Introduction


Before moving on to the core of the assignment I firmly believe that there are certain things to explain first, for it would be – not useless, but a real waste if we went on without explaining these terms. So please bear with us for a while as it will certainly help you during your journey as you move further along this blog. So without wasting any more of your time let’s get started.

Software Engineering

As you can see this term consists of 2 distinct words : Software and Engineering. So what is Software and what’s Engineering?

Software

In very simple words, software is defined as computer applications and associated documentation. It refers to the intangible parts of the computer system and is the interface that links the end user to the hardware. For non IT people consider the following case. Say that you have a car and you are the driver. In this case the car is the hardware and you are the end user. So where’s the software? We can say that it is your ACTIONS i.e. what you do is what will drive the car. Similarly, keeping this in mind, software is what will drive the hardware and make it react to the end user.

Engineering : Is a discipline that completely englobes and deals with a particular object in practice.

Software Engineering : Can be defined as a discipline that deals with all aspects of software production - from its design to its implemetation stage.


Monday, October 1, 2007

Business Software

Analyzing this term we get 2 distinct words : Business and Software

So what’s a business?

A business can be defined as any transaction resulting in profit or loss for an individual or a particular organization.

Now moving onto the required definition.....

Business software is generally any software program that helps a business increase productivity or measure their productivity. The term covers a large variation of uses within the business environment, and can be categorized by using a small, medium and large matrix:

1. The small business market generally consists of home accounting software, and office suites such as Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org.

2. The medium size, or SME, has a broader range of software applications, ranging from accounting, groupware, customer relationship management, human resources software, loan origination software, shopping cart software, field service software, and other productivity enhancing applications.

3. The last segment covers enterprise level software applications, such as those in the fields of enterprise resource planning, enterprise content management (ECM), business process management and product lifecycle management. These applications are extensive in scope, and often come with modules that either add native functions, or incorporate the functionality of third-party software programs.

Now, technologies that have previously only existed in peer-to-peer software applications, like Kazaa and Napster, are starting to feature within business applications.
JXTA is an open source platform that enables the creation of machine and language neutral applications. Peer based applications will be especially useful for aggregating the information at the edge of the network that currently resides in the neurons of the users themselves.
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