Death of consumers? The single most important factor of “new media” in contributing to the closing of the gap between the producers and consumers of media is the fact that the Internet provides each potential artists, journalist, filmmaker, radio or television show producer with a distribution channel with a global reach. While it is true all of the “new media” gadgets make it easier to produce content distribution is king from the point of view of the producer. The stranglehold that mainstream media had on distribution disappeared with the advent of the Internet. This does not spell the end of mainstream media but they have had to learn to partner with their consumers as some of the examples in the above paragraph demonstrated.
Another way the gap between the producer and the consumer closes with “new media” is that the choice and variety that new media provide results in the consumer being able to choose from all the information out there is cyberspace those things that better reflect their needs and desires. With “new media”, the user is the content to use McLuhan’s phrase in the sense they can control what they consume. With mass media they could only consume what the gatekeepers of information, the editors and producers of mass media, allowed them to consume. The “new media” allow the user or consumer to become the editor or producer of the content they consume from the incredible stockpile of information in cyberspace as this description of Internet use.
Consumers have increased expectations for high quality content.
According to http://2020mediafutures.ca/The+Prosumer%3A+Consumer+as+content+producer the consumer is:

* writing content for blogs, online news gathering orgs, Twitter, Facebook, self-published books;
* shooting and editing her own videos/films;
* creating, recording and producing her own music;
* shooting her own photographs
* etc.

Proliferation on user generated (prosumer) content has created competition (on the part of the attention of consumers) for professionally produced content from established content industries.Many consumers have shown that they are happy to create content and not to just passively consume content. Cultural industries will have to create compelling content to compete with the creative urge. As prosumers gain greater skills at telling stories and develop their craft, they will place more pressure on the established content creation industries. The term “prosumer” is widely used in marketing discussions these days, but no one knows what to make of it. Yet another portmanteau, prosumer is a combination of the words “professional” and “consumer.” In essence, a prosumer is someone who is especially proactive on the path to purchase, searching for information, engaging in conversations with brands, pressuring for the best deal and writing his or her own reviews. In the travel industry we see many consumers taking on these characteristics, theoretically creating a legion of engaged, informed customers. But is this always a good thing for travel brands? The answer isn’t as obvious as you’d think.
Consumers are becoming professional, if not predatory, shoppers. In Asia, we know that up to 95% of Internet users research products and that airlines and hotels are two of their favourite categories to find online. The Web has opened up a wealth of information and comparison tools to travellers. Sites like FareCompare.com enable consumers to see airfares stacked against each other; Farecast.live.com actually allows them to predict whether that fare will go up or down! If your brand is strong in the prosumer space, all this will drive engagement in mutually beneficial ways. In Australia, we’ve seen online shopping for designer brands take off as they exploit differences in cost and exchange rates to expand markets. The global financial crisis only exacerbated this trend. The cycle of endless discounting made prosumers acutely aware of how important they are to businesses, and of the bargaining power that comes with this. Prosumers expect to see brands recognizing and rewarding their patronage. Upfront gestures of goodwill (such as a complimentary drink on arrival) are preferred, but consumers are prepared to haggle. More and more, the most travel companies can expect their brand equity to deliver is the phone call to negotiate. To prosper in this dog-eat-dog world of prosumerism, we need to tailor offers more effectively, not give the product away. We need to make sure we link those offers specifically to our brands and the values we want to promote. We also need to look at how other categories leverage prosumerism to greater effect. As the social web has grown and tools like Twitter, blogs, Facebook and YouTube have allowed communications to flow faster and farther than ever before — inevitably causing the world to shrink and real-time to be the expectation — people have changed. Those changes affect most aspects of our daily lives, including our roles as individuals with buying power, and that’s a shift that businesses and their employees need to understand if they want to stay profitable in the future. In simplest terms, people have moved from being CONsumers to PROsumers with far more influence than ever before. The term “prosumer” isn’t a new one. It’s been around the marketing world for years, but in today’s world of the social web, it has taken on a new importance that business leaders and marketers can’t ignore. Rather than simply “consuming” products, people are becoming the voices of those products and significantly impacting the success or failure of companies, products, and brands, particularly through their involvement on the social web. No longer are businesses completely in control of their products, brands and messages. Today, consumers are in control. The leaders of this shift are the members of the social web — bloggers, microbloggers, forum posters, social networking participants, and so on, who spread messages, influence people around the world, and drive demand.

Prosumers are the online influencers that business leaders and marketers must not just identify but also acknowledge, respect and develop relationships with in order for their products and brands to thrive. The bottom line to connect with prosumers and to get them talking about and advocating you, your brand, products and business is to deliver content that adds value to their experiences with your brand online. Then, don’t be afraid to let them take control and spread your messages. That’s where the power of the social web and online influencers to drive word-of-mouth marketing farther than ever comes into the picture, and that’s the ultimate goal for business leaders and marketers. Prosumers present an attractive opportunity for service providers to capture consumer spending. Not surprisingly, prosumers showed significant interest in having both a personal mobile network in their home and a shared calendar that can be used to coordinate the schedules of family members, friends, and coworkers. In the personal arena, they were also interested in the ability to view home security cameras while on the move, and to watch TV programs on their mobile devices. On the professional side, they are interesting in maintaining connectivity to the corporate network while at home or on the go. In addition, to avoid carrying two phones, they want to use the same mobile tools (such as email, address books, and other unified communications features) in both professional and personal pursuits.
Prosumers are not just above-average consumers of technology—they are influencers. They have broad and deep relationships, use social media, and freely share information and opinions about the technologies they are using. As a result, their interactions open untapped markets to accelerate adoption. Courting the prosumer segment is a strategy to help miti-gate the risk of failing when entering new markets or introducing new services, helping to drive new service innovation. Prosumers also act as a conduit for migrating solutions from one domain to another. We have seen this happen before—email and smartphones, which started as business solutions, rapidly became primary means for consumers to stay in touch with friends and family. Short messaging service (SMS), instant messaging (IM), and social networking were adopted by businesses almost as quickly as they became available for personal use.
Today’s marketers face a more difficult challenge. For one thing, consumers are far more empowered and elusive than they used to be. The past decade has seen huge changes in how people shop and buy, in how they interact with companies and brands, and also in what consumers demand from their brand partners (from 24-hour customer service to corporate social responsibility). It is our conviction that the most successful brands in the future will be those that create the deepest points of engagement with the New Consumers. In order to do that, brands need to recognize the triggers that will be most successful in activating consumption and building brand loyalty. These triggers are not the same hot buttons that fired up hyperconsumers in recent decades; instead, they are connected to a more mindful approach to consumption and to the values people have begun to crave, including authenticity, purity, naturalness, simplicity, sustainability, and rootedness.
The term “Pro-sumer” first appeared in futurologist Alvin Tofflers 1980 book, “The Third Wave“. It is used to describe the merging of the producer and consumer in the “third wave” – the information age. The book accounts a history of the producer/consumer relationship during what Toffler terms the three waves – the agricultural revolution, industrial revolution and the information age – stating that the second wave divorced the producer and consumer and replaced it with a market where the majority of goods are exchanged and individuals are no longer self-sufficient. In the third wave, Toffler theorizes that the market will encounter change, where a fusing of the two previous economies will occur.
According to http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac79/docs/pov/Prosumer_Alert_102810_FINAL.pdf prosumers are disproportionately found in Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs). Thirty-five percent of prosumers classify themselves as working in very small businesses with one to five employees (see Figure 4). Only 10 percent of non-prosumers characterize themselves as working in an SMB.
This is significant to service providers for three reasons:
1. Knowing that prosumers are concentrated in SMBs allows service providers to target their messaging.
2. SPs can create new products and services that are a good fit for SMBs as well as their prosumer employees.
3. Understanding prosumers’ work environment provides greater opportunities for service providers to create better prosumer channels.

The web is fast becoming a shoppers paradise, changing not only how people buy, but how often, when, what, why and where. The web takes shopping out of the shops and in turn, that takes the shops out of shopping and brings them right into your home.
The huge stores that sell consumers discounted products, on the other hand, are producers of wealth, racking up record profits for themselves and their shareholders. Producer-thinking invests money with the idea of making money and building equity, which are the keys to wealth creation. Today, thanks to a paradigm-shattering concept called pro-sumer thinking, average people can enjoy the best of both worlds - they can produce wealth while they consume!
Global prosumers are best defined as the 25 to 28 percent of consumers who regularly make or break products and brands, or create market shifts. The prosumer thinks differently than Baby Boomers when making buying decisions--research shows it takes only a small number, approximately two to three percent of global prosumers, to create a new trend worldwide and generate the marketing buzz that can make your commercial effort a boom or a bust.

Prosumers revel in options, and want to feel they are doing the smart thing. What's smart depends on the context and the individual, but typically means being well informed, knowing what's available and checking out the opinions of others. When it comes to consumption, prosumers regard low prices as smart, unless they're trumped by better value for a higher price, where value includes elements such as customer service, design and brand. This makes the prosumer--your customer--choosy and fickle.
According to http://keysplashcreative.com/the-evolution-of-consumers-to-prosumers/ The high level steps to leveraging the power of prosumers are as follows:

1. Identify the key online influencers for your product, brand, business or industry (i.e., the prosumers).
2. Acknowledge those people (e.g., send product samples, ask opinions, etc.).
3. Join the online conversation where those people already spend time.
4. Develop relationships with those people by interacting with them, providing useful information, and being accessible and human.
5. Leverage the opportunities of the social web by creating your own branded destinations such as a blog, YouTube channel, Twitter profile, Facebook group or fan page, LinkedIn group, podcast, etc.


The old mantra of "earn a quick buck and earn a quick profit" no longer rings true. Prosumers' loyalty has more to do with a company's reputation, reliability and relationships than it does with marketing campaigns and advertising slogans.
The prosumers rise to power in the areas of pricing and customer services is a direct result of connectivity. In the area of customer service, this connectivity results in heightened expectations regarding the quality and time frame associated with customer-to-vendor contact. An instant is good; minutes are acceptable; maybe even hours, but a day just won't cut it with today's prosumers. There is also an ever-expanding trend to view shopping not merely as the satisfaction of a consumer's "needs," but also as recreation and entertainment. From this recreational prosumers viewpoint, the need to tailor and customize the offering, price and value to each consumer is even more apparent. But simply offering more choices is not the entire equation; indeed, too much choice will make your prosumer unhappy. The prosumer in the communications market is highly likely to embrace broadband and new digital services. They are likely to buy a bundle of services from one company, but are also very likely to switch from one provider to another to get the best service or offer. Incumbent as well as emerging services providers should make the prosumer a segment of high focus, due to the prosumers willingness to switch providers as well as the high average revenue per customer. To reach prosumers in the communications market and win their business, service providers need to employ a new set of customer acquisition strategies. These strategies must work to increase and enhance the buying options the prosumer receives from the service provider including, but not limited to, more service and pricing options and an added number of customer interaction options. Further, these strategies must support the fast and high quality service delivery requirements of the prosumer. To put it simply, the prosumer demands that service providers deliver an entirely new buying experience centered on customer personalization and buying convenience. To reach prosumers in the communications market and win their business, service providers need to employ a new set of customer acquisition strategies. These strategies must work to increase and enhance the buying options the prosumer receives from the service provider including, but not limited to, more service and pricing options and an added number of customer interaction options (e.g., call center, Web self-care, retail site, etc.) Further, these strategies must support the fast and high quality service delivery requirements of the prosumer. To put it simply, the prosumer demands that service providers deliver an entirely new buying experience centered on customer personalization and buying convenience.

According to http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Identifying,+knowing+%26+retaining+your+customers%3A+the+%22prosumer%22.-a0178746704, to deliver this new buying experience, a service provider should embrace five distinct offer management and customer acquisition strategies:

Creative offer management. Service providers who wish to address the prosumer segment should embrace an enterprise product catalog (ECP) strategy that weaves the product catalogs of customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), billing systems other similar operations systems into a single product catalog focused on facilitating offer and bundle design creativity as well as the rapid introduction of new service and bundle options.

Partner relationship management. The prosumer demands a service bundle with a rich mix of service options. To deliver this bundled experience, a service provider may need to integrate products and services provided by a host of business partners. For example, the launch of a broadband bundle with a new service capability based on mobile gaming technology may require the integration and synchronization of networks and ordering between a service provider and its gaming partner. This calls for service providers to employ partner relationship management systems and processes where multiple partners and supply chains can be integrated in the product development lifecycle and fulfillment lifecycle in order for a service provider to deliver the bundled experience.

Customer-centric sales experience. A prosumer's decision to select a particular service provider is dominated by intangibles and not driven by technology alone. These intangible factors, which include convenience and personalized attention, work in combination to form an overall customer experience. Further, customers are increasingly impulsive and self-centered, willing to switch providers on a whim. Service providers must employ systems and processes designed to give customers immediate attention and satisfy their quick decision making, while simultaneously delivering customer personalization. This calls for service providers to use new business models to maximize value through the customer service lifecycle.

Multichannel customer interactions. To address the customer-centricity and personalization demanded by the prosumer, service providers must expand as well as enhance their multichannel sales and support capabilities. Prosumers want access to their account and to sales anytime, anywhere, anyhow. Service providers must embrace selling through multiple channels that can be tailored to support the unique experience the prosumer expects at each channel including call center, retail site, e-commerce site and resellers.

Bundled order management. Time is of the essence to the prosumer. Bundle orders must be delivered with full awareness of the prosumers aggressive time expectations. To meet these expectations, service providers must employ an order management solution that tightly orchestrates the fulfillment of multi-level, multi-line item service orders for bundled services across multiple fulfillment points that reside inside and outside the service providers enterprise.

Prosumers represent one of the faster growing and highest value segments in today's communications market. By focusing on implementing four distinct offer management and customer acquisition strategies, a service provider can build the unique buying experience that addresses the characteristics of today's prosumer. The result will be a service provider who is able to gain a considerable share of this lucrative market segment.

Convergence is one of those overly used, and misused, words that all vendors want to have their products and services associated with, and all consumers seem to either loathe or love. In the press, it is often seems to embody all change around us as an expression of all new and trendy. There is no single definition of convergence, and different authors define convergence in different yet usually complementary ways.

Convergence is the latest trend in the business world, in particular among companies with a strong focus on research and development. When I first heard it used in this context about a year ago, I found myself neither surprised nor excited; it seemed rather obvious that when diverse things come together—whether it be biology, mathematics, policy or opinion—often unpredicted and novel outcomes will result. Yet, it gains economic significance if diverse industries—for example, a computer chip manufacturer and a biotech company—form transient collaborations to create new products that neither alone would have considered to be part of their remit. Again, different technologies come together to create new products and services. However, convergence research is more far-reaching than such established research collaborations when it links different businesses that had made a virtue of focusing on their core skills. These growing opportunities for convergence will inevitably affect academia, most notably graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Young scientists will eventually move on to non-academic work environments and are quite likely to join a team or project in which convergence, not specialization, is the norm. Not surprisingly, the training that they received at their university or research institute will very much determine their success in the job market, and PhD students and postdoctoral researchers who have focused on only one area of expertise—even if they have a long list of papers published in top journals—are likely to flounder in an environment that emphasizes interdisciplinary research. If, conversely, they have spent some time in different environments, or if they have acquired technically unrelated skills during their thesis and postdoctoral work, they will have fewer difficulties in finding a challenging and interesting job. A wider appreciation of convergence research will certainly have a considerable impact on the success and productivity of research itself, whether it is about developing a new product or about finding the answer to a vexing question in basic research. But convergence is not only cooperation at the 'technical' side of science: the perspectives and experience of experts from the social sciences and humanities are increasingly being appreciated. Their involvement is not restricted to product development, such as the design of software that matches intuitive human thought, but it also comes to the fore when analyzing further possibilities from convergence research.
As a result, the online and broadcast markets are colliding, with video services making the move to the PC environment and web-based services becoming a core element of the TV viewing experience. There are an ever-expanding number of channels available for content to be distributed over and an ever-increasing range of technologies to aid the transmission.




Without limiting the analysis to a single definition of convergence, some of the important areas involved will be briefly outlined. Notably, these different dimensions are partly overlapping adding considerably to the complexity of any attempt to categorize and define the different threads that make up the full fabric of 'convergence':
*Network convergence: Different technology segments are served by the same network architecture. For example, the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) acting as a common core network for fixed and mobile telecommunications.

*Service delivery convergence: Different services traditionally delivered on specific carriers are combined on a common IP carriers as illustrated by the increasing use of voice over IP (VoIP) technology for voice transmission on data networks.

* Service convergence: Applications and services that originate from different industry segments integrate into richer experiences independent of the underlying supporting technologies, as illustrated by convergence of broadcast radio and Internet radio.

*Terminal convergence: Refers to the integration into fewer devices (personal digital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, etc.) with many features that used to be available on individual specialized devices only (cameras, word processors, electronic games and MP3 players).

*Contents Convergence: The generation of contents become increasingly coordinated across media sectors. Transmedia consumption combines experiences from television, Internet, gaming, telephony and so on.

*User culture convergence: Subcultures of consumer in the various media sectors merge into true multimedia communities that increasingly influence the mainstream information and entertainment cultures.

*Business convergence: Denotes the multitude of new partnerships, alliances and acquisition across the old industry demarcations between, for example, telecommunications, entertainment and information technology (IT) that trigger new organizational structures, new strategic relationships and new business models.

*Digital convergence: By adding yet another dimension to the definition, convergence may also include the combining of the 3C areas of industry, as well as the music industry and has a distinct but yet dawning influence on the traditional telecommunications business.


[u]http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=FbEul4aOfmQC&pg=PR16&lpg=PR16&dq=opportunities+in+convergence&source=bl&ots=GNDUODiFVf&sig=cLpusYwxvNL9OZ2Cct-17WJFbo8&hl=tl&ei=jM0DTcOeMsnmrAePiI2RDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBzgU#v=onepage&q&f=false[/u]






Online video delivery is emerging as a true competitive threat to existing content service providers, offering the potential to extend reach to new consumer groups. Broadcasters and content owners are delivering services direct to consumers, regaining some of the control they had lost to other players across the value chain, while pay-TV providers and video rental firms are adding online video to their service mix to boost their appeal. On the flip side, consumer electronics manufacturers and pay-TV operators are adding web-based elements to their products and services. Increasing integration of web browsers into home devices, the emergence of TV widgets, and further deployment of enhanced interactive services aim to add greater value to offerings, and could act to divert consumer attention away from the PC for some basic tasks.
Telephone, radio, and television are the most widespread communication media. Radio reaches people in both the developed and developing countries. It is accessible via inexpensive receivers, and because it is sound based, it can be engage as people go about other business, such as work or commuting. Telephones are similarly extensive in their spread.
Analyst predict that sit on the eve of convergence. In this view, the disparate technologies of telephone, radio, television, computers, and data communication will all converge into a single system. The rhetoric of progress paints a glorious picture of intelligent communication and instant access of everything and everyone. The world wide web is seen as the most likely infrastructure for convergence, with entertainment video and telephone racing to adopt themselves to that context.
Like so many technocultural developments, the future holds both possibilities and dangers. Is convergence a development to be welcomed? Is there any wisdom in having several separate parallel communication media? Is there something to be gained by separating sound from image? Should artist really abandon any attempt to make inroads in the old media of radio and telephones? What new possibilities inhere in converge media? These are the questions that face the telecommunication artists of the next millennium.
New services, new technologies, new market structures, new business models, and less stringent regulations. Convergence has brought change not only in the way we live, but also in the way we think. But then, not everything is rosy about convergence. The truth, however is, the challenges have to be met. There is no run-away option.
Medium is certainly not the message. Not anymore. Today, each message can have its own virtual medium-which offers the advantages of each traditionally different medium while removing the limitation of each. The receiver now has got the capability to "customize" the medium. Till yesterday, he could only choose.
With digitalization, commonality among technologies is increasing and the specific characteristics of traditionally different media (and hence traditionally different services) are fast becoming a thing of the past. For example, broadcasting was a transient medium. Storing and retrieving was certainly not a characteristic of broadcasting. Today, that is no longer the case. The news capsule at 10.00 can be watched at 10.30. And it does not have to be stored at your end. Somebody else does that for you. Similarly, you do not have to sit with all the newspapers in the last six months for researching on something. Just go to the web site and search for the items of your interest.
There are two important identifiable trends here. One, the selection of media is no longer an either-or. It is a mix-n-match. Two, the control over the message is steadily moving from the source to the receiver.
Now, that itself is convergence for many. But then, there is much more to the word.
Convergence refers to the blurring of dividing lines among traditionally distinct products and services, technologies, markets, industries, and regulatory structures.
The choice of the phrase "blurring of dividing lines is deliberate, in preference to the more commonly used "coming together". This is because, whereas the latter is description of a definite phenomenon, which may or may not be happening, the former describes only the capability. Similarly, the choice of phrase "traditionally distinct" is to envelope all that can come under it, and not to define it in specifics like computing, telecom, entertainment, etc. Similarly, we acknowledge the fact that more words could be added to service, technology, product, market, industry, and regulatory structure. Words like say, media, which can be a physical media like cable, wireless, satellite, etc., (in which case it will come under technology in the above definition) or media as in television, press, cinema, etc., (in which case it will come under services in the definition).
However, while it is certainly more correct, a broad, holistic definition does not always clarify things to a great extent. Going in-depth to specific issues is not always possible by using an umbrella definition. Take, for example, the challenges of convergence. They are different at different levels. Different levels such as technology, market, industry, regulation, and services have their own characteristics, issues, challenges, and barriers to convergence.
One tries to approach the phenomenon of convergence from the user end . One does not claim that this approach is superior to any other. But one has to start somewhere.



While no one can deny that convergence is happening today, there is a wide gap between the perception and reality regarding the nature, extent, and pace of convergence at different levels such as infrastructure, consumer devices, markets, and regulation. For example, while more of the talks revolve around accessing Internet from cellphone or through television sets, they are not a large-scale commercial reality anywhere in the world. But a less glamorous convergence like Intelligent Networks at the carrier infrastructure level or Internet over cable (not through TV, but through cable modem and PC) are realities.
This has primarily three reasons. One, the network has to be ready for offering new services and capability before the end user can access it through fancy consumer devices with new capabilities. Two, the service providers have traditionally been in one business (telecom, broadcasting, etc.) and they want to expand the scope of that business by diversifying to other services or offering newer services. Hence, they are adopting newer technologies for the purpose. Last but not the least, selling to the service providers is more focused and the selling cycle time is lower. For consumers, it requires a lot of marketing effort.
But it has one fallout. Since, it is the operators who are the ones taking the lead in investing on converged new technologies; the technology development is taking an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary path. This is because the investment that has been made earlier has to be protected.
Interestingly, while there has been a spate of mergers and acquisitions of late, many believe that while convergence at the technology and network infrastructure is happening, it does not necessarily mean that convergence of markets would follow automatically. Nevertheless, convergence acts as a catalyst.
A major concern that follows from the impact of convergence is that monopolists-both the traditional state-owned monopolies and ambitious new market leaders-are using the convenience of technology convergence to enter to other markets, killing small companies there. Though, it is essentially a regulatory challenge, it nevertheless affects the direction in which technology moves. Some IT companies, for example, are driving the convergence, because IT is the common platform for most convergence and also because some IT companies are extremely cash rich, because of their high market value. The consumer electronics companies who understand the consumer well, have been sidelined in this game. The IT companies are trying to export the PC business model to consumer electronics and communication, resulting of course, in open standards and price drops, but at the cost of simplicity. This might be a reason why despite the new capabilities today, convergence has not really happened at the end user side. The new technology that is coming is anything but simple.
There is another drawback of IT companies leading the game. Most major IT companies are US-based and have tried to export that market model in IT and succeeded, whereas companies in other segments have to play by the local market rules. This is creating a situation where common people learn to use technology, not because they like it, but driven by fear that they might possibly lag behind.
Another danger of convergence is that the objective of business organizations is drifting away from serving the users. The Net has made it possible to create new services easily. Many companies find a niche, package communication, information, entertainment, commerce in a unique manner and float a company, with the objective of building a high paper value, keeping the stock market and not the market for their products/services in mind. Their valuation is also done with the short-term objective in mind. These companies create converged products/services that is aimed at becoming an instant hit and no more. Naturally, technology convergence takes a wrong direction.



Convergence is one of those overly used, and misused, words that all vendors want to have their products and services associated with, and all consumers seem to either loathe or love. In the press, it is often seems to embody all change around us as an expression of all new and trendy. There is no single definition of convergence, and different authors define convergence in different yet usually complementary ways.

Exercise 3 (Due on before December 6, 2010, 1pm)

Staring a business is not an easy job. Last semester we tackle in the Technopreneur 1 course on how to generate different business ideas. But, since then, I was really wandering on how to star a business and on how would this business contribute to our society. But, those questions had ended up when I saw the clip by Guy Kawasaki about how to star a business. Guy Kawasaki, founder and Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, believes that those companies who set out to make a positive change in the world are the companies that will ultimately be the most successful. He gives examples of the best way to make meaning: increase quality of life, right a wrong, and prevent the end of something good.


The purpose of improving your life is just that–improving it. A good way to tell if any of these steps are worthwhile is that you’ll feel better not only after you doing them but while you’re doing them. If you dread doing something it usually comes down to one of the following reasons:
• You’re not confident you can do it well, in which case you need to break it down to steps small enough to accomplish and start moving. If you start breaking it down only to find it’s completely out of your capacity then just let it go completely. You can only do what you can do.
• It’s not worth doing. If whatever it is doesn’t provide some innate satisfaction it may just not be worth doing. This isn’t a plug for hedonism, but the fact is that when you’re doing what’s right, generally it feels good at least at some level both while you’re doing it and after it’s done. (e.g. having the knowledge that it’s the best thing to do in the long run).
• It’s a task you find menial, repetitive, boring etc. Washing the dishes, mowing the lawn, cleaning in general, doing the budget etc. Many times these tasks can be enhanced by doing other things at the same time. Listen to an audiobook while you wash the dishes. Meditate while you mow the lawn (who says you have to be sitting with your legs crossed!) If you’ve got problems doing your budget it may be that you need to re-analyize your finances and get them in order. For these kinds of tasks it comes down to distracting yourself from the menial, automating the repetitive if possible or searching for the true root of the problem and fixing it. Life does not always have to be exciting and stimulating but there’s hardly anything worth doing that can’t be enjoyed at least to a degree.
Once you’ve eliminated dread then it’s probable that a large portion of the stress will be gone from your life. Remember that serving others and making the lives of those around you better directly contributes to your own quality of life. If you think you know about something, nothing will prove it like arguing it with someone who’s smarter or more informed than you. Find a friend you can debate with who has ideas that are different from your and who won’t be offended by debating them–this is easier said than done, but it can provide you with some of the best mental stimulation possible.
It’s healthy to raise your voice every once in awhile in a heated discussion. Debating is a way to introduce controlled tension into your life which is good for you. Arguing will spur you on to learning, it will challenge your beliefs and forcing you educate yourself.
Everyone is part of groups that dictate at least to some degree how we think. This could be your political affiliations, religion, university, career etc. To a degree it is okay to accept what these trusted sources tell you without feeling the need to prove every fact, but finding it out for yourself through research and debate will either serve to strengthen your affiliation with the group through gaining your own knowledge or help you gain the courage to distance yourself from groups you would rather not be associated with. Be passionate. Seek truth. Be willing to accept being wrong to arrive at the greater goal of knowing the truth.
If you don’t have anyone to debate with, challenge yourself mentally. Always think a step deeper. Know something? Are you sure? What caused it? What comes after that? How would someone who “knows” something different dispute what you know? Spend time with a child. If you have one, consider yourself lucky, if you don’t, I bet you have friends who would be happy to let you borrow theirs for a few minutes (or hours). It doesn’t matter what age they are, children see the world entirely different. Look at it from their eyes. Be their hero. Appreciate what they appreciate. Enjoy the simple things again. You’ll love it and they’ll love you for it.
Take the time to just do the things they want to do rather than being a teacher. With my son this would usually include one of the following:
• Playing with sticks or dirt
• Reading Comics
• Playing with kids
• Swinging at the Park
• Playing the “talking car game”
Children will help you appreciate the simple things in life. They’ll keep you on your toes with questions that you can’t even begin to answer. They’ll amaze you with the seemingly endless levels of energy they have. After spending time with a child you’ll also realize just how much of an influence you are over their moldable minds–they almost worship you. It is a humbling experience. Learn something new. Pick a topic, preferably something you know nothing about and learn something about it. A good source of inspiration for this can be the newspaper or Wikipedia. It helps to retain it if you have time to make a note of what you learned or explain it to someone else, but even if you don’t get the chance to do that, your brain will thank you for the new patterns you introduce as you learn something new every day. Learning something new daily will can:
• Help you become a better conversationalist
• Keep your brain active for learning
• Enhance your creativity
Once you’ve got new ideas rolling around in your head you will be surprised at the patterns that start forming. Connections will be made from seeming unrelated topics–that’s the stuff from which innovation comes. If you’re not doing it already, learn something new every day. Go outside. If you don’t naturally spend time outside, make it a point to do it more. There’s something about the expanse of the sky that will bring out your inner philosopher. Consider this passage from Tolstoy in War and Peace as Andrew lies on the field of battle at the point of death: …how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!..’Outside is where ‘real’ stuff happens. Read Lonesome Dove (read it outside of course) and you’ll know what I mean. If you paint, do it in plain air. If you write try writing on real paper outside. While you’re out there, count the bugs. Become a bird-watcher, catalog the plants you see. Learn the constellations. Everywhere you look outside you find things the the combined human knowledge can’t explain–so many mysteries, so much to discover. Stop broken thoughts. Broken thoughts are those subtle patterns that aren’t quite big enough to fall into the bad habits category. This means that despite their harmful effect they often escape under the radar. Broken thoughts often take the form of justifications. Examples? I’m just going to leave my dish here by the sink, I’ll wash it later (when you know your spouse will end up washing it). I’m bookmarking this article to read later (how often do you ever go back and read old bookmarked articles?). I’ll hang my shirt up later (when you know it will be there for a week before you touch it).
At first it will be hard to recognize broken thoughts since they are so ingrained into our world views–they are things we do every day and we’re so used to doing them that we don’t even recognize that they are harmful to ourselves or those around us. If you make an effort to find them soon you’ll notice broken thoughts everywhere which might be negative if weren’t so easy to fix!
Often broken thoughts are the result of procrastination–anytime you hear the word later pronounced by your inner-voice let it be a trigger that alerts you to the possibility of a broken thought. The other big one is offsetting responsibility to someone else. If you’re leaving something because someone else (your wife/husband/mom/dad/co-worker) will pick up your slack it’s a broken thought–improve their life and yours and take care of it yourself.
The great thing about these broken thoughts is that fixing them generally takes a day or two–they’re not like bad habits that can take years to cure. It’s such a good feeling to see a noticeable improvement so quickly. It keeps you on your toes and keeps your actions in sync with your values. Make it a point to do something bold every day. Step out of your comfort zone, leave the routine even if for only a second. This might mean talking to someone that you generally wouldn’t talk to or starting a project that you feel intimidated by. There is no need to plan it in advance–though that might help at times, usually though you’ll find a point during the day when ‘two paths diverge in the woods’ and you have the change to take the one less traveled by. Take it. When there is something that we aren’t accustomed to doing we naturally set up mental barriers against it to protect ourselves from the thought of doing it. It takes a bold move to act and break those barriers.
Doing something bold every day doesn’t mean changing the world, it just means making a conscious effort to do something that will get your adrenalin pumping for a second or to by changing your routine. Taking calculated risks is healthy.
If you want to track your progress (which is always good) write down the bold thing you did in your journal. It will be fun to look back after time and see what you considered bold a week, month or year ago. Get in the zone. This is also called “achieving flow.” There is a lot out there on what it means to ‘get in the zone’ or how to achieve it–it’s something you have to discover for yourself. Look for the formula that lets you ‘get in the zone’ by experimenting and once you’ve found it, apply it to your work or play every day. Not only will these be your most productive moments in life (the 20% of the time where you accomplish 80% of the results) but it will be a boost to your confidence that will alter the decisions you make elsewhere in life.
The concept of Flow was introduced by a scientist named Csikszentmihalyi. Here is a simplified list (adapted from the Wikipedia article) of the conditions that help achieve a state of flow and how you’ll know you’re in the zone. Your results may vary.
To get into the zone:
1. Have clear goals for what you want to accomplish
2. Create an environment where you can concentrate completely
3. Make sure you can get immediate feedback. You should be able to tell what is working or what isn’t so you can adjust your behavior quickly to keep in the flow.
4. The activity shouldn’t be either too easy or too hard.
5. The activity should be intrinsically rewarding.
3. Do Something Bold
Think daily. Meditate. Call it what you will but spend time each day alone with your thoughts. This surely isn’t the first time you’ve heard that advice, there’s a reason for that! Doing the other things without taking some time to reflect almost negates any benefit gained elsewhere.
When you schedule your thinking time, bring a pen, this is when your best thoughts and ideas will unfold. Things previously confusing will be clarified in your mind.
I’ve tried various ways of doing this–meditating with an ‘empty mind,’ meditating with a mantra, praying, just sitting and thinking or even lying in bed thinking. They all work to varying degrees, and it’s interesting to try different styles of thinking to see what results from each.
With the amount of entertainment with-in easy grasp (cell-phones, tv, audiobooks, radio etc.) it is so easy to constantly stay in a state of either stimulation (when learning and doing new things) or vegetation (watching tv). It’s easy to go through several days, weeks or years at a time without truly pondering life, exploring your mind and seeking for meaning. Making it a point to think daily will prevent you from losing chunks of your life to the routine and mundane. Of course there is no way to simplify every cause of stress down to one small list but you can at least eliminate most self-imposed stress and this includes stress imposed by trying to do things to improve your life. Recognize what makes you happy. Reflect on the parts of your day that bring you real satisfaction. Everyone is working towards something, but what makes you happy now? Rate your overall satisfaction with your quality of life for each day on a scale of 1 to 10, focus on the things that happened that pushed the number higher rather than what made it lower. Try to incorporate more of what made you happy yesterday into today. I think that too many people pass through the happiest times in their lives without recognizing them as such. Live in the moment–savor the things that bring you true satisfaction. If you’re in school focus on the opportunity you have to spend every day learning and improving yourself rather than on how hard it is to have so much homework and so little free time. If you’re starting your career relish the opportunity you have to shape your path rather than focusing on how good it will be once you have a raise or a better position. Taking time each day to rate it will help you realize either that you’re already living a pretty happy life or it will help you recognize the specific things you can do to improve your life by incorporating more of what brings you real and immediate satisfaction into each day. Take small steps that will lead towards longer term improvements.
To sum it up, the very essential of a Technopreneur is to make meaning. But how? Make meaning is to make money but if you think that making money is also making meaning, then your only purpose is to make your self more richer everyday and you are not thinking of what you can contribute to your community. Above all, individuals must do our very best not only for the good of our self but for the good of all and we must contribute to development of our community.

case study 3

Name: Willy T. Pedroso
Section: BSIT-3
Case Study #: 3

In a multiprogramming and time-sharing environment, several users share the system simultaneously. This situation can result in various security problems. Name at least two of these problems. Can we ensure the same degree of security in a time-share machine as we have in a dedicated machine? Explain your answer.
Security problems that can possibly be happen when several users share the same system simultaneously is the stealing or copying one’s programs or data; using system resources (CPU, memory, disk space, peripherals) without proper accounting. One user can copy another user's program / memory space. This could be very detrimental if, for example, an administrator was running a decryption protocol, and another user stole the decryption program and/or key.

Multiprogramming is a rudimentary form of parallel processing in which several programs are run at the same time on a uniprocessor. Since there is only one processor, there can be no true simultaneous execution of different programs. Instead, the operating system executes part of one program, then part of another, and so on. To the user it appears that all programs are executing at the same time.
If the machine has the capability of causing an interrupt after a specified time interval, then the operating system will execute each program for a given length of time, regain control, and then execute another program for a given length of time, and so on. In the absence of this mechanism, the operating system has no choice but to begin to execute a program with the expectation, but not the certainty, that the program will eventually return control to the operating system.
If the machine has the capability of protecting memory, then a bug in one program is less likely to interfere with the execution of other programs. In a system without memory protection, one program can change the contents of storage assigned to other programs or even the storage assigned to the operating system. The resulting system crashes are not only disruptive, they may be very difficult to debug since it may not be obvious which of several programs is at fault.
In time-sharing systems, the running task is required to relinquish the CPU, either voluntarily or by an external event such as a hardware interrupt. Time sharing systems are designed to allow several programs to execute apparently simultaneously. The expression 'time sharing' was usually used to designate computers shared by interactive users at terminals, such as IBM's TSO, and VM/CMS.
The term time-sharing is no longer commonly used, having been replaced by simply multitasking, and by the advent of personal computers and workstations rather than shared interactive systems.
Multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for that task. Multitasking solves the problem by scheduling which task may be the one running at any given time, and when another waiting task gets a turn.
Probably, we cannot insure ensure the same degree of security in a time-share machine as we have in a dedicated machine since any protection scheme devised by humans can inevitably be broken by a human, and the more complex the scheme, the more difficult it is to feel confident of its correct implementation. Resource usage may not be completely controlled, and could cause deadlock for certain users. For example, if user A had resource 1 and was waiting for resource 2, and user B had resource 2 and was waiting for resource 1, deadlock would occur and neither user would be able to make progress in their program, no matter how many time slots they were allocated.

case study 2

Name: Willy T. Pedroso
Section: BSIT-3
Case Study #: 2

Put forward a theory about how that person might use a hand held computer in their work
• A delivery person for a courier service
Service technicians can quickly record items repaired, products sold, payments collected, and customer signatures on their handheld unit. This not only eliminates the need to manually enter route tickets on the desktop but also dramatically reduces check-in time at the end of the day.
With handheld computers, all the mathematical and sales tax calculations are done automatically, so these types of errors are virtually eliminated.
Because information is updated on the handheld daily, the unit can function as a valuable reference tool while servicing your customers. Messages can be created by the office and downloaded to the handheld for each service technician. These special instructions are available at the touch of a button, thus eliminating printing messages and excess phone calls. Likewise, most handheld computers have the ability to store handwritten notes, so the technician can write a note for the office. Additionally, the driver will have access to customer delivery and payment history.
A typical day in the life of a service person is to start by downloading data from the host (desktop) system to the handheld. This takes about a couple of minutes. Before leaving the yard, inventory is counted, the load verified and then the driver heads out on route.
On route, the first stop is shown on the screen and the field person can determine what’s required. Once the work is done, it’s quickly recorded into the handheld, a signature is captured, and the customer gets a receipt on the spot. If a payment is collected, it’s also entered -- even credit card data.
As stops are completed, the data for each are being safely stored on a data card that can be removed if anything happens. Unplanned customers can be quickly serviced as the system holds as much data as is required. At the end of the day, the route is balanced out and inventory again counted. Data are uploaded and the employee finishes a half-hour earlier than he did without a handheld.

• A doctor (general practitioner)
Physicians are more likely to adopt handheld devices in settings where computer use is more prevalent and that have established IT support. The health care organizations could encourage staff to use handheld devices by providing training as well as on-going user support (such as a help desk). Other
ways suggested to promote use included databases formatted for the screens and interfaces of handheld devices and options to access point-of-care information from a variety of locations.
Doctors seem to expect handheld computers to become increasingly useful, if not ubiquitous. Organisations can help doctors leverage the use of devices in several ways. Firstly, they can develop applications to facilitate the downloading of material otherwise available on paper, such as databases, drug formularies, and schedule information, but organisations must ensure that these resources are accurate or they will be promptly abandoned. Secondly, organisations can provide advice, training, and user support and create opportunities for doctors to learn from each other. Finally, they can develop options for mobile access to essential point of care information that can be used on handheld computers.
The use of handheld computers varies widely in clinical practice. Clinicians use administrative functions for the development and sharing of lists and databases to keep track of drug formularies, call schedules, and contact details. Specific applications allow patients to be tracked and clinical results to be monitored. The use of administrative functions linked to clinical activities is expanding, with applications such as electronic prescribing and coding attracting attention because of their potential to increase doctors' productivity.
Developing strategies to accommodate handheld computers in clinical practice may be advantageous for both institutions and doctors, especially when the devices are used to access clinical information systems, promoting both enhanced safety and improved time efficiency for doctors. When the expected benefits of electronic health records and other electronic applications largely depend on doctors' use of technology, strategies to promote use of such technologies are critical. For many doctors, handheld computers are emerging as a key means to develop familiarity with and to access electronic clinical information. These devices thus may serve as a technology stepping stone for doctors as they face new health initiatives.

Exercise 2 (Due on before November 30, 2010, 1pm) Sun Nov 21, 2010 9:57 pm

Gaining wisdom within one of your passions can become a 24/7/365 adventure. Look at some things on your list to see if combining them would make someone's life more convenient. There will be challenges, but your dreams are a promise that your efforts can help create. That is why passion to pursue this business idea is so important, it can provide the determination to keep going during difficult times. Starting and running a successful small business isn’t easy. Sure, the scam artists out there (and there are thousands) want you to believe you can make money without the blink of an eye. It’s hard work. But you’re absolutely up for it. This is your vision and some honest elbow grease is a small price to pay for reaching your lifelong dream. You know that – and you’re up for it.
Have you ever surprised yourself by accomplishing something you didn’t think you could? Maybe the success was the outcome of sheer effort. Or did it almost seem effortless – like you were guided to success by an invisible coach who calmed all of your fears and doubts and allowed you to focus on the one thing that mattered…your success.
What we’re trying to say is that if you’re passionate about your small business ideas, there’s very little that can stand in your way. It’s the passion you have for your business that will help you conquer your fears and finally start the business you always wanted.
But yet, something has kept you held back…
Maybe it’s a fear of failure. The fear of not succeeding has simply paralyzed you. A lack of confidence has “frozen” any chance of your getting started.
Or maybe it’s a lack of capital. Not having enough money to fund a startup or sustain one’s family during the beginning phases of the business are concerns that keep many of us locked behind our desk in a nine-to-five grind. Or worse.
Or maybe you just don’t know where to start – you have limited business ideas. Believe it or not, many potential business owners never get started because they have trouble coming up with small business ideas. They lack that special creative spark that ignites the entrepreneurial flame.

Making ideas is one of the many things to make a successful business in the future that would surely earn big income and would boost and enhance my skills in producing and building a successful idea in the field of technopreneurship. I am also concern on how that business idea would work and be successful in the coming future. Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one and so is the business. I also look forward the risk in making his business idea when it will be implemented. It makes me curious on how this business idea would help me as a student in the field of my expertise.
Small businesses are everywhere, but only a few actually have made it to the top. Obviously, if you are like me, you look at a business as a sizable investment because no matter how small it is, there is still a start-up cost to pay. In this day and age, people are looking to save as much money as they can. Unfortunately, the economy isn’t what it used to be and people have had to adjust. But yet, even in these hectic times, time is till moving forward, and everyone is looking to become an entrepreneur. There are a lot of great business ideas out there. These ideas will all sound tangible and easy to implement, which can fool many people. They will sound bulletproof, and if you can find willing investors, these businesses will be funded. They might sound excellent, as if the business would be invincible, but without a contingency plan, it will eventually crumble. This usually happens to small start-up businesses and businesses that are set-up without analyzing their target market, their capital, and the like.
You have powerful points of wisdom within that when expressed could be your authentic edge in the marketplace. That wisdom represents better business ideas than anything your conscious mind realizes.
We talk a lot about authentic expression in terms of standing up for what’s important and in terms of life purpose but I don’t think we talk enough about our inner wisdom and how to extract it. When you decide to express your well-earned inner wisdom you set yourself apart in remarkable ways. It’s your wisdom and no one else can express and exploit it like you can. Your best idea is waiting just below the surface, buried under your lack of willingness to dig and your fears. How about instead of waiting for true calling epiphanies you take a look at how to dig deep and extract your own inner wisdom?
An idea came out into my mind which I think a good investment interms of growing a business. I choose a business that engages with books since I am a book lover and I love to read books. In the present time, many people especially students need a medium in gaining information and entertainment, the books. I've always wanted to have a bookstore, and having one online is so much easier than a bricks and mortar store. However, there are pros and cons in making this business idea. If I will to put a business having enough money as a start-up capital. It is not just an ordinary business taht sells books because it has its differences from the other book related businesses. The smartest move that you can make is to carefully map out an effective career-change strategy. A catch phrase is like bait – it hooks the target clients that they would want to read the whole of your message in your brochure, catalog, print postcards, and even in your bookmarks or hang tags, websites or blogs. And just like any other business, your business needs all the help it can get to be attractive and appealing to your target clients.
I call this business as “The BookRoom”. This business offered many features. This business has been design to fill a niche that exists in the market place. I will compile business plans rapidly and efficiently, at a fraction of our competitors' prices, whilst maintaining the highest levels of quality and client service at all times.
The key to success once your own business is started is to keep learning. Cultivate your natural abilities and grow with them. Many small businesses have been doomed from the start because of false hopes. Those of you who already operate going firms have avoided wishful thinking in other business areas. You need to avoid it where innovation is concerned, too. The success of this business will be directly influenced by my dedication to continually improving the quality and service in every aspect of the business operation. To multiply small successes is precisely to build one treasure after another. In time one becomes rich without realizing how it has come about. This business is not just through internet but also through personal interaction with the customers which I believe the best way to offer my featured products which are the books. The business offers different kinds of books both new and old books(used books). I would also pursue buy and sell. Example, buy old books which are often use and sell them to other people through online or through face to face. Making Blogs or designing a website for selling the books is one way of selling the books online. The website offers different function such as searching books that are offered and are useful to the website visitors and clients or searching related books that can be use by the customer. Displaying the content of a certain offered book on the website is one of the best way in satisfying a customer who wants to buy a book. The business also offers not just the featured books on my website but they can also contact me in searching book I do not offer in my site but I can search and buy it and sell it to them in a good price. But before buying the book, they need to pay a total of 50 percent of the total price which includes the charges.
The challenges in the 21st century are the greatest signal to technology developers regarding what new technologies to come up with. For example, the ever increasing climate change worries can be seen as entry points by some technology developers from all sectors to develop environment friendly products. The market potential for cheap, accessible, and renewable energy is a great opportunity for engineers and scientists. The same goes to developers of electronic items that consume the least energy while achieving the same amount if not more work with today’s existing electronic items. There is also a great potential to discover long lasting batteries that do not pose environmental threat during disposal. It cannot be argued that the niche for environment-friendly new technology is here to say. The smartest small business ideas are one that take the current market conditions into consideration, as well as projections on how the market will continue to grow. These days there are fewer investments as lucrative and safe as starting a small business that focuses on new technologies.
The information and communication technology niche will still remain in the forefront of all potential technology-based business startups. Still in line with going green, the next technology-based business that could develop further the existing networking technology and provide ways closer to a paperless office. As specific example, there is a great potential for profit for the next IT business to develop a Web-based spreadsheet that does more than storing text and performing simple calculation. The Internet security business, too, is seeing no letup in demand as more and more business operations are now done online. Of course, technologies that ensure human survival as in food and health security will never go out of demand. There is always a demand for new ways of growing and producing safe food products that could feed an increasing population. Technology-based businesses that develop hospital gadgets like new diagnostic equipment or even patient data processing and storage will always have a sure market.
New ideas in security technology should also have a good share in the market as people and businesses are constantly looking for new ways to secure their properties and even their lives. In the 21st century where physical security is becoming a necessity, technology-based businesses focused on discovering new ways to secure lives and properties from natural as well as man-made disasters should see a good demand for their products or services.
There are many ways to get involved with a technology driven small business. You could start a consulting firm that would keep up on the latest technology and help other small businesses incorporate the newest products and concepts into their own business plans. You can buy and re-sell new technology products. You could also train new comers on the latest computer programs.
Just like there are many ways to get involved, there are many different types of technology as well. One of the most lucrative is alternative energy technology. People are beginning to realize the impact that our fuel consumption has on the environment and are increasingly interested in finding alternatives to traditional fuels.
Another option is focusing on gaming technology. You've probably seen news stories of the long lines outside of retail stores the day the newest game console comes out. Finding a wholesaler to sell you these products at a low price, and then turning around and selling them for a huge profit, is a great way to start a small business.
No matter which route you choose, the key to these smartest small business ideas is to keep an eye on the trends in the market. Learn from other's mistakes - and their achievements - and you'll be well on your way to success.

University of Southeastern Philippines

Institute of Computing

OPERATING SYSTEMS

Second Semester – SY 2010-2011

Name: Willy T. Pedroso

Section: BSIT-3

Case Study #: 1

Give an example OS (Specific) for each of the following categories of OS:

· Batch Systems

z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for mainframe computers, produced by IBM. It is the successor to OS/390, which in turn followed a string ofMVS versions^{[NB 1]} and combined a number of formerly separate, related products. z/OS offers the attributes of modern operating systems but also retains much of the functionality originating in the 1960s and each subsequent decade that is still found in daily use. (Extreme backward compatibility is one of z/OS's central design philosophies.) It is derived from OS/390 and was introduced in October, 2000.

z/OS supports staple mainframe technologies such as CICS, IMS, DB2, RACF, SNA, WebSphere MQ, record-oriented data access methods,REXX, CLIST, SMP/E, JCL, TSO/E, and ISPF. However, z/OS also supports 64-bit Java, C/C++, and UNIX (Single UNIX Specification) APIs and applications — The Open Group certifies z/OS as a compliant UNIX operating system — with UNIX/Linux-style hierarchical HFS (not to be confused with the Macintosh HFS) and zFS file systems. As a result, z/OS hosts a broad range of commercial and open source software.^[2]z/OS can communicate directly via TCP/IP, including IPv6, and includes standard HTTP servers (one from Lotus, the other Apache-derived) along with other common services such as FTP, NFS, and CIFS/SMB. Another central design philosophy is support for extremely high quality of service (QoS), even within a single operating system instance, although z/OS has built-in support for Parallel Sysplex clustering.

· Interactive Systems

Sixth Edition Unix, also called Version 6 Unix or just V6, was the first version of the Unix operating system to see wide release outside Bell Labs. It was released in May 1975 and, like its direct predecessor, targeted the DEC PDP-11 family of minicomputers.

Bell Labs developed several variants of V6, including the stripped-down MINI-UNIX for low-end PDP-11 models, LSI-UNIX or LSX for the LSI-11, and the real-time operating systemUNIX/RT, which merged V6 Unix and the earlier MERT hypervisor.

An enhanced V6 was the basis of the first ever commercially sold Unix version, INTERACTIVE's IS/1. Bell's own PWB/UNIX 1.0 was also based on V6, where earlier (unreleased) versions were based on V4 and V5. Whitesmiths produced and marketed a (binary-compatible) V6 clone under the name Idris.

· Real-time systems

RTLinux or RTCore is a hard realtime RTOS microkernel that runs the entire Linux operating system as a fully preemptive process.

It was developed by Victor Yodaiken (Yodaiken 1999), Michael Barabanov (Barabanov 1996), Cort Dougan and others at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and then as a commercial product at FSMLabs. Wind River Systems acquired FSMLabs embedded technology in February 2007 and now makes a version available as Wind River Real-Time Core for Wind River Linux.

RTLinux was based on a lightweight virtual machine where the Linux "guest" was given a virtualized interrupt controller and timer - and all other hardware access was direct. From the point of view of the real-time "host", the Linux kernel is a thread. Interrupts needed for deterministic processing are processed by the real-time core, while other interrupts are forwarded to Linux, which runs at a lower priority than realtime threads. Linux drivers handle almost all I/O. First-In-First-Out pipes (FIFOs) or shared memory can be used to share data between the operating system and RTCore.

· Hybrid Systems

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement consumer versions of Windows that were based on MS-DOS. NT was the first fully 32-bit version of Windows, whereas its consumer-oriented counterparts, Windows 3.1x and Windows 9x, were 16-bit/32-bit hybrids. Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Home Server, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 are based on Windows NT, although they are not branded as Windows NT.

Although various Microsoft publications, including a 1998 question-and-answer session with Bill Gates, reveal that the letters 'NT' were expanded to 'New Technology' for marketing purposes, they originally stood for "N-Ten," the codename of the Intel i860 XR processor for which NT was initially developed. However, they no longer carry any specific meaning.

· Embedded Systems

Windows CE (also known officially as Windows Embedded Compact or Windows Embedded CE post version 6.0 , and sometimes abbreviated Wince) is an operating system developed by Microsoft for minimalistic computers and embedded systems. Windows CE is a distinct operating system and kernel, rather than a trimmed-down version of desktop Windows.^[5] It is not to be confused with Windows XP Embedded which is NT-based.

Microsoft licenses Windows CE to OEMs and device makers. The OEMs and device makers can modify and create their own user interfaces and experiences, while Windows CE provides the technical foundation to do so.

Windows CE is supported on Intel x86 and compatibles, MIPS, ARM, and Hitachi SuperH processors.