Managing Computers in Large Organizations

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Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. FASTER, SMALLER, CHEAPER TRENDS IN MICROCOMPUTER TECHNOLOGY 21 had to deal with many poor hardware and software decisions made by uneducated end users who purchased equipment for their departments. We found ourselves buying hardware that could not do the job it was assigned to do because application software was dreadfully lacking. Jean Piaget, a psychologist who specialized in cognitive development, had a theory about individuals being thrown off equilibrium and then assimilating information on a new subject until they reached equilibrium again. In its first stage of development the microcomputer created a similar disequilibrium environment, and only now are end users and managers coming to grips with the issues raised by the microcomputer as a small, cheap workstation. During this first stage we also had to deal with how application software was going to be defined and developed. Would it focus on task-specific, horizontal packages such as database managers, word processors, and spreadsheets? Or would the thrust be for vertical markets, where an application could be developed that solved a total business problem? In terms of horizontal packages, we began to move from single-function to integrated software. In the vertical market there was less progress because there were fewer opportunities both from a research and development standpoint and from a financial, business standpoint. Hardware was still a precious resource in this first stage. Memory was a governing factor. The 8-bit CP/M operating system and a number of software graphics packages based on 8-bit technology were designed to do somersaults within a small space because memory and disk storage capacities were at a premium. Stage-one hardware was supported by a cottage industry of software programmers who appeared highly suspect to large companies and federal agencies. One of these new companies, with perhaps 10 to 12 employees, would have the hottest package in the world but a balance sheet that would make your personal checkbook look proud. We were not used to doing business with these kinds of firms. As we moved toward the end of stage one we began to take a look at what else we could do with a microcomputer. We had figured out what it could do for us locally; now we began to look at the larger environment: the corporation as a whole, the federal agency, the state government computing resource. In the second stage of microcomputer development, which is Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. FASTER, SMALLER, CHEAPER TRENDS IN MICROCOMPUTER TECHNOLOGY 22 where we are today, we are more likely to see the microcomputer as a window on a greater distributed resource system. Today we look out from our microcomputers and talk either to a mainframe, a strip-file on a minicomputer, or to a larger communications database technology. We may be tying into other organizations or services, into other resources in our own corporations, or perhaps into a local group of microcomputers, where we can share files in a more sophisticated fashion than ever before. Today the microcomputer is associated more with communications and with computing on a grand scale than it is with the idea of a stand-alone workstation. Processing capabilities are still important at the local level, but concurrent processes are more important. These include multiple windows on the same terminal which allow the user to be active in a job that runs on a mainframe and also to merge that data into local files and manipulate it at local memory levels. The key issue we are now facing is micro-to-mainframe communication. We are trying to answer questions about how the microcomputer fits into a total computing capability. Where are the remote data? Are they available to the end user? Shall they be made available? How often will they be updated? How does all this affect decision making? The microcomputer is coming of age. In this second stage of development the communications capability will increase rather than decrease; the demands for even broad-band communications links may well be in place within the next two years. The whole area of microprocessor technology, peripheral chips, and small circuit technology in general has brought additional pressures to bear on the MIS or ADP (automated data processing) planning branch. Microcomputers are only one symptom of the total technological wave that is rolling over us. We are being forced to make management changes as well, not only in the area of microcomputer planning and acquisition training, but in our whole ADP planning and telecommunications staff. We have a communications group on one hand, and an ADP planning function on the other. Microprocessor technology and microcomputers have forced an organizational change in the relation between the two types of jobs in the communications area. Microprocessor technology has in one way made capacity planning obsolete, not in terms of the skills or people required, but simply because movement is no longer from one huge machine to another. Smaller steps are now involved. We are more concerned Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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