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Exhibit 20.6 is a model of a typical company‟s wide area network, and it demonstrates how all of the<br />

older technology interconnects with the newer local area networks and the Internet.<br />

In the early 1990s, there were numerous, competing network operating systems and protocols.<br />

Novell and its NetWare software held the largest market share at the time. As operating systems for<br />

computers themselves have evolved, newer operating systems such as Microsoft Windows Server<br />

2008 have incorporated many features of the original network operating systems, in some cases<br />

making network operating systems themselves obsolete. Because of the Internet‟s overwhelming<br />

success, transmission-control protocol/ Internet protocol (TCP/IP) has become the standard<br />

communications protocol.<br />

The 1990s saw the advent of virtual organizations. Virtual organizations are formed when<br />

companies join together to create products or enterprises that they could not have created individually.<br />

In most cases, information technology allows companies to create these partnerships and share<br />

information as if they were one company. Using communications and collaborative software for e-<br />

mail, chat, instant messaging, file sharing, blogs, wikis, and online chats, the partners can<br />

communicate and share information with each other about their individual progress, in order to ensure<br />

the best possible success. This is discussed further in the section on IT strategy.<br />

Exhibit 20.6 Model of a wide area network.<br />

Database

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