Chapter 1, 2, & 3

Question 1

The ______ Act is a piece of U.S. legislation that raises executive and board responsibility and ties criminal penalties to certain accounting and financial violations.

Answer 1

Sarbanes-Oxley

Question 2

Today’s job seekers are writing résumés with key words in mind, aware that the first cut is likely made by a database search program, not a human being.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Knowledge about information technology is relevant to business professionals in the following ways (among others):
a)

Finance professionals who are valuing merger-&-acquisition deals must understand how companies’ investments in, and use of, information technologies affect how much those companies are worth.

b)

Audit effectiveness increasingly depends on assessing the reliability of the information systems that audit clients use in recording, storing, and reporting their accounting numbers.

c)

Savvy firms are increasingly using social media to innovate, generate sales, and improve customer relationships, but are also aware of the power that the independent customer has to use the Internet to distribute brand-damaging information and commentary.

d)

In human resources, social-networking technologies offer new promise in such areas as recruiting and knowledge management, but they also pose challenges that include the potential for employees to make inappropriate and damaging disclosures.

Answer 3

all of the above

Question 4

Technology experts in the area of process design:

Answer 4

leverage technology to make firms more efficient.

Question 5

According to Michael Porter, the reason many firms suffer margin-eroding competition is because they have defined themselves according to strategic positioning rather than operational effectiveness.

Answer 5

False

Question 6

Operational effectiveness is usually not enough to yield sustainable competitive advantage because:

Answer 6

technology can be easily acquired.

Question 7

This is the set of activities through which a product or service is created and delivered to customers:

Answer 7

value chain

Question 8

Commodities are products or services that vary across multiple vendors.

Answer 8

False

Question 9

Leveraging consumers to promote a product or service is known as:

Answer 9

viral marketing

Question 10

Potential sources of switching costs include:
a)

Users’ investments in learning how to use software.

b)

Data that a system accumulates about its users (e.g., profile data, preferences, purchase history).

c)

Search costs, in the sense that finding a new alternative costs time and often money.

Answer 10

All of the above

Question 11

_____ Law is said to be at play when the value of a product or service increases as its number of users expands.

Answer 11

Metcalfe’s

Question 12

Which of the following is one of Porter’s five forces?

Purchasing power parity of consumers

Availability of coopetitors in the market

Total cost of ownership

Strength of intellectual property laws

Potential new entrants

Answer 12

Potential new entrants

Question 13

IT-initiatives can be successful and still be part of a failed business initiative

Answer 13

True

Question 14

Firms that use contract manufacturers do not directly employ the workers who produce the requested goods.

Answer 14

True

Question 15

_____ are critical for capturing sales data, and are usually linked to inventory systems to subtract out any sold items.

Answer 15

Point-of-sale systems

Question 16

Social networks have broken down the _________ barrier of fear by helping many to connect and share information.

Answer 16

psychological

Question 17

The proposition that next generation microprocessors, 18 months from now, should be twice as fast but cost the same as current models is called:

Answer 17

Moore’s Law

Question 18

In the video entitled “Computer Programming in 5 Minutes,” Larry Wall likened a computer program to…

Answer 18

a recipe

Question 19

The “five waves” that characterize the history and development of computing have come in the following sequence:

Answer 19

mainframes, minicomputers, PCs, Internet computing, ubiquitous computing

Question 20

Electronic waste is expected to decrease with the rise of living standards worldwide

Answer 20

False

Question 21

In grid computing:

a) Software placed on existing PCs or servers enables multiple machines to work together on common computing problems.
b) Supercomputing capacities can often be accomplished at much lower cost than the investment in an actual supercomputer.
c) The strategy takes advantage of the unused computing capacity of idle or under-utilized PCs.
d) all of the above
e) both a and b

Answer 21

d) all of the above

Question 22

In the address http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu, the rhsmith part is most precisely considered:

Answer 22

the subdomain name

Question 23

In regard to telecommunications bandwidth:

a) Bandwidth refers to data transmission speed, often expressed in bits per second.
b) “Broadband,” although it lacks a single precise definition, generally refers to high capacity last-mile technologies.
c) Among nations the United States leads in broadband access.
d) all of the above
e) both a and b

Answer 23

e) both a and b

Question 24

identifies a resource on the Internet along with the application protocol required to retrieve it

Answer 24

URL

Question 25

an application transfer protocol used in exchanging email among email servers

Answer 25

SMTP

Question 26

the ability of a system to continue operation even if a particular component in the system fails

Answer 26

fault tolerance

Question 27

a firm that provides hardware and services to run the Web sites of others

Answer 27

web hosting service

Question 28

language used to compose Web pages

Answer 28

HTML

Question 29

a distributed database that translates the host and domain names that a user enters into a Web browser into the actual IP address for the resource that the user is seeking

Answer 29

domain name service

Question 30

transmission technologies that enable voice communications over the Internet

Answer 30

VoIP

Question 31

refers to the fact that technologies that directly connect end-users to the Internet are typically the slowest part of the network

Answer 31

last mile problem

Question 32

Most residential providers of cable technology use a system where neighbors share bandwidth.

Answer 32

True

Question 33

It is feared that innovation might suffer as a result of the transition of Internet services from flat rate pricing to metered usage.

Answer 33

True

Question 34

The principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally is

Answer 34

Net Neutrality