Deck 11: Software in Flux: Partly Cloudy and Sometimes Free

Question 1

Which of the following was an outdated notion regarding open source software and has been shown to be inaccurate?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

Answer 1

E

Question 2

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.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

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.

Answer 3

E

Question 4

_____ is the flagship open source product.

Question 5

Which of the following is one of the reasons why firms choose open source products over commercial alternatives?

A) Higher cost-to-maintenance ratio of OSS products
B) Better security features of OSS products
C) Greater number of customers who use OSS products
D) Non-scalability of OSS products
E) Reduced reliability of commercial products

Question 6

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

Question 7

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

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

Question 8

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 9

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

Question 10

Studies have shown that the quality of popular proprietary commercial products outperforms open source software competitors.

Question 11

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

Question 12

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

Question 13

_____ 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 14

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

Question 15

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 16

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

Question 17

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 18

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

Question 19

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

Question 20

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 21

Migrating from commercial database products to MySQL's open source alternative is relatively easy because:

A) MySQL offers technical superiority over commercial products.
B) they are based on the same standard.
C) MySQL adoption presents greater cost-saving for users.
D) MySQL offers greater security features that are absent in the other products.
E) they have high switching costs compared to MySQL.

Question 22

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

Question 23

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

Question 24

Hardware clouds are pools of computing resources that reside inside an organization and that can be served up for specific tasks as need arrives.

Question 25

_____ and ____ are some of the commercial equivalents of SugarCRM and Asterix respectively.

A) Sharepoint; Firefox
B) Salesforce.com; Cisco
C) Photoshop; Documentum
D) Microsoft Office; Internet Explorer
E) Flextrade; Outlook

Question 26

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

Question 27

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 28

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 29

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 30

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 31

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 32

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 33

Many firms are trying to use OSS markets to drive a wedge between competitors and their customers.

Question 34

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.

Question 35

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 36

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 37

_____ is a language used to create and manipulate databases.

A) Java
B) Perl
C) Ajax
D) Python
E) SQL

Question 38

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

Question 39

Firms pay for the otherwise free MySQL software for the right to incorporate MySQL's code into their own products.

Question 40

Migrating from a commercial product to MySQL's open source alternative is relatively complex, as most commercial database products are based on diverse standards and the switching costs are rather high.

Question 41

Some of the SaaS firms are backed by leading enterprise software executives such as founders of Oracle and Peoplesoft.

Question 42

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

Question 43

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

Question 44

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 45

What are benefits afforded to vendors by SaaS?

Question 46

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 47

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 48

Which of the following is true about cloud computing?

A) Cloud firms often have wasteful excess capacity to account for service spikes.
B) Cloud computing is not as green as traditional computing.
C) Cloud firms are 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 49

_____ refer to pools of computing resources that reside inside an organization and that can be served up for specific tasks as need arrives.

Question 50

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 51

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

Question 52

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

Question 53

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

Question 54

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 55

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) There are no accounting and corporate finance implications for SaaS.
D) Saas firms face diseconomies of scale.
E) SaaS vendors are less attuned to customer needs.

Question 56

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

Question 57

For large enterprises, the cost to license, install, and configure products like ERP and CRM systems are usually a one-time fee running into approximately one million dollars.

Question 58

Utility computing refers to:

A) technology that can make a single computer behave like many separate computers.
B) pools of computing resources that reside inside an organization and that can be served up for specific tasks as need arrives.
C) a firm developing its own software, and then running it over the Internet on a service provider's computers.
D) the use of cloud computing to provide excess capacity during periods of spiking demand.
E) a form of cloud computing where a firm subscribes to third-party software and receives a service that is delivered online.

Question 59

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 60

Consumerization of corporate technology stifles employee creativity.

Question 61

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

Question 62

Installing a complex set of 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 63

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

Question 64

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

Question 65

For organizations with high-volume, low-maintenance systems, it makes sense to rent hardware clouds rather than buying their own systems.

Question 66

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 brought about a drop in hardware and software sales, while augmenting service revenues.
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 67

_____ provide the infrastructure backbone to SaaS and hardware cloud efforts, as well as many large-scale Internet services.

A) Private clouds
B) Data warehouses
C) Server farms
D) Neural networks
E) Content delivery networks

Question 68

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

Question 69

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 70

Cloud computing is not 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 71

_____ 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 72

_____ 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 73

Virtualization is unsuitable for use on desktop applications.

Question 74

Installing a complex set of systems on third party hardware can be just about impossible in many cases.

Question 75

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 76

What are the risks associated with software as a service?

Question 77

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

Question 78

_____ is a cloud computing model in which a service provider makes computing resources such as hardware and storage, along with infrastructure management, available to a customer on an as-needed basis.

A) Public cloud
B) Wide area network
C) Hosted software vendor
D) Hardware cloud
E) Virtualization network

Question 79

Which of the following is necessary for the operation of server farms?

A) DSL Internet connections
B) Cold climate
C) Premium electric power prices
D) Large maintenance workforce
E) Cheap land

Question 80

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