competition with their products. In many cases this was and still is in fact true; however, a couple of companies, including IBM, are exploiting this new way of innovation for their own and for a common benefit (Vujovic & Ulhøi, 2008). Because software companies operate in an increasingly instable environment, they struggle to create continuously new and better products. By exposing the computer code to the public on the Internet, companies can benefit from ideas submitted by the public, especially other companies. Furthermore, companies benefit from free bug finding and testing by external users but one of the primary reasons for "going open-source" is the quick adoption and spread of the company's technology at a relatively little or no cost. The spread of IBM's open-source technology, for example, is also free marketing for the company. But how can companies make money by offering something for free?The closed innovation model (the traditional model of providing software without revealing the software code) can be combined with open-source, so the company can charge for the product. In other cases, the company can reveal the technological platform on the Internet for free and then sell specialized tools which utilize the new platform. The big money savers are obviously the shared development, testing, and maintenance costs since many interested parties work on the same project.The knowledge-sharing model of open-source is nothing new, however. The philosophy and the benefits of open innovation models have been already realized in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Back then, open innovation was practiced in the UK iron andUS steel industry. The cooperation of many industry players ended the domination of proprietary technologies for which costly royalties were due (Vujovic & Ulhøi, 2008). Given the dynamic environment of the IT industry and the short lifespan of computer technologies, the adoption of open innovation models gained much more popularity. By analyzing the largest open-source players in the market, Vujovic and Ulhøi put together a list of supportive strategies, which is shown in Table 2. Several of these strategies are quite relevant from a top management perspective as well, such as deploying open-source to block a competitor and using the open model as a gateway for greater market share.Table 2Strategies for adopting the open-source approach (Vujovic & Ulhøi, 2008).Business StrategyObtaining higher market shareObtaining market powerBetter adoption of a product and thereby establishing standardsShifting competitive advantage to another architectural layerMaking the product more ubiquitousDelivering faster time-to-marketSpurring innovationComplementing a revenue core streamBlocking a competitorConclusionReviewing the rather recent emergence of the IT industry and the software industry in particular, several parallels can be drawn to management history. While Taylor's scientific management was a highlight in the evolution of management science (Wren, 2005), the software industry seems to be lagging behind such great advancement. Due to its high level of complexity, the software development discipline is still plagued with quality problems stemming from a lack of standardization. Similar to Taylor's efforts, managers need to analyze software development processes and develop industry-wide standards and measures. Once such measures and procedures exist, this will help make software projects much more predictable.Much of today's software industry practices would have been a déjà vu for Taylor, if he was still alive. In addition, the anomie and social disorganization concerns during the social person era apply today more dramatically than in the past. Mayo described in the 1940s how managers overemphasized on technical problems in the hope of raising efficiency ignoring the human social element (p. 296). The same situation is now evident to a larger degree in the computer industry. The rapid technological advances have created many opportunities and changed the work environment drastically. At the same time, however, management was unable to prepare for these dramatic shifts technology would bring to the workplace. At best, managers are simply reacting to technological advances because the consequences are mostly unpredictable given the complexity of human nature. For example, email brought several benefits such as low cost and simple asynchronous communication; however, many email messages are misunderstood because they are not written appropriately. Moreover, IT knowledge workers are struggling to keep up with the vast number of messages received per day as they constitute a severe disruption of the daily workflow.As knowledge workers are becoming more and more essential to an organization's survival and as organizations in this industry mature and require greater headcounts, the span of control is becoming an issue for managers to handle correctly. As discussed in Wren (2005), as the team size increases, the number of interrelations to be managed rises astronomically (p. 353). Managing larger teams poses a great problem because the sheer number of interrelations makes it also more difficult to develop trust within the team. Motivating large groups of knowledge workers can hence be tricky, especially because creative tasks can require a large degree of collaboration. Work design is hence a major hurdle for future managers to overcome. Much emphasis has been on hygiene factors and not on motivators of the workforce. Flexible hours, telecommuting, empowerment, and increased responsibility may help in the short-term but for the long-term management will need to find new strategies for retaining knowledge workers.Product quality remains a big issue. Deming's ideas are good but quality assurance in the software world is difficult to implement due to the lack of standards and measures. The open-source innovation model may provide some relief in this respect because the greater involvement of external developers can help improve overall quality. On the other hand, however, open-source projects are hard to manage for the same reason. Since open-source projects are self-directed and not owned by anyone in particular, those projects sometimes suffer from uncontrolled, tumorlike growth.Several of Deming's deadly sins (Wren, 2005, p. 463) apply directly to the software industry. Most products are made from scratch rather than from components and there is little standardization in software organizations. Since software developers have a tendency to see their job as a craft they defy standards and procedures. In addition, the rather complex environment with its dynamic requirements and the push for meeting deadlines make it easy for practitioners to lose sight of quality improvements through the preparation of organizational standards. High turnover and individual performance measures continue to be industry practice, even though many scientists, such as Deming, have argued for long that such measures are counterproductive.Future managers need to find ways to compensate for the high turnover, if they cannot find a way to avoid it. The division of labor might work well for the company but it is not well perceived by the workforce which tends to require constant challenge. Top performers disfavor mundane tasks and prefer to walk away with all their knowledge. IBM has successfully deployed job enlargement for some time to combat this phenomenon (Wren, 2005, p.332). Unfortunately, this strategy might not work for every company and it can only be used within certain boundaries of the organization. Given the developments of the last two decades, managers will need to confront the discipline of knowledge worker management and find a workable solution for their organization.The integration of management science with the advances in psychology and sociology may provide a route towards the solution of the knowledge worker management problem. It is crucial for managers to have an accurate understanding of the motivational drives for this particular group of the workforce. These employees enjoy higher income, greater flexibility and freedom, and greater bargain power. This puts them in a gray zone between the traditional, lower skilled employee and an owner in the company because knowledge workers create intellectual capital in the company. Because most of this capital is lost and remains with the employees when they decide to leave the organization, turnover can be much more damaging than with traditional workers. Managers can therefore not simply apply conventional strategies to this dissimilar group of employees; rather, they need to seek for more creative incentives for motivating and retaining knowledge workers.ReferencesAndres, H. P. (2002). A comparison of face-to-face and virtual software development teams. Team Performance Management, 8, 39-49. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Elliott, M., Dawson, R., Edwards, J. (2007). An analysis of software quality management at AWE plc. Software Quality Journal, 15, 347-364. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Flitman, A. (2003). Towards meaningful benchmarking of software development team productivity. Benchmarking, 10, 382-350. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Hamid, A., Tarek, K. (1992). Investigating the impacts of managerial turnover/succession on software project performance. Journal of Management Information Systems, 9, 127-145. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Kotlarsky, J., Oshri, I., van Hillegersberg, J., Kumar, K. (2007). Globally distributed component-based software development: an exploratory study of knowledge management and work division. Journal of Information Technology, 22, 161-174. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Mathew, J. (2007). The relationship of organizational culture with productivity and quality; A study of Indian software organizations. Employee Relations, 29, 677-697. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Mehta, N. (2008). Successful knowledge management implementation in global software companies. Journal of Knowledge Management, 12, 42-57. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Scott, J. E. (2007). Mobility, business process management, software sourcing, and maturity model trends: Propositions for the IS organization of the future. Information Systems Management, 24, 139-146. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Slavova, S. (2000). Offshore software development: strengths and weaknesses. Academy of Information and Management Sciences, 4, 16-22. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Vujovic, S., Ulhøi, J. P. (2008). Online innovation: the case of open source software development. European Journal of Innovation Management, 11, 142-157. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.Wren, D.A. (2005). The history of management thought. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley PublishingZwikael, O. (2008). Top management involvement in project management; a cross country study of the software industry. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 1, 498-513. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from ProQuest.	 	 		 			 				 					 						Copyright 2009 by Savas Papadopoulos, FastNeuron Inc Savas Papadopoulos is a software business consultant with FastNeuron Inc <a href="http://www.fastneuron.com" target="_new">http://www.fastneuron.com</a> He can be reached at 410 571 5950 or via email: <a href="mailto:savas@fastneuron.com">savas@fastneuron.com</a>. 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Current Management Opportunities and Challenges in the Software Industry

During the past 30 years the world went through a very dynamic technological transformation. In retrospective, it can be stated without e...