Week 2 Discussion Comments

You made some very good points this week. I also appreciate the examples you included from work environments. My comments on each discussion follow.

W2D3 Domincan IT

Several of you wondered if Dominican had a Strategic IT Plan. You can find a copy here.

You had a number of questions about Dominican IT. Jill-Albin Hill, Dominican's Chief Information Officer is willing to answer our questions. I will add a bonus Discussion in Week 4 to facilitate this.

There was very good faculty training last summer in Canvas. Also, the Dominican Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence conducts workshops for faculty each term.

There was discussion about the Technology Fee. You may want to raise questions about this in the Week 4 Discussion.

 

W2D1 Does IT Matter article

From being the the software business, I would like to challenge the notion that if you wait to upgrade you will avoid bugs. Everything has bugs. Sometimes there are advantages to keeping older software because you know where the bugs and limitations are. The new release may fix the old bugs but it will introduce new ones.

Although IT costs in general are going down, some projects can still be very expensive. The example given in the Discussion was a major SAP project. In addition to being expensive, the project had problems that had a serious negative impact on the company.

Serveral of you drew the distinction between IT companies and other companies. In these companies, there is the "normal IT" (back office systems, accounting systems, internal email etc.). The same rules that apply to "normal" companies apply to these systems. IT companies also produce systems for direct delivery to customers such as the Apple iOS operating system in the iPhone, Google apps and Google search for direct use by customers, and Microsoft Azure (Cloud services). Most of these are or were strategic investments in new product development and not just "IT".

Many of you raised the point the employees must be trained in new systems in order for the investment in the system to be most effective. I agree. When you are in a management role, you will need to deal with the tradeoff of temporarily reducing capacity and output in your department in order to provide your team with training. When faced with this tradeoff, you can remember this Discussion.

Is the IT Buildout finished? Institutions like Dominican are running applications in the Cloud instead of buying more servers. Canvas runs in Amazon's cloud whereas Blackboard ran in Dominican's server room. Dominican has moved email from in-house to Microsoft's Cloud. This movement to Cloud computing is why, in my opinion, that IBM just sold their low end server business to Lenovo.

Is the IT Buildout finished? I think we are just at the beginning of "The Internet of Things" where snow plows, refrigerators, and cars will be loaded with digital technology and commuincating with the Internet. This will give rise to significant new applications for businesses.

W2D2 - Netflix and iTunes

When you think about watching Netflix "anyplace" on your cell phone, Consider that Verizon LTE allows you to download about 5 movies in about 90 minutes over your 4G cell phone. Unfortunately, this will exhaust your entire 5GB monthly limit and future downloads will cost $10 per GB.

Both Netflix and iTunes license content from others and the licensors can impose restrictions as to what countries and what devices are covered by the license.

Why Discuss Apple and Netflix when they were not mentioned in Carr's article? As a graduate business student, you should be able to determine how what you have learned in text books and readings apply to any given company. You can learn about any public company through public sources like Yahoo Finance and the Wall Street Journal.

Both Netflix and iTunes license content from others and the licensors can impose restrictions as to what countries and what devices are covered by the license.

This discussion used to be about Netflix vs. Blockbuster and their different approaches to technology. Blockbuster waited too long before making the required technology investments and is no longer in business.

A number of businesses get revenue through a subscription model. Cable Companies, Internet Service Providers, Netflix, and some web sites charge monthly fees. Some of you mentioned dropping you cable subscription. Controlling monthly subscription costs can be important to your financial health over the long term.