Interlude - Index of

192 | Glossary
operating system The software that controls a computer. Windows,
Mac OS, UNIX, and Linux are all operating systems.
pixie dust The almost magical ability that some leaders have
to solve problems and to inspire people to work with amazing
productivity.
president One of the top two or three people in a company,
reporting to the CEO. See also COO.
price-to-earnings ratio A measure of how expensive a company’s
stock is. Ten to thirty is common—maybe fifty or even a hundred
for a high-growth company. Beyond that is crazy expensive.
professional services department The group in a company that
provides for-fee services to the company’s customers.
RAID Absolutely wonderful technology that our nontechnical
customers don’t really want to hear about.
recursion See recursion.
reseller A company that sells products made by other companies.
A grocery store is a reseller. See direct sales and indirect sales.
response time How long it takes to do something. For a bakery,
response time is how long it takes to bake one cake. If you know
their response time, you still can’t tell how many cakes they can
bake in a day: they might have lots of ovens. See throughput.
router A piece of equipment that connects networks together.
Cisco is the leading vendor of routers.
sales department The group in a company that sells its products.
SAN (storage area network) A type of network storage that
competes with NAS. See NAS.
SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) A federal law
enforcement agency responsible for overseeing public companies.
Snapshots Absolutely wonderful technology that our nontechnical
customers don’t really want to hear about.
start-up A small young company that has not gone public.
sysadmin (system administrator) A person in the IT department
who manages computers, networks, and applications.