I have assignment

What SingutaritY Have We Wrought?

350 eHAPTEn I Business lntettigence Systems

On May lB,2ol2, Facebook went public at a valuation of

$104 billion. On May 19, 2013, exactly a year after Facebook's

problematic initial public offering (IPO), OLAP product

proUaer Tableau Software raised $254 million in its IPO' The

,hu... op.r.d at $31 and closed $20 higher at $51' Marketo' a cloud-based marketing company' had its IPO that same day

and its stock closed 78 percent above its opening price' Tech

is hot. What's next? \Arhat's the Next-Big-Thing? If you knew' you

could identify the next Tableau or Marketo for investment or

employment or perhaps start it yourself' Of course, no one

knows for certain, but let's apply knowledge you already have as

a guide. Figure 1 casts the history of the computer industry into the

frame of the five components of an information system' IBM

Iedthehardwareera'Hardwarecustomelsfocusedonwriting their own software to accomplish some function; payroll and

other accounting functions were common' Next came the

software era that Microsoft led with Windows, but companies

such as Oracle and SAP contributed to making software

licensing a reality. The focus of software customers is

creating data. Data, really BigData, is the focus of the current era' Google'

Facebook, and Linkedln are data companies' As evidence'

Facebook created Cassandra and Hadoop, and gaue them away

to open-source. Clearly, it perceives its value as data and not

software. The focus ofthe data era is to influence behavior'

And what era is next? \Alhat is the focus of the Procedures era?

Answering that question is key to the Next-Big-Thing'

Note that at each stage, the customer focus pointed to the next

component. Hardware customer focus was on software' Software

focus was on data. Data focus is on behaviot or procedures' Will

Figure 1 Trends in the ComPuting lndustry

the procedure focus be on people? Form a team as directed I your professor and address the following questions:

l.

2.

Discuss the meaning of: 'At each stage, the customer focut

has pointed at the next component." Restate this phrase

words ofyour own group.

Do you agree that the focus of the BigData era is to influe

behavior? What other focus interpretations of today's era

possible?

3. Assume the next era computer industrywill concern procedures and that the focus will be on people' One

focus is to Eliminate Jobs. If that is the focus, what does it for business? For the economy? For you? Discuss your

among your group and report your conclusions to the rest d

the class.

4. Rather than Eliminate Iobs, another possible focus of the procedural component is to Enhance Human Life'

Discuss ways in which that might happen' If it does' what

opportunities will it create for you? Discuss your answers

among your group and report your conclusions to the rest

the class.

5. Working with your group, identifo two or three other procedural focus statements other than Eliminate Iobs or

Enhance Human Life.

some$ilng l=E about pe0ple?

How Do Organizations Use BigData Apptications?

lf iil the focus statements yott've considered, choose the u:F rou think is most likely. Explain your choice. Using that rEriment, describe three bttsiness opportunities that could

rai ro the Next-Big-Thing. :ii important question is what happens after the :,rple-component-era? Where does the arrolv on the f.u

:t:,r go? Ray Kurzweil developed a concept he calls the

--rlarlt],ll lvhich is the point at n'hich computer systems

Frome sophisticated enough that they can adapt and create

their olrryr softlvare and hence adapt their behavior without

human assistance. At that point, he claims that clouds of

myriads o[computers worY'tng24/7 will accelerate away

from humaniry, and humans r,r'ill become, lvell, what? lArork

with your team and state what you think the consequences of

the singrrlarity might be.

8. Given all of this, if there is a more exciting, important, and potentially rervarding field than MIS today, state rvhat

it is.

Hadoop

Iladoop is an open-source program supported by the Apache Foundationl2 that implements

MapReduce on potentially thousands of computers. Hadoop could drive the process of find-

ing and counting the Google search terms, but Google uses its own proprietary version of

MapReduce to do so instead.

Hacloop began as part of Cassandra, but the Apache F-oundatiorr split it off to become

its own product. tladoop is written in Java and originally ran on Linux. Recently, Microsoft

Search log:

Halon; Wotrerin";

Abacus; Poodle; Fence;

Acura; Healthcare;

Cassandra; Belltown;

Hadoop; Geranium;

Stoneworki Healthcare;

Honda; Hadoop;

Congress; Healthcare;

Frigate; Metric; ClamP;

Dell; Salmon; Hadoop;

Picasso; Abba;

Log segments: MaP Phase Reduce Phase

)_*

tgure 9-23 tEoReduce Processing 5rmmary

t t http: / / wwru. singular ity.cont trn'iinnpront.oriiorauon that supports opon-source softlvare projects, originally those forthe Apache Web

server, but toclay ior a large number of additional maior solh!'are proiects'

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