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Essay on Information Systems
In recent years, there has been an abundance of new technologies in the information systems field. These new technologies have altered the very development process itself. Information systems have gone from being a series of one level database to three dimensional reality, virtual reality, and multimedia systems. In the early days of information systems, the demands were for data, with no real function of artificial intelligence. However, as the 21st century approaches, business has taken on an entirely different function, and the need for individual information systems has grown immensely.
Every year, $300-700 million dollar corporations spend about 5% of their gross income on information systems and their supports. That's from about $15,000,000 to $35,000,000! A significant part of those funds support enterprise databases, a philosophy of database system applications that enable corporations to research the past, control the present, and plan for the future (Coskun, 1996).
Even though an information system costs from $1,000,000 to $10,000,000, and even through most chief information officers can specify exactly how much money is being spent for hardware, software, and staff, officers cannot however state with any degree of certainty why one system is being done this year versus next, why it is being done ahead of another, or finally, why it is being done at all.
Too many half-billion dollar organizations have only a vague notion of the names and interactions of the existing and under development information systems. Whenever they need to know, a meeting is held among the critical few, an inventory is taken, interactions confirmed, and accomplishment schedules are updated (Gagnon, 1999).
This ad hoc information systems plan was possible only because all design and development was centralized, the only computer was a main-frame, and the past was acceptable prologue because budgets were ever increasing, schedules always slipping, and information was not yet part of the corporation's critical edge (Coskun, 1996).
