Deck 14: Software in Flux: Partly Cloudy and Sometimes Free

Question 1

Open source software products often have fewer bugs than their commercial counterparts because of the:

A) large number of persons who have looked at the code.
B) stringent quality checks undertaken by the original developers.
C) emphasis placed on technological superiority of OSS products.
D) relatively poorer standards of commercially programmed software.
E) pyramidal programming practice followed by OSS developers.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Scalability allows a firm to scale from start-up to blue chip without having to significantly rewrite its code.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Which of the following sets of software represents the constituents of the LAMP stack?

A) LimeWire, Acrobat Reader, Mozilla, Python
B) Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl
C) Lingo, Afnix, Moby, PPL
D) Linux, Android, Mac OS X, PHP
E) LimeWire, AppleScript, MATLAB, Photoshop

Answer 3

B

Question 4

While large groups of individuals work on key OSS projects, such as the Linux operating system, some widely used efforts have had fewer developers, creating concerns over quality and security.

Question 5

Which of the following was an outdated notion regarding open source software and has been shown to be inaccurate?

A) Open source software is free and its code is available for anyone to look at and potentially modify.
B) Open source software code can be changed and redistributed, provided the modified software remains open and free.
C) Open source software is to technology what capitalism is to economics.
D) The majority of persons who work on open source projects are paid by commercially motivated employers.
E) Open source is fueled on the contributions of loners tooling away for the glory of contributing to better code.

Question 6

With the advent of cloud computing and SaaS, smaller firms no longer have access to the kinds of sophisticated computing power they had access to in the past.

Question 7

One of the drawbacks of open source software is that it cannot be easily migrated to more powerful computers as circumstances dictate.

Question 8

Conventional software firms treat their intellectual property as closely guarded secrets and almost never provide the source code for their commercial software products.

Question 9

The software business is extremely profitable compared to the hardware business because:

A) the marginal cost to produce an additional copy of a software product is effectively zero.
B) of the lack of market price regulations and guidelines.
C) software producers serve niche businesses sectors with high profit margins.
D) software development is a one-time process with no upgrade costs.
E) software firms benefit from special tax exemptions that aid profitability.

Question 10

Which of the following statements relating to open source software is true?

A) The flagship OSS product is the Linux operating system, now available on all scales of computing devices.
B) Open source software is available for anyone to download from the Internet, but the code should not be modified.
C) The vast majority of people who work on efforts like Linux are now paid to do so by non-profit organizations such as the Linux foundation.
D) The source code for open source software may be modified and redistributed, provided it is priced reasonably and part of the proceeds is contributed to the Linux Foundation.
E) Major hardware firms no longer employ paid staff contributing to open source projects.

Question 11

_____ refers to software that is free and where anyone to look at and potentially modify the code.

A) Social software
B) Proprietary software
C) Licensed software
D) Open source software
E) Software as a service

Question 12

The LAMP stack of open source products is used:

A) as a template for most operating systems.
B) to provide guidelines for programming databases.
C) in debugging most of the software tools available today.
D) as a global set of standards for software product improvements and official releases.
E) to power many of the Internet's most popular Web sites.

Question 13

The scalability of a software product is defined as the:

A) capability to continue operations even if a component fails.
B) long-term market viability of a software product.
C) ability to take advantage of complementary products developed for a prior generation of technology.
D) ability to be easily expanded to manage workload increases.
E) ability to replace a technically superior product upon market inception.

Question 14

The cost of producing an additional unit of a product is known as its:

A) isocost.
B) transaction cost.
C) marginal cost.
D) redundancy cost.
E) implicit cost.

Question 15

_____ is the flagship open source product.

Question 16

Technology products with particularly strong security features are said to be:

A) integrated.
B) virtualized.
C) hardened.
D) scalable.
E) white swans.

Question 17

The _____ of open source products is used to power many of the Internet's most popular Web sites.

Question 18

What is open source software? How is it different from the conventional offerings of proprietary software?

Question 19

The marginal cost to produce an additional copy of a software product is effectively zero.

Question 20

Some of the largest technology companies now support open source software initiatives.

Question 21

Cloud computing refers to:

A) replacing computing resources with services provided over the Internet.
B) a technology that can make a single computer behave like many separate computers.
C) designing computers with many microprocessors that work together, simultaneously, to solve problems.
D) designing microprocessors with two or more calculating processor cores on the same piece of silicon.
E) manufacturing semiconductors as a stack of multiple, interconnected layers instead of in one flat plane.

Question 22

Linux is one of the most used operating systems in desktop computers, but can be found only in a tiny fraction of mobile phones, and consumer electronics.

Question 23

Less popular open source products are not likely to attract the community of users and contributors necessary to help improve these products over time. This situation reiterates the belief that _____ are a key to success.

A) proprietary products
B) brand strategies
C) network effects
D) technology expenses
E) advertising campaigns

Question 24

With SaaS, firms get the most basic offerings but can also do the most customization, putting their own tools (operating systems, databases, programming languages) on top.

Question 25

Which of the following was considered a contributor to vulnerabilities in the OpenSSL security product, known as the Heartbleed bug:

A) Overseas hackers modified the open source code and uploaded a compromise version to the Internet, which became widely used.
B) Few developers were working on the project, so the ideal that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" wasn't met with OpenSSL.
C) Developers failed to see a major incompatibility with versions of the Windows operating system and Chrome browser.
D) There was no commercial entity overseeing the project.
E) A Linux update was not coordinated with OpenSSL, leaving a gaping hole when the two products were used together to transmit content over the Internet.

Question 26

How has open source software had a disproportionate impact on the IT market?

Question 27

One area where open source software contributions have been virtually non-existent is in tools to support the massive file systems used in so-called Big Data projects.

Question 28

Vendors who use open source as part of their product offerings can expect to bring new products to the market faster because:

A) open source products have lower product lifecycles.
B) the large number of people who look at the code help speed up product development.
C) they can skip whole segments of the software development process.
D) open source software programming is based on simpler code than commercial products.
E) the open source nature of the products ensures they don't have to conduct debugging tests.

Question 29

_______________ is the name of the popular service where you'll find GitHub, where millions of open source projects hosted and shared.

Question 30

Why do firms prefer to use open source software products over conventional software?

Question 31

Which of the following refers to a variant of utility computing where vendors provide the operating system and supporting software like database management systems but where client firms write their own code?

A) Platform as a service
B) Host service vendor
C) Software as a service
D) Application service provider
E) Infrastructure as a service

Question 32

_____ refers to a form of cloud computing where a firm subscribes to third-party software and receives a service that is delivered online.

Question 33

SaaS and the utility computing-style efforts differ widely in terms of the benefits and risks they offer.

Question 34

Oracle, a firm that sells commercial ERP and database products, provides Linux for free, selling high-margin Linux support contracts for as much as five hundred thousand dollars. Oracle's motivation for this lies in:

A) accelerating the shift of open source software towards a proprietary regime.
B) using open source software to fuel sales of hardware.
C) impoverishing other open source developers and furthering its own proprietary offerings.
D) using open source software to wean customers away from competitors.
E) protecting itself from the risks of distributing code while unaware of legal implications.

Question 35

Which of the following is true about cloud computing?

A) Cloud firms require their customers to move all of their software off site and onto the cloud in order to meet legal requirements demanded by US regulators and European regulators.
B) Cloud computing is not as green as traditional computing.
C) Cloud infrastructure is often located in warehouse-style buildings designed for computers, not people.
D) Cloud firms are usually crammed inside inefficiently cooled downtown high-rises.
E) Cloud computing firms often have data centers that are not designed to pool and efficiently manage computing resources.

Question 36

Firms using SaaS products can dramatically lower several costs associated with the care and feeding of their information systems.

Question 37

Just about every type of commercial product has an open source equivalent.

Question 38

All of the costs associated with the design, development, testing, implementation, documentation, training and maintenance of a software system are collectively termed as:

A) total cost of ownership.
B) economies of scale.
C) economic value added.
D) return on investment.
E) cost to company.

Question 39

Firms that adopt software as a service actually buy a system's software and hardware, so these systems become a fixed operating expense.

Question 40

Which of the following is one of the sources of revenue for open source vendors?

A) Licensing OSS for incorporation into subsequent open source products
B) Selling open source products at prices well below commercial products
C) Marketing versions of open source software masked as proprietary software
D) Claiming royalties on software based on open source code
E) Selling support and consulting services

Question 41

Firms that want significant control over the operating system and applications they put 'in the cloud' should choose an IaaS service over an SaaS offering.

Question 42

Consumerization of corporate technology stifles employee creativity.

Question 43

Many SaaS vendors have improved system customization options and integration with standard software packages.

Question 44

Vendors frequently sign _____ with their customers to ensure a guaranteed uptime and define their ability to meet demand spikes.

A) infrastructure provider contracts
B) host vendor terms
C) open source contracts
D) service level agreements
E) requests for information

Question 45

Products and services designed to target a specific industry are known as _____.

A) mature markets
B) commodities
C) vertical niches
D) parity products
E) unified markets

Question 46

What are the risks associated with software as a service?

Question 47

Define SaaS. How do firms using SaaS products lower several costs associated with their information systems?

Question 48

SaaS offerings usually work well when the bulk of computing happens at the client end of a distributed system.

Question 49

Installing a complex set of an organization's legacy systems on third-party hardware can be a brutal challenge. For that reason we can expect most cloud computing efforts to focus on:

A) new software development projects.
B) bettering the options for old software.
C) improving quality of existing code.
D) migrating to a set of robust and well-defined standards.
E) the development of large pools of in-house specially suited hardware.

Question 50

_____ is a term used to describe unpredictable, but highly impactful events.

A) Straddling
B) Viral trojans
C) Black swans
D) Power plays
E) Flash outs

Question 51

Employees, at their own initiative, can go to SocialText or Google Sites and set up a wiki, WordPress to start blogging, or subscribe to a SaaS offering like SalesForce.com, all without corporate oversight and approval. This _____ of technology is one of the challenges associated with the adoption of SaaS models.

A) crowdsourcing
B) disintermediation
C) integration
D) scalability
E) consumerization

Question 52

The term _____ describes the use of cloud computing to provide excess capacity during periods of spiking demand.

Question 53

Which of the following is one of the characteristics of using software as a service model?

A) Longer deployment times
B) Scalable systems
C) Fixed operating expenses
D) Heightened financial risk
E) Higher maintenance costs

Question 54

Cloud computing is not typically suited for situations:

A) involving offloading of expensive computing tasks.
B) where complex legacy systems have to be ported.
C) with no existing regulatory compliance issues.
D) where pricing economics favor buying over renting.
E) characterized by limited-time tasks.

Question 55

What are benefits afforded to vendors by SaaS?

Question 56

Which of the following is one of the benefits enjoyed by SaaS vendors?

A) Development across multiple platforms
B) Limits accessibility to resources by just about anybody
C) Lower distribution costs
D) Lower hardware maintenance costs
E) Faster product deployment

Question 57

In _____, clients can select their own operating systems, development environments, underlying applications like databases, or other software packages, while the cloud firm usually manages the infrastructure.

Question 58

Which of the following is true of software as a service (SaaS)?

A) Firms spend more using SaaS.
B) It refers to software that is made available by a third-party online.
C) Due to US and European legal requirements, there are no accounting and corporate finance implications for SaaS in these regions.
D) Saas firms face diseconomies of scale.
E) SaaS vendors are less attuned to customer needs.

Question 59

Cloud vendors that hosting hardware, operating system, database, and other software, which clients can then use to build their own applications, are said to be providing:

A) Software as a Service.
B) Hardware as a Service.
C) Platform as a Service.
D) Service Oriented Architecture.
E) Service Level Agreement.

Question 60

One of the risks associated with SaaS is the:

A) dependence on a single vendor.
B) inability to migrate to new versions of software.
C) reduced reliance on a network connection.
D) costs associated with storing large amounts of data in-house.
E) user interface of Web-based software being more sophisticated than desktop alternatives.

Question 61

App stores are exclusively focused on smart-phone markets.

Question 62

By lowering the cost to access powerful systems and software, barriers to entry also decrease.

Question 63

What are some of the disadvantages when comparing app-based software to browser-based services?

Question 64

A server running _____ can create smaller compartments in memory that each behave as a separate computer with its own operating system and resources.

A) private clouds
B) virtualization software
C) genetic algorithms
D) neural networks
E) open source software

Question 65

_____ allow(s) a server to run what amounts to a copy of a PC-OS, applications, and all-and simply deliver an image of what's executing to the remote device.

A) Virtual desktops
B) Cloudbursting
C) Hardware clouds
D) Vertical niches
E) Black swans

Question 66

List some of the advantages that app developers enjoy when compared with browser-based or packaged software development.

Question 67

Software automating proprietary processes considered vital to an organization's competitive advantage are often excellent candidates for running via SaaS efforts, since SaaS vendors have additional expertise on organizational functions gleaned from knowledge of working with a vast number of customers.

Question 68

App developers often lament the ______________ created within apps where data is more tightly controlled by a service provider and where firms must comply to the usage policies of the platform provided.

A) network effects.
B) SaaS revenues.
C) security vulnerabilities
D) walled garden.
E) user interface.

Question 69

Which of the following is not true about apps and the app economy?

A) App store access is limited to industrialized nations with large smartphone user populations.
B) Apps have been criticized as creating consumer switching costs vs. browser-based alternatives.
C) App stores are 'always open'.
D) Apps developed for one platform typically cannot be used on another platform.
E) Apps have been vital to the rise of several high-valued efforts, including Uber, Rovio, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Question 70

A manager should take a vendor's reputation and financial position into consideration while making an IT outsourcing decision.

Question 71

Should a firm's source or sources of competitive advantage impact its decisions to make, buy, or rent software? If no, explain why. If yes, give a reason and an example.

Question 72

Which of the following statements regarding cloud computing is true?

A) The shift to cloud computing does not alter the margin structure for many in the computing industry.
B) Cloud computing has led to decreased hardware and software sales at many firms, while increasing service expenses.
C) Cloud computing discourages innovation and therefore changes the desired skills mix and job outlook for IS workers.
D) Cloud computing has raised the barriers for entry to new entrants to the information technology markets.
E) Cloud computing has shifted power towards venture firms in those industries that had previously needed little startup capital.

Question 73

What are the factors to be considered by managers when making a make, buy, or rent decision to satisfy the IT needs of their firms?

Question 74

Virtualization is unsuitable for use on desktop applications.

Question 75

The phrase ____________ refers to a type of virtualization that allows applications to share an operating system, but it still lets resources be shuttled around from low-powered hardware to massive pools of servers if capacity spikes.

Question 76

App stores can lower distribution costs compared to packaged software alternatives.

Question 77

What is virtualization? What are the benefits afforded to firms that employ virtualization?

Question 78

Explain how cloud computing's impact across industries is proving to be broad and significant.

Question 79

Most organizations do not opt for IT configurations that are purely in-house, packaged, or SaaS models.