The article North Bridge Woos Jim Moran as Newest Venture Capitalist by Scott Denne, talked about how companies cut costs in response to the recession. Amongst these cost-cutting strategies is the virtualization of many traditional software including the use of Voice over IP to cut telephone service costs.

Jim Moran was recently invited to be a partner of the company called North Bridge Venture Partners. This happened when Moran introduced the use of a voice over internet software to a failing company. This resulted in a twenty-two point eight million dollar sale to ACME Packet Incorporated. He then accepted the invitation to become a partner of North Bridge Ventures soon after the sale.

Moran stated that when the recession hit, it made many companies look into less-costly programs to use. He further stated that if a business, however big or small it is, cannot cut the costs of a potential client or customer, they probably will look elsewhere for the same service.

The trick is to stay in front of the competition by using innovative technologies such as voice over IP to cut overhead costs which ultimately lowers the price for future clients. This topic is related to networks, telecommunications, and mobile technology by showing the low-cost advantages of trying out a new software. Voice over IP software such as Skype provides many features that businesses can take advantage of at a very low price and at the condition of today’s economy, many companies should and probably will be taking advantage of such technologies in order to stay in business.

Denne, S. (2009, August 20). North Bridge Woos Jim Moran As Newest Venture Capitalist. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2009/08/20/north-bridge-woos-jim-moran-as-newest-venture-capitalist/?mod=relevancy

The article by Ben Worthen talks about a company that has built two new data centers and is currently refurbishing two old data centers in order to hold all of their information in the future. The company, Emerson Electric, Co. built the new data centers that serve as huge warehouses filled with computer equipment that power its corporate networks to hold its current 1.5 petabytes of information. (The article states that a petabyte is a million billion bytes.) Emerson Electric decided to build these warehouses after its previous data warehouse contracts were coming to an end. The company decided to try and predict how much data it would have in twenty years but stated that being able to predict information technology in five years yet alone how data would be handled would be an astounding accomplishment. Furthermore, the article stated that there is no way to tell how companies would be handling data in the future; the cost of storing data may be close to zero dollars a big comparison to today’s price in storing data which includes a huge amount real estate cost.

This article is related to this week’s topic because it gives an example of the steps a company is using to store its data in several giant data warehouses. The article does not state whether or not the company will be using data marts to further organize its huge amount of information, but it may be a good idea to do so. However, the company does have a procedure to have some centralized control by putting together an IT plan that looks five years into the future. The company does this by using a system called Oracle ERP.

Worthen, B. (2009, October 11). So much information, so little time. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360451597318552.html?mod=relevancy.

The article by Walzer named A Small-Business Guide to Disaster Recovery tries to convince small business owners to implement a disaster recovery plan in case of emergencies and explains how to make one. It states that every business should have a thorough disaster recovery plan but because of the cost and time it takes to have one, most businesses decide to skip this crucial step in running a business effectively. It further states that all businesses should at least have a few important parts of a plan rather than having nothing at all.

Walzer gives example of a company, Golden Box, a custom packaging provider for businesses in the tri-state area, that was able to immediately continue business after a disaster happened. The CEO stated that by having a safety net put into place in the form of a disaster recovery plan, Golden Box was able to continue running effectively.

After explaining why a business should have a disaster recovery plan, Walzer goes into detail about the most important thing a plan protects: the business’ data. Without its important data, a business can not hope to continue running after a disaster happens. During class, it was stated that approximately 65% of businesses that held its backup and recovery systems in the World Trade Center failed after 9/11. If those businesses had foreseen or planned for the worse to happen to their backup systems, most would probably still be running.

Having a back up plan for your back up plan is probably a good thing for businesses to have. The whole point of having a disaster recovery plan is to plan for the worse thing that can happen so if and when it does happen, your business will be able to continue running.

In my personal experience, having multiple back ups placed in different off-site locations has helped the firm I’ve worked for. A few years ago, a burglary happened where the thief stole all computers and monitors. If the information was actually on those computers, our accounting office would be in huge trouble. But because we planned on something like this occurring, all information was stored on a hidden server that was backed up and taken to an off-site location. We were able to recover the data from the back up and resume business as normal within the next week.

An important concept all businesses should remember is equipment can always be replaced, but the data the company owns, if lost, can be virtually impossible to replace. That is why it is crucial to have a disaster recovery plan to protect what is potentially the most important asset to your business, data.

Walzer, J. (September 2009) . A Small-Business Guide to Disaster Recovery. The New York Times. Retrieved September 22, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/business/smallbusiness /10disaster.html?_r=1&sq=disaster%20recovery%20plan&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1254290949-S2YVmxMMURbk+BqrccYnCQ.

This article talked about how president Obama is expected to have a hard time passing legislation of a CEO wage limit. That brings up two questions: should CEOs be paying themselves massive amounts of money even though their business may be going under? And should the government use its power to limit the amount of pay that CEOs give themselves? The book states that ethics are the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people. The article brings up the fact that only one generation ago CEOs were making anywhere from 15 to 20 times the salary of the average worker, however now CEOs make 300 to 400 times the salary of the average worker. I believe that a CEOs main job is to drive their company in the right direction by keeping its workers compensated well and keeping their stockholders profitable. Even though many people believe the CEO of a company to be the most important job of the company, this belief in no way justifies the massive amounts of money and bonuses they get. Most people believe that is not ethical to give yourself massive bonuses or pay raises if the company you work for is struggling to keep its workers employed. I believe it is ethical to limit CEO yearly salary to $500,000 because they don’t really need to have their children at the best private school or live in giant mansions. Although occasionally it may be necessary to downsize a business to remain profitable, businesses should never cut labor to increase CEO pay or bonuses.

Connor, Michael (2009, February 2). Controlling CEO Pay Won’t Be Easy. Business Ethics. Retrieved September 22, 2009 from http://www.business-ethics.com/node/112.

The concept of web 3.0 and all of its predicted uses and functions is very interesting. The web 3.0 is a “semantic web” which means that instead of having to access many different web sites to get information, the web 3.0 browser will search the internet and list a few logical results for you. This idea alone is a great concept and would make using the internet much easier for people who may not know how to use computers well.

Furthermore, many people say that the web 3.0 will also have some sort of artificial intelligence technology integrated in it. The browser will not only remember the information the user searches for but will also recommend similar information for future use.

For example, if a person wanted to plan a trip to Florida and go to Disney World he or she would have to go to three different websites. (1) An airline website for the airplane tickets, (2) a hotel website to make over night reservations, and (3) a website that sells Disney World tickets. He or she would also need to find transportation for the trip. The web 3.0 browser would simplify the search by taking a simple input such as “I want to fly to Florida and visit Disney world” and listing plane tickets, hotels, Disney World ticket prices, and rental car prices.

Web 3.0′s additional feature of making guesses based on what it thinks the user would also be interested in makes this version of the web even more valuable. For example, if a person types “I want to visit New York and see the Empire State Building” the browser would list plane tickets starting with the airline you chose for your last trip, the hotel company you chose for your last trip, and the type of car you chose for your last trip (SUV, mid-sized, luxury, etc.) Web 3.0 is only one amongst many companies that are trying to develop this advanced technology and is only one of the many examples of future technology.

Metz, Cade (2007, March 14). Web 3.0. PC Mag.com. Retrieved September 22, 2009 from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2102852,00.asp.

This article was about the morals of artificial intelligence. So far scientists have not found a way to create morals for robots. This has lead many people to tell stories of how the future will be run by evil robots and such. One scientist, however, has come up with a mathematic algorithm to have a robot form ethics based on what the program has shown. The program would compare both outcomes and come up with a moral weight for itself. It would then find which moral weight was lower and would take steps to achieve that outcome.

The example used in the article is the situation of five people being tied down to a railroad track and a speeding train is heading towards them. The robot would have the option to pull a lever which would shift the train to a parallel track which has only one person tied to the track.

In my opinion, the only problem with this is situation is that a scientist has to create this program himself, with human error, so in the end the robot will have the morals and biases of whoever creates the program. For example if the scientist who is making the program deems the president’s life as more valuable than a thousand average people’s lives then the robot may take action in a way that may not be moral depending on a person’s point of view.

The idea of robots getting a program to modify their actions in a more moral fashion is a good one because it would not only open people up to the idea of having robots help them in everyday life. But one must keep in mind that this area of morality and ethics and having a machine conduct this sort of reasoning raises many more issues.

Inderscience (2009, August 26). Moral Machines? New Approach To Decision Making Based On Computational Logic. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 17, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090825103229.htm

What is the first thing you think of when you hear a business having a competitive advantage? The first thing I think of is the “dollar menu”. The dollar menu was first introduced by McDonalds and after several years of successful sales other fast food chains have attempted to copy their idea. The idea of the dollar menu is great for big business and for the average consumer, however when it is taken from the perspective of a franchisee it can be a very unprofitable part of their business.
The idea behind the dollar menu is that when a consumer goes to a fast food chain such as McDonalds they will buy one of the larger menu items and also purchase one of the smaller dollar menu items on the side, however since the recession, many consumers’ spending money has greatly decreased and many fast food chains are seeing people come in and only purchase items from the dollar menu. This puts a large strain on fast food franchisees because the profit margin on some of these items are slim to none.
For example, the extremely popular “Mcdouble” from McDonalds is one of the franchise’s top sellers. Unfortunately after food, packaging, and utility costs the profit margin for each of these burgers sold comes out to a measly 6 cents per hamburger. These dollar menus were once a competitive advantage for fast food chains such as McDonalds or Wendys, however now that almost every major fast food chain has a dollar menu of some sort, it has ended up being just another cheap option for consumers to jump at. I know as a college student struggling to keep her head above water that every penny counts and dollar menus are a competitive advantage that are very helpful to me.

Ransom, D. (May 21, 2009). Can They Really Make Money Off the Dollar Menu. Retrieved August 26, 2009, from The Wall Street Journal: Franchising Web Site: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124292373005243859.html