Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

184 entrepreneurs in computinganalyzed to identify key features of consumer behavior (seedata mining).Further ReadingBernard, Scott A. An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture Planning.2nd ed. Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, 2005.Blanding, Steve, ed. Enterprise Operations Management Handbook.2nd ed. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 1999.Carbone, Jane. IT Architecture Toolkit. Upper Saddle River, N.J.:Prentice Hall PTR, 2004.Zachman Institute for Framework Advancement. Available online.URL: http://www.zifa.com/. Accessed July 29, 2007.entrepreneurs in computingMuch publicity has been given to figures such as Microsoftfounder and multibillionaire Bill Gates, who turned avest-pocket company selling BASIC language tapes into thedominant seller of operating systems and office software forPCs. Historically, however, the role of key entrepreneurs inthe establishment of information technology sectors repeatsthe achievements of such 19th- and early 20th-centurytechnology pioneers as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.There appear to be certain times when scientific insight andtechnological capability can be translated into businessesthat have the potential to transform society while makingthe pioneers wealthy.Like their counterparts in earlier industrial revolutions,the entrepreneurs who created the modern computerindustry tend to share certain common features. In positiveterms one can highlight imagination and vision suchas that which enabled J. Presber Eckert and John Mauchlyto conceive that the general-purpose electronic computercould find an essential place in the business and scientificworld (see Eckert, J. Presper and Mauchly, John). Inthe software world, observers point to Bill Gates’s intensefocus and ability to create and market not just an operatingsystem but also an approach to computing that wouldtransform the office (see Gates, William, III). The Internetrevolution, too, was sparked by both an “intellectual entrepreneur”such as Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the WorldWide Web (see Berners-Lee, Tim) and by Netscape foundersMark Andreessen and Jim Clark, who turned the Webbrowser into an essential tool for interacting with informationboth within and outside of organizations.While technological innovation is important, the abilityto create a “social invention”—such as a new vehicle or planfor doing business, can be equally telling. At the beginningof the 21st century, the World Wide Web, effectively lessthan a decade old, is seeing the struggle of entrepreneurssuch as Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, eBay’s Pierre Omidyar,and Yahoo!’s Jerry Yang to expand significant toeholds inthe marketing of products and information into sustainablebusinesses.Historically, as industries mature, the pure entrepreneurtends to give way to the merely effective CEO. Inthe computer field, however, it is very hard to sort out thewaves of innovation that seem to follow close upon oneanother. Some sectors, such as the selling of computer systems(a sector dominated by entrepreneurs such as MichaelDell [Dell Computers] and Compaq’s Rod Canion) seem tohave little remaining scope for innovation. In other sectors,such as operating systems (an area generally dominatedby Microsoft), an innovator such as Linus Torvalds (developerof Linux) can suddenly emerge as a viable challenger.And as for the Internet and e-commerce, it is too early totell whether the pace of innovation has slowed and theshakeout now under way will lead to a relatively stablelandscape. (Note: a number of other biographies of computerentrepreneurs are featured in this book. For example,see Andreessen, Marc; Bezos, Jeffrey P.; Engelberger,Joseph; Moore, Gordon E.; and Omidyar, Pierre.)Further ReadingCringely, R. X. Accidental Empires. New York: Harper, 1997.Henderson, Harry. A to Z of Computer Scientists. New York: FactsOn File, 2003.———. Communications and Broadcasting. (Milestones in Scienceand Invention). New York: Chelsea House, 2006.Jager, Rama Dev and Rafael Ortiz. In the Company of Giants. NewYork: McGraw-Hill, 1997.Malone, Michael S. Betting It All: The Technology Entrepreneurs.New York: Wiley, 2001.———. The Valley of Heart’s Delight: A Silicon Valley Notebook,1963–2001. New York: Wiley, 2001.Reid, R. H. Architects of the Web. New York: John Wiley, 1997.Spector, Robert. amazon.com: Get Big Fast. New York: Harper-Business,2000.enumerations and setsIt is sometimes useful to have a data structure that holdsspecific, related data values. For example, if a program is toperform a particular action for data pertaining to each dayof the week, the following Pascal code might be used:type Day is (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday)Such a data type (which is also available in Ada, C, andC++) is called an enumeration because it enumerates, or“spells out” each and every value that the type can hold.Once the enumeration is defined, a looping structurecan be used to process all of its values, as in:var Today: Day;for Today: = Monday to Sunday do (some statements)Pascal, C, and C++ do not allow the same item to beused in more than one enumeration in the same name space(area of reference). Ada, however, allows for “overloading”with multiple uses of the same name. In that case, however,the name must be qualified by specifying the enumerationto which it belongs, as in:If Day = Days (‘Monday’) . . .As far as the compiler is concerned, an enumerationvalue is actually a sequential integer. That is, Monday = 0,Tuesday = 1, and so on. Indeed, built-in data types such asBoolean are equivalent to enumerations (false = 0, true =1) and in a sense the integer type itself is an enumeration