Mindless

Workflow software has helped to set standards and protocols, so that we can communicate and interconnect with aspects of the communication chain. One of the best examples I can think of is companies that you can buy textbooks from. You search the website for a certain book, the website will sale the book to you. Your order is sent to a billing, billing then sends the order to shipping. Shipping then sends a conformation that your book has been sent. The use of workflow software makes this happen with no hiccups. There is a chain of commands that happens so fast because of the advances in workflow software. Almost everything that happens is automated from your confirmation email, billing and sending your order as soon as you place it to being packaged and sent. Without workflow software this would be a much more tedious task. But thanks to workflow software companies now can outsource to other countries and still have just as much control of the outcome of their product as if it were in the next store to them. The more we can advance in the workflow software the easier it will be to automate even more than we can now. Or we can access cheaper talent in other countries and work hand and hand as if they were in the same room, so the boss can be a world away and still have the control.

Open source software is the collaboration of the minds of software junkies to make software for everyone to use for free. The concept of open source software is truly noble to help make it easy for everyone to use software for free. But that being said it is sad to say but if there is a nice way to make money someone will exploit. This is true when it comes to open source software, many companies will try to see how they can build off of the original idea to make money just like IBM did to Apache. I think that many companies were happy to see that OpenOffice.org was able to compete with Microsoft Office, but I would have to agree with the fact that Microsoft Office is the standard and I don’t see that changing.  One of things that open source software has brought is Linux and Firefox which has given so many people an opportunity to use the internet. I also like that open source software makes the big companies try harder to keep our business completion breeds innovation.

 Outsourcing is being able to move jobs to somewhere that you can spend half of what you would previously and still find talent for the job that compares or exceeds the previous employees. Many companies have moved aspects of their work load to places like India and China. The work you can find in places like those can be faster and cheaper. India has capitalized on opportunities given to them by fiber optic cables explosion throughout the world, and the dot com busted.  Also they gained the trust of the U.S. companies during the Y2k scare, this let them show the world they can do the job fast and cheap with positive results. It is funny to think that our country actually played a big part in how the world became flat. We at one time exploited India’s unstable economy by head hunting their best and brightest to help grow technology. Now they are capitalizing on the fact their best and brightest want to say, and they have made relationships to be able to set the future for their country.

I feel that computers and software have just grown at such a fast rate globally, as a result of supply and demand. For me personally, I have never really put much thought into the early stages of computer and software. But after reading more this week in ‘The World Is Flat’ I found it almost mind blowing to think of how restricting software was less than 20 years ago. Only because when I began using computers when there was standards and much better software thanks to workflow and open source software. I also was very enlightened on how the country of India did not steal jobs, but rather capitalize on the opportunities they were given. When you think about it they are only emulating the American hunger for a better life.