Report on Mobile Banking

Table of content Tropic Introduction Part Introduction of the Report Mobile Banking Background Challenges for a Mobile Banking Solution Basic Mobile Banking Technologies Objectives of the Study Methodology of the Report Literature Review Analysis Part History of Mobile Banking in Bangladesh History of Mobile Banking in Abroad Features/Mobile Banking Services Advantages of Mobile Banking disadvantages of Mobile Banking Future Prospect of Mobile banking in Bangladesh: Current position of Bangladesh Findings & Recommendations Findings of the Report Recommendations of the study Conclusion Conclusion of the reportBibliography Reference Introduction Mobile Banking: Mobile banking (also known as M-Banking, m-banking, SMS Banking) is a term used for performing balance checks, account transactions, payments, credit applications and other banking transactions through a mobile device such as a mobile phone or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). The earliest mobile banking services were offered ov er SMS. With the introduction of the first primitive smart phones with WAP support enabling the use of the mobile web in 1999, the first European banks started to offer mobile banking on this platform to their customers.Mobile banking has until recently (2010) most often been performed via SMS or the Mobile Web. Apple's initial success with i-Phone and the rapid growth of phones based on Google's Android (operating system) have led to increasing use of special client programs, called apps, downloaded to the mobile device. A mobile banking conceptual model: In one academic model, mobile banking is defined as: Mobile Banking refers to provision and a ailment of banking and financial services with the help of mobile telecommunication devices.The scope of offered services may include facilities to conduct bank and stock market transactions, to administer accounts and to access customized information. According to this model Mobile Banking can be said to consist of three inter-related co ncepts: Mobile Accounting Mobile Brokerage Mobile Financial Information Services Most services in the categories designated Accounting and Brokerage are transaction- based. The non-transaction-based services of an informational nature are however essential for conducting transactions for instance, balance inquiries might be needed before committing a money remittance.The accounting and brokerage services are therefore offered invariably in combination with information services. Information services, on the other hand, may be offered as an independent module. Mobile phone banking may also be used to help in business given situations: Trends in mobile banking: Over the last few years, the mobile and wireless market has been one of the fastest growing markets in the world and it is still growing at a rapid pace. According to the GSM Association and Ovum, the number of mobile subscribers exceeded 2 billion in September 2005, and now exceeds 2. billion (of which more than 2 billion are G SM). According to a study by financial consultancy Client, 35% of online banking households will be using mobile banking by 2010, up from less than 1% today. Upwards of 70% of bank center call volume is projected to come from mobile phones. Mobile banking will eventually allow users to make payments at the physical point of sale. â€Å"Mobile contact less payments† will make up 10% of the contact less market by 2010. Another study from 2010 by Berg Insight forecasts that the number of mobile banking users in the US will grow from 12 million in 2009 to 86 million in 2015.The same study also predicts that the European market will grow from 7 million mobile banking users in 2009 to 115 million users in 2015. Many believe that mobile users have just started to fully utilize the data capabilities in their mobile phones. In Asian countries like India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines, where mobile infrastructure is comparatively better than the fixed-line infrastructure , and in European countries, where mobile phone penetration is very high (at least 80% of consumers use a mobile phone), mobile banking is likely to appeal even more.Mobile banking business models: A wide spectrum of Mobile banking models is evolving. However, no matter what business model, if mobile banking is being used to attract low-income populations in often rural locations, the business model will depend on banking agents, i. e. , retail or postal outlets that process financial transactions on behalf telcos or banks. The banking agent is an important part of the mobile banking business model since customer care, service quality, and cash management will depend on them.Many telcos will work through their local airtime resellers. However, banks in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and other markets use pharmacies, bakeries, etc. These models differ primarily on the question that who will establish the relationship (account opening, deposit taking, lending etc. ) to the end customer, the Bank or the Non- Bank/Telecommunication Company (Telco). Another difference lies in the nature of agency agreement between bank and the Non-Bank.Models of branchless banking can be classified into three broad categories – Bank Focused, Bank-Led and Nonbank-Led. Bank-focused model: The bank-focused model emerges when a traditional bank uses non-traditional low-cost delivery channels to provide banking services to its existing customers. Examples- range from use of automatic teller machines (ATMs) to internet banking or mobile phone banking to provide certain limited banking services to banks’ customers. This model is additive in nature and may be seen as a modest extension of conventional branch-based banking.Bank-led model: The bank-led model offers a distinct alternative to conventional branch-based banking in that customer conducts financial transactions at a whole range of retail agents (or through mobile phone) instead of at bank branches or through bank employees. This model promises the potential to substantially increase the financial services outreach by using a different delivery channel (retailers/ mobile phones), a different trade partner (telco / chain store) having experience and target market distinct from traditional banks, and may be significantly cheaper than the bank-based alternatives.Non-bank-led model: The non-bank-led model is where a bank has a limited role in the day-to-day account management. Typically its role in this model is limited to safekeeping of funds. Account management functions are conducted by a non-bank (e. g. telco) who has direct contact with individual customers. Mobile Banking Background: A woman counts her cash after a withdrawal from the first cash point machine in London, in 1967. For 30 years, financial institutions have been on a quest to satisfy their customers’ need for more convenience.First came the automated teller machine (ATM), which New York’s Chemical Bank introduced to the Ame rican public in 1969. It did little more than dispense cash at first, but the ATM evolved over time to become a true bank-away-from- bank, providing a full suite of financial transactions. Then come Internet banking in the mid-1990s, which enabled consumers to access their financial accounts using a home computer with an Internet connection. Despite its promise of ultimate convenience, online banking saw slow and tentative growth as banks worked out technology issues and built consumer trust.Today, Internet banking has reached a critical mass, with about 35 percent of U. S. households conducting bank transactions online. Not so with mobile phones. They can be carried anywhere and are — by an enormous number of people. More than 238 million people in the U. S. have mobile phones. That’s a whopping 78 percent of the population. And worldwide there are more than 3. 25 billion mobile phone subscribers, with penetration topping 100 percent in Europe. If mobile phones only d elivered voice data, then their use as a vehicle to deliver banking services would be limited.Most phones, however, also provide text-messaging capabilities, and a growing number are Web-enabled. That makes the mobile phone an ideal medium through which banks can deliver a wide variety of services. Banks classify these services based on how information flows. A pull transaction is one in which a mobile phone user actively requests a service or information from the bank. For example, inquiring about an account balance is a pull transaction. So is transferring funds, paying a bill or requesting a transaction history.Because banks must respond or take some action based on the user request, pull transactions are considered two-way exchanges. A push transaction, on the other hand, is one in which the bank sends information based on a set of rules. A minimum balance alert is a good example of a push transaction. The customer defines the rule — â€Å"Tell me when my balance gets be low $100† — and the bank generates an automatic message any time that rule applies. Similar alerts can be sent whenever there is a debit transaction or a bill payment. As these examples illustrate, push transactions are generally one way, from he bank to the customer. We can also classify mobile banking based on the nature of the service: Transaction-based services, such as a funds transfer or a bill payment, involve movement of funds from one source to another. Inquiry-based services don’t. They simply require a response to a user query. The chart below summarizes these various types of mobile banking services: Push Pull Funds transfer Transaction Bill payment Share trade Check order Minimum balance Account balance inquiry Inquiry alert Account statement inquiry Credit/debit alert Check status inquiry Bill payment alert Transaction historyClearly, push transactions are not as complex as their pull counterparts. Mobile banking solutions also vary in their degre e of complexity, and some only offer a fraction of the services you would find in a bricks-and-mortar branch. In this respect, mobile banking isn't always full-service banking. The factors that affect this are the type of phone being used, the service plan of the mobile subscriber and the technology framework of the bank. We’ll look at these technologies next. Challenges for a Mobile Banking Solution: Key challenges in developing sophisticated mobile banking applications are: Handset operability:There are a large number of different mobile phone devices and it is a big challenge for banks to offer mobile banking solution on any type of device. Some of these devices support Java ME and others support SIM Application Toolkit, a WAP browser, or only SMS. Initial interoperability issues however have been localized, with countries like India using portals like R-World to enable the limitations of low end java based phones, while focus on areas such as South Africa have defaulted t o the USSD as a basis of communication achievable with any phone.The desire for interoperability is largely dependent on the banks themselves, where installed applications (Java based or native) provide better security, are easier to use and allow development of more complex capabilities similar to those of internet banking while SMS can provide the basics but becomes difficult to operate with more complex transactions. There is a myth that there is a challenge of interoperability between mobile banking applications due to perceived lack of common technology standards for mobile banking.In practice it is too early in the service lifecycle for interoperability to be addressed within an individual country, as very few countries have more than one mobile banking service provider. In practice, banking interfaces are well defined and money movements between banks follow the IS0-8583 standard. As mobile banking matures, money movements between service providers will naturally adopt the sa me standards as in the banking world. On January 2009, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Banking Sub-Committee, chaired by CellTrust and VeriSign Inc. published the Mobile Banking Overview for financial institutions in which it discussed the advantages and disadvantages of Mobile Channel Platforms such as Short Message Services (SMS), Mobile Web, Mobile Client Applications, SMS with Mobile Web and Secure SMS. Security: Security of financial transactions, being executed from some remote location and transmission of financial information over the air, are the most complicated challenges that need to be addressed jointly by mobile application developers, wireless network service providers and the banks' IT departments.The following aspects need to be addressed to offer a secure infrastructure for financial transaction over wireless network: Physical part of the hand-held device. If the bank is offering smart-card based security, the physical security of the device is more important. Security of any thick-client application running on the device. In case the device is stolen, the hacker should require at least an ID/Password to access the application. Authentication of the device with service provider before initiating a transaction.This would ensure that unauthorized devices are not connected to perform financial transactions. User ID / Password authentication of bank’s customer. Encryption of the data being transmitted over the air. Encryption of the data that will be stored in device for later / off-line analysis by the customer. One-time passwords (OTP’s) is the latest tool used by financial and banking service providers in the fight against cyber fraud. Instead of relying on traditional memorized passwords, OTPs are requested by consumers each time they want to perform transactions using the online or mobile banking interface.When the request is received the password is sent to the consumer’s phone via SMS. The password is expired once it has been used or once its scheduled life-cycle has expired. Because of the concerns made explicit above, it is extremely important that SMS gateway providers can provide a decent quality of service for banks and financial institutions in regards to SMS services. Therefore, the provision of service level agreements (SLAs) is a requirement for this industry; it is necessary to give the bank customer delivery guarantees of all messages, as well as measurements on the speed of delivery, throughput, etc.SLAs give the service parameters in which a messaging solution is guaranteed to perform. Application distribution: Due to the nature of the connectivity between bank and its customers, it would be impractical to expect customers to regularly visit banks or connect to a web site for regular upgrade of their mobile banking application. It will be expected that the mobile application itself check the upgrades and updates and download necessary patches (so called â€Å"Over the Airâ €  updates). However, there could be many issues to implement this approach such as upgrade / synchronization of other dependent components.Basic Mobile Banking Technologies: There are four fundamental approaches to mobile banking. The first two rely on technologies that are standard features on almost all cell phones. Interactive Voice Response (IVR): If we have ever called our credit card issuer and meander through a confusion of prompts — â€Å"For English, press 1; for account information, press 2† — then you’re familiar with interactive voice response. In mobile banking, it works like this: Banks advertise a set of numbers to their customers. Customers dial an IVR number on their mobile phones. They are greeted by a stored electronic message followed by a menu of options. Customers select an option by pressing the corresponding number on their keypads. A text-to-speech program reads out the desired information. IVR is the least sophisticated an d the least â€Å"mobile† of all the solutions. In fact, it doesn’t require a mobile phone at all. It also only allows for inquiry-based transactions, so customers can’t use it for more advanced services. ObjectiveThis report focuses on the role of Mobile Banking and its potential to provide basic banking services to the vast majority of unbanked people in world. The rationale for M- banking as an appropriate tool for transforming banking stems from two observations; traditional retail banks do not deliver services tailored to fit the currently unbanked which has led to a gap in the market. Further, the fast diffusion of mobile telecom networks has enabled M-banking service operators to draw on the geographic coverage of mobile networks and diverse needs of the client base.Hence, the common assumption behind M- Banking ventures is the potential of mobile phones as a channel for undertaking financial transactions. The objective of the study is to take a fresh loo k at the current M-Banking experience in a selected number of countries using primary and secondary data from the existing pool of literature. Methodology The study has been done mainly based on primary and secondary sources of data or information. The first is an exploratory research based on secondary data obtained through the Net, books and related journals.Secondly, survey questionnaire was administered to empirically assess the level of adoption of m-banking in Bangladesh including different publications: (i) Bangladesh Institution of Bank Management (ii) Bank for International Standard Working (iii) Papers International and local Publications (iv) Different seminar papers (v) Information from Internet Data collection procedure Primary data sources: Primary data has been collected from Dhaka based some selected banks e. g. Dutch Bangla Bank Ltd. , BRAC Bank Ltd†¦ These banks are considered as the private commercial banks and foreign banks respectively.Primary data collecti ons are done by the interviewing method with proper questionnaire. Secondary data sources: Secondary data has been collected from different publication material and web site as well as the books and material from different libraries, the hand note of the various seminars. Literature Review El-Sherbini et al. (2007) Investigated the customers' perspectives of mobile banking, their perceived importance for it, usage patterns and problems rising on its utilization. The paper discussed the strategic implications of the research findings.Empirical data were gathered from bank customers in Kuwait to achieve the research objectives. All bank customers in Kuwait were considered as population of research interest. The results showed the perceived importance of internet banking services by customers, current and potential use of MB services in Kuwait and problems perceived by bank customers in using MB. The researchers' main hypothesis tested that top five services considered relative importa nt in Kuwait banks were â€Å"Review account balance†, â€Å"Obtain detailed transactions histories, â€Å"Open accounts†, Pay bills† and Transfer funds between own accounts†. Sathye (1999)Analyzed the factors affecting the adoption of Mobile banking by Australian consumers. His sample was from individual residents and business firms in Australia. The study focused on the capital cities where use of mobile internet and population was likely to be high. White and yellow pages were used as the frame of reference for personal and business customers, respectively. The findings suggest that security concerns and lack of awareness about mobile banking and its benefits stand out as being the obstacles to the adoption of mobile banking in Australia. He also suggests some of the ways to address these impediments.Further, he suggests that delivery of financial services over the Internet should be a part of overall customer service and distribution strategy. These me asures could help in rapid migration of customers to mobile Internet banking, resulting in considerable savings in operating costs for banks. Rotchanakitumanuai and Speece (2003) Investigated why corporate customers do not accept mobile banking, which can assist banks to implement this self-service technology more efficiently. Many Thai banks are currently implementing mobile banking. Banks that offer service via this channel claim that it reduces costs and makes them more competitive.However, many corporate customers are not highly enthusiastic about mobile banking. They used in-depth qualitative interviews methodology for collecting their data. The interviews with Thai firms suggested that security of the Internet is a major factor inhibiting wider adoption. Those already using Internet banking seem to have more confidence that the system is reliable, whereas non-users are much more service conscious, and do not trust financial transactions made via Internet channels. Non-mobile b anking users tend to have more negative management attitudes toward adoption and are more likely to claim lack of resources.Legal support is also a major barrier to Internet banking adoption for corporate customers. Ahmed Ali said†¦ I think I should clarify some of the suggestions you gave. 1. I agree that GP should have an option to link to bank accounts. But until now they have refused to allow such a link. 8 Banks already have this technology but GP has prevented them from serving GP customers. Banks have taken the initiative but GP has stopped it just because they can and thinking that their proposal will pass. 2. Yes GP will not pay interest. But that doesn't stop GP from earning interest on this money (the simply put it together and put it in a FDR) 3.As much as GP wants you to belive, Bangladesh isn't the only country where there are more mobile users than bank users. (I will get into that in another article). None of those countries are considering GP's version of mobil e banking. 4. Short term deposits are more crucial to the banking industry than what you estimate. Nowhere in the world has a mobile company been put in charge of short term deposits. GP clearly didn't have good intentions. Otherwise all the foreign banks wouldn't group with local banks to oppose this outlandish proposal. Again this is not only me that feel this way.The entire world acted in opposition to GP's Mobile Banking Thesis. GP's Mobile Banking is not the same as ‘Mobile Banking' History of Mobile Banking in Bangladesh â€Å"Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited† (DBBL) has for the first time introduced its mobile banking service expanding the banking service from cities to remote areas. Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman yesterday inaugurated the service by depositing Tk 2,000 and withdrawing Tk 1,500 through Banglalink and Citycell mobile networks in Motijheel area. Bangladesh Bank has already allowed 10 banks to initiate mobile banking. Of them DBBL kicked off first. Mobile banking is an alternative to the traditional banking through which banking service can be reached at the doorsteps of the deprived section of the society,† the central bank governor said at an inaugural press briefing at Hotel Purbani. Atiur Rahman said through mobile banking various banking services including depositing and withdrawing money, payment of utility bills and reaching remittance to the recipient would be possible. By going to the DBBL-approved Citycell and Banglalink agents throughout the country the subscribers on showing necessary papers and payment of a fee of Tk 10 can open an account.To avail of the banking service a subscriber will require owning a cell phone of any provider and he will be given a four-digit PIN. By using the PIN he can operate all types of banking services including depositing and withdrawing money maintaining security and secrecy of his account. The customer will hand over cash to the agent and the agent will initiate the transactio n from his mobile phone, the agent will help the account holder to do the banking using his PIN. A customer can deposit or withdraw money five times a day and he can deposit or draw Tk 5,000 per day.One percent of the transaction account or Tk 5, whichever is higher, will be taken as cash-in-charges. In case of cash out the charge will be 2 percent of the transaction amount or Tk 10. However, the registration fee, salary and remittance disbursement services will be provided free of cost. Features/Services of DBBL Mobile Banking: Customer Registration Cash-in (cash deposit) Cash-out (cash withdrawal) Merchant Payment Utility Payment Salary Disbursement Foreign Remittance Air-time Top-up Fund Transfer BRAC Bank Limited† is set to introduce mobile banking secondly, a top official said the service will enable millions of banked and unbanked people to deposit, withdraw and transfer money through mobile phones. BKash, a joint venture between BRAC Bank and US-based Money in Motion, will provide mobile banking with a fully encrypted VISA technology platform for transactions through mobile phones. Any mobile user can register and open up a bKash account and then do transactions through their mobile phones in easy, convenient and reliable way. bKash will fundamentally change the way people now do transactions, as all transactions will be possible through mobile phones in future,† said Syed Mahbubur Rahman, managing director of the bank. â€Å"Customers will not need to come to the bank; rather the bank will go to them,† he said at a press conference in Dhaka on the occasion of its 10th founding anniversary. The bank said a bKash account will act as a digital mobile wallet and anybody can take the service. â€Å"Your mobile phone will become your wallet. Customers can get financial services through phones, even by the handset that costs the lowest,† Rahman said.Under a partnership with UNDP and Local Government Division, bKash is rollin g out mobile banking in 4,501 union parishads in the country. bKash has already signed a deal with a leading mobile operator and is in talks with others to enable all mobile users — currently around 7. 5 crore — to have individual digital wallets, said Mamdudur Rashid, deputy managing director of the bank. BRAC Bank launched its operation 10 years back with the objective of bringing unbanked people under formal banking coverage. The business model of the bank is to mobilise deposits from urban areas and disburse it to rural areas.The country's youngest bank has already set some records: it has acquired over 12 lakh customers, bringing full banking services not only to small and medium enterprises, but all strata of the banking industry, said the bank â€Å"Being the youngest Bangladeshi bank, we have emerged as the largest SME bank serving about 3. 65 lakh entrepreneurs at grassroots level, an achievement that helped global recognition for this Bangladeshi bank,† said Rashid The bank believes in 3P philosophy — people, planet and profit and has been active in Green banking.It has already turned 22 of its SME Unit Offices solar-powered and plans to convert the rest in the same manner by 2012. History of Mobile Banking in Abroad: Improving access to financial services, such as savings, deposits, insurance and remittances, is vital to reducing poverty. Savings can help poor people to invest in productive assets like livestock, a loan may help to expand business activities, and insurance can provide income for a family if a breadwinner becomes sick. In many developing countries, however, 9 out of 10 people do not have a bank account or access to basic financial services.Poor people are often not considered viable customers by the formal financial sector as their transaction sizes are small, and many live in remote areas beyond the reach of banks branch networks. Informal banking services such as microfinance and village savings and loan associations remain limited in their reach. The first mobile banking and payment initiatives were announced during 1999 (the same year that Fundamo deployed their first prototype). The first major deployment was made by a company called Pay box (largely supported financially by Deutsche Bank).The company was founded by two young German’s (Mathias Entemann and Eckart Ortwein) and successfully deployed the solution in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Spain and the UK. At about 2003 more than a million people were registered on Pay box and the company were rated by Gartner as the leader in the field. Unfortunately Deutsche Bank withdraws their financial support and the company had to reorganise quickly. All but the operations in Austria closed down. Another early starter and also identified as a leader in the field was a Spanish initiative (backed by BBVA and Telephonica), called Mobi Pago.The name was later changed to Mobi Pay and all banks and mobile operators in Spain were invited to join. The product was launched in 2003 and many retailers were acquired to accept the special USSD payment confirmation. Because of the complex shareholding and the constant political challenges of the different owners, the product never fulfilled the promise that it had. With no marketing support and no compelling reason for adoption, this initiative is floundering at the moment. Many other large players announced initiatives and ran pilots with big fanfare, but never showed traction and all initiatives were ultimately discontinued.Some of the early examples are the famous vending machines at the Helsinki airport supported by a system from Nokia. Siemens made announcements in conjunction with listed and high-flying German e-commerce company, Brokat. Brokat also won the lucrative Vodafone contract in 2002, but crashed soon afterwards when it runs out of funds. Israel (as can be expected) produced a large number of mobile payment start-ups. Of the many, only one survived – Trivnet. Others like Adamtech (with a technically sound solution called Cell pay) and Paytt disappeared after a number of pilots but without any successful production deployments.Initiatives in Norway, Sweden and France never got traction. France Telecom launched an ambitious product based on a special mobile phone with an integrated card reader. The solution worked well, but never became popular because of the unattractive, special phone that participants needed in order to perform these payments. Since 2004, mobile banking and payment industry has come of age. Successful deployments with positive business cases and big strategic impact have been seen recently. Features/Mobile Banking Services (In General):Mobile banking can offer services such as the following: 1) Account Information: Mini-statements and checking of account history Alerts on account activity or passing of set thresholds Monitoring of term deposits Access to loan statements Access to card statements Mutual fu nds / equity statements Insurance policy management Pension plan management 2) Payment, Deposits, Withdrawals & Transfers: Domestic and international fund transfers Micro-payment handling Mobile recharging Commercial payment processing Bill payment processingA specific sequence of SMS messages will enable the system to verify if the client has sufficient funds in his or her wallet and authorize a deposit or withdrawal transaction at the agent. When depositing money, the merchant receives cash and the system credits the client's bank account or mobile wallet. In the same way the client can also withdraw money at the merchant: through exchanging sms to provide authorization, the merchant hands the client cash and debits the merchant's account. 3) Investments: Portfolio management services Real-time stock quotes Personalized alerts and notifications on security prices 4) Support: ? Status of requests for credit, including mortgage approval, and insurance coverage Check (cheq ue) book and card requests Exchange of data messages and email, including complaint submission and tracking 5) Content Services: General information such as weather updates, news Loyalty-related offers Location-based services Based on a survey conducted by Forrester, mobile banking will be attractive mainly to the younger, more â€Å"tech-savvy† customer segment. A third of mobile phone users say that they may consider performing some kind of financial transaction through their mobile phone.But most of the users are interested in performing basic transactions such as querying for account balance and making bill payment. Advantages of Mobile Banking: The biggest advantage that mobile banking offers to banks is that it drastically cuts down the costs of providing service to the customers. For example an average teller or phone transaction costs about $2. 36 each, whereas an electronic transaction costs only about $0. 10 each. Additionally, this new channel gives the bank ab ility to cross-sell up-sell their other complex banking products and services such as vehicle loans, credit cards etc.For service providers, Mobile banking offers the next surest way to achieve growth. Countries like Korea where mobile penetration is nearing saturation, mobile banking is helping service providers increase revenues from the now static subscriber base. Service providers are increasingly using the complexity of their supported mobile banking services to attract new customers and retain old ones. A very effective way of improving customer service could be to inform customers better. Credit card fraud is one such area.A bank could, through the use of mobile technology, inform owners each time purchases above a certain value have been made on their card. This way the owner is always informed when their card is used, and how much money was taken for each transaction. Similarly, the bank could remind customers of outstanding loan repayment dates, dates for the payment of mo nthly installments or simply tell them that a bill has been presented and is up for payment. The customers can then check their balance on the phone and authorize the required amounts for payment. The customers can also request for additional information.They can automatically view deposits and withdrawals as they occur and also pre- schedule payments to be made or cheques to be issued. Similarly, one could also request for services like stop cheque or issue of a cheque book over one’s mobile phone. There are number of reasons that should persuade banks in favor of mobile phones. They are set to become a crucial part of the total banking services experience for the customers. Also, they have the potential to bring down costs for the bank itself. Through mobile messaging and other such interfaces, banks provide value added services to the customer at marginal costs.Such messages also bear the virtue of being targeted and personal making the services offered more effective. The y will also carry better results on account of better customer profiling. Yet another benefit is the anywhere/anytime characteristics of mobile services. A mobile is almost always with the customer. As such it can be used over a vast geographical area. The customer does not have to visit the bank ATM or a branch to avail of the bank’s services. Research indicates that the number of footfalls at a bank’s branch has fallen down drastically after the installation of ATMs.As such with mobile services, a bank will need to hire even less employees as people will no longer need to visit bank branches apart from certain occasions. With Indian telecom operators working on offering services like money transaction over a mobile, it may soon be possible for a bank to offer phone based credit systems. This will make credit cards redundant and also aid in checking credit card fraud apart from offering enhanced customer convenience. The use of mobile technologies is thus a winwin pro position for both the banks and the bank’s customers.The banks add to this personalized communication through the process of automation. For instance, if the customer asks for his account or card balance after conducting a transaction, the installed software can send him an automated reply informing of the same. These automated replies thus save the bank the need to hire additional employees for servicing customer needs. Disadvantages of Mobile Banking: Security: Security experts generally agree that mobile banking is safer than computer banking because very few viruses and Trojans exist for phones.That does not mean mobile banking is immune to security threats, however. Mobile users are especially susceptible to a phishing-like scam called â€Å"smishing. † It happens when a mobile banking user receives a fake text message asking for bank account details from a hacker posing as a financial institution. Many people have fallen for this trick and had money stolen throug h this scam. Online banking is usually done through an encrypted connection so that hackers cannot read transmitted data, but consider the consequences if your mobile device is stolen.While all banking applications require us to enter a password or PIN, many people configure their mobile devices to save passwords, or use insecure passwords and PINs that are easy to guess. Compatibility: We need a smart phone to get the most out of mobile banking. Mobile banking is not available on every device. Some banks do not provide mobile banking at all. Others require you to use a custom mobile banking application only available on the most popular smart phones, such as the Apple iPhone and RIM Blackberry. Third-party mobile banking software is not always supported.If we do not own a smart phone, the types of mobile banking we can do are usually limited. Checking bank account balances via text message is not a problem, but more advanced features such as account transfers are generally not avai lable to users of â€Å"dumb phones. † Cost: The cost of mobile banking might not appear significant if we already have a compatible device, but we still need to pay data and text messaging fees. Some financial institutions charge an extra fee for mobile banking service, and we may need to pay a fee for software.These extra charges quickly add up, especially if we access mobile banking. Future Prospect of Mobile banking in Bangladesh: Based on the ‘International Review of Business Research Papers' from World business Institute, Australia, following are the key functional trends possible in world of Mobile Banking. With the advent of technology and increasing use of smart phone and tablet based devices, the use of Mobile Banking functionality would enable customer connect across entire customer life cycle much comprehensively than before.With this scenario, current mobile banking objectives of say building relationships, reducing cost, achieving new revenue stream will t ransform to enable new objectives targeting higher level goals such as building brand of the banking organization. Emerging technology and functionalities would enable to create new ways of lead generation, prospecting as well as developing deep customer relationship and mobile banking world would achieve superior customer experience with bi-directional communications.Illustration of objective based functionality enrichment In Mobile Banking Communication enrichment: – Video Interaction with agents, advisors. Pervasive Transactions capabilities: – Comprehensive â€Å"Mobile wallet† Customer Education: – â€Å"Test drive† for demos of banking services Connect with new customer segment: – Connect with Gen Y – Gen Z using games and social network ambushed to surrogate bank’s offerings Content monetization: – Micro level revenue themes such as music, e-book download Vertical positioning: – Positioning offerings over m obile banking specific industriesHorizontal positioning: – Positioning offerings over mobile banking across all the industries Personalization of corporate banking services: – Personalization experience for multiple roles and hierarchies in corporate banking as against the vanilla based segment based enhancements in the current context. Build Brand: – Built the bank’s brand while enhancing the â€Å"Mobile real estate†. Current position of Bangladesh: Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited (DBBL) is the first bank in Bangladesh, who introduced mobile banking service to bring poor people from remote area under smart banking service.Bangladesh Bank has already allowed 10 banks to initiate mobile banking with the aim to connect the deprived section of the society with the modern banking system; DBBL is the first runner among of them. DBBL is operating this new innovative banking service through Banglalink and Citycell mobile operator and their approved agents thro ughout the country. One can create a bank account visiting any of the approved agents showing proper documents with a fee of Tk 10. Subscriber must own a mobile phone to get the service.Once the account is created, a 4 digit mobile banking PIN code will be provided to perform all sort of banking activities securely and secretly. Subscriber can withdraw and deposit cash amount from his mobile going to the agents and agents will guide and help the customers if there is any difficulty. Since, mobile network is extremely insecure and data are sent unencrypted, a customer can deposit or withdraw money five times a day and he can deposit or draw Tk 5,000 per day. One percent of the transaction amount or Tk 5, whichever is higher, will be taken as cash-in-charges.In case of cash out the charge will be 2 percent of the transaction amount or Tk 10. However, the registration fee, salary and remittance disbursement services will be provided free of cost. M-banking has become one of the most fa miliar banking service providing technologies in different western countries. Now-a-days billions of inhabitants of Bangladesh are within a network through mobile network coverage. But in the commercial sectors like banking, m-commerce technology has not been adopted broadly yet.Considering m- commerce perspective in Bangladesh a SMS based m-banking system has been proposed which is able to provide several essential banking services only sending SMS to bank server from any remote location. This proposed system is divided into five major phases: interfacing module, SMS technology adoption module, SMS banking registration module, service generation module, and data failover module. This system facilitates bank customers by providing four major services like balance enquiry , balance transfer between authenticated customers, DPS payment and bill payment without going to bank physically and save their precious time.At least, after evaluating each module of this developed system a satisf actory accuracy rate 93. 18 % is obtained. Findings In this assignment we can see some Findings Mobile Banking drastically cuts down the costs of providing service to the customers. Service providers are increasingly using the complexity of their supported mobile banking services to attract new customers and retain old ones. A very effective way of improving customer service could be to inform customers better. Credit card fraud is one such area.The banks add to this personalized communication through the process of automation. Mobile banking is not available on every device. Some banks do not provide mobile banking at al. The cost of mobile banking might not appear significant if we already have a compatible device, but we still need to pay data and text messaging fees. Recommendation In this assignment we have some suggestion about mobile banking All banks should provide this opportunity than mobile banking limitation can be reduced. Government should provide help about mobile b anking. ? Rules and Regulations must be stricken about mobile banking. Conclusion Mobile banking is suspended to become the big killer mobile application arena. However, banks going mobile the first time need to step the path cautiously. The biggest decision that banks need to make is the channel that they will support their services on. Mobile banking through an SMS based service would require the lowest amount of effort, in terms of cost and time, but will not be able to support the full breath of transaction-based services.However, in markets like India where a bulk of the mobile population users' phones can only support SMS based services, this might be the only option left. On the other hand a market heavily segmented by the type and complexity of mobile phone usage might be good place to roll of WAP based mobile applications. According to the Gartner Group, mobile banking services will have to support a minimum of 50 different device profiles in the near future. However, curre ntly the best user experience, depending on the capabilities of a mobile phone, is possible only by using a standalone client..Mobile Application based banking is poised to be a big m-commerce feature, and if South Korea's foray into mass mobile banking is any indication, mobile banking could well be the driving factor to increase sales of high-end mobile phones. Nevertheless, Bank's need to take a hard and deep look into the mobile usage patterns among their target customers and enable their mobile services on a technology with reaches out to the majority of their customers. Reference 1. www. google. om 2. www. answer. com 3. The Daily star-Friday, July 22, 2011 http://www. thedailystar. net/newDesign/news-details. php? nid=195176 4. Dutch bangle bank ltd Mobile banking http://www. dutchbanglabank. com/electronic_banking/mobile_banking. html 5. BRAC Bank mobile bank news. 6. Shirali S. and Shirali S. M. H. , â€Å"Mobile Banking Services in the Bank Area,† SICE Annual Confer ence, Kagawa University, Japan, pp. 2682- 2685, September 17-20, 2007. 7. Taiton Al. and Sorensen C. â€Å"Supporting Mobile Professional in Global Banking: The Role of Global ICT-Support Call Centers,† IEEE Transaction, Proceeding of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. 8. Benamati, J. S. , ; Serva, M. A. (2007). Trust and distrust in online banking: Their role in developing countries. Information Technology for Development, 13(2), 161-175. 9. Brown, I. , Cajee, Z. , Davies, D. , ; Stroebel, S. (2003). Cell phone banking: Predictors of adoption in South Africa–an exploratory study. International Journal of Information Management, 23(5), 381-394. 0. Burt, R. S. (1992). Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 11. Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society (Vol. 1). Malden, MA: Blackwell. 12. Chipchase, J. , Persson, P. , Piippo, P. , Aarras, M. , & Yamamoto, T. (2005). Mobile ess entials: field study and concepting. Paper presented at the 2005 Conference on Designing for User eXperience. From http://portal. acm. org/citation. cfm? id=1138301 13. And many other PDF report on Mobile Banking collect from internet

Comparing Old & New Terrorism

Introduction1.1 BackgroundIn the countdown to the end of the twentieth century, notable scholars came up with a new concept of ‘New Terrorism’ which represents a shift from the traditional terrorism. The ‘new terrorism’ ‘refers to a qualitative change in the nature of terrorism, which has allegedly taken place during the 1990s’ (Kurtulus 2007:476). This paradigm has also been variously referred to as ‘contemporary terrorism’ (Laqueur 2003) ‘post-modern terrorism’, ‘super-terrorism’, ‘catastrophic terrorism’ and ‘hyper-terrorism’ (Field 2009). This dissertation intends to undertake the examination of this paradigm shift. It intends to examine the various sources if there is indeed a ‘New Terrorism’ as canvassed by some scholars and policy makers. It would do this by doing a case study of Irish Republican Army, or the IRA and Al Qaeda representing each group.1.2 Aims and ObjectivesIn this section, the research aims, objectives, and research questions will be outlined. Firstly, the aim of this research is as follows: To ensure that this aim is fully explored, the following research objectives have been devised: How are the emerging forms of terrorism different from the traditional methods How should the existing counterterrorism infrastructure be amended in order to meet the challenges of the modern age 1.3 Research QuestionsThe research question is as follows: What are the new forms of terrorism and what factors created them What are the key factors that have contributed to the success of these new terrorist practices Is the current counterterrorist system capable of dealing with the emerging terrorist threat To seek to explore this aim, research question and these objectives, a review of the literature will be undertaken to explore these areas have experienced change over time. The findings from this review will be used to explore and examine the research aim, objectives and question. To ensure that this is appropriately undertaken the following topics will be discussed in the review:1.4 Scope of the StudyA study of the Irish Republican Army will be undertaken in comparison to the modern operations of the recognized terrorist agency Al Qaeda.1.5 Structure of the StudyThis study will be comprised of 6 sections including the introduction, literature review, and methodology, case study analysis, Discussion, Conclusion.2 Literature Review The section will review relevant literature as regards the proposed research.2.1 Defining Terrorism and emerging forms of Terrorism2.2 Factors that contributed to Terrorism’s Success2.3 Current prevention and enforcement options2.4Trends3. Methodol ogy This chapter illustrates the research methodology used as well as providing a brief introductory passage regarding the meaning of research methodology.3.1 IntroductionThe methodology focuses on an explanation of the qualitative and quantitative research approaches considered for this thesis to answer the following questions: How are the emerging forms of terrorism different from the traditional methods How should the existing counterterrorism infrastructure be amended in order to meet the challenges of the modern age This includes the elements of the research approach adopted and the reasons behind this choice.3.2 Methods of Data CollectionSecondary sources dating from the operation of the Irish Republican Army as well as year to date operations of Al Qaeda will provide the required range of data for assessment.3.2.1 Case Study AnalysisYin (2009) contends that the case study analysis strategy is a valid tool for providing empirical content. This method of research allows for an investigation into the real world impact of terrorism. Others contend that the case study is not always the best strategic analysis approach (Baxter and Jack 2008). However, Stake (1995) demonstrates that a case study can provide understanding and increase the capacity for understanding. The approach for this dissertation will utilize a qualitative, interpretative research method; a case study examination of the Irish Republican Army and Al Qaeda. Yin (2009) demonstrates that the exploratory case study method can be used to examine situations in which there is no defined outcome. This research will rest on the goal to identify challenges and lessons for future. For the purposes of this research, the qualitative research approach is more suitable due to capacity to assess the wide ranging nature the terrorist conditions. Case Study This section will present a case study examination of the Irish Republican Army in comparison to the operations of Al Qaeda.4.1 Irish Republican Army formation factorsRyanair and (another airline of your choice)4.2 Effectiveness of the IRA methods4.3 Al Qaeda formation factors4.4 Effectiveness of the IRA methods4.5 Trends4.8 Discussion(Tie the case study to the literature review) 5. Conclusion 7. References Baxter, P. and Jack, S. 2008. Qualitative case study methodology: Study design and implementation for novice researchers. The Qualitative Report, 13 (4), pp. 544–559. Field, A. 2009. The ‘New Terrorism’: Revolution or Evolution?. Political Studies Review, 7 (2), pp. 195–207. Kurtulus, E. 2011. The â€Å"new terrorism† and its critics. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 34 (6), pp. 476–500. Laqueur, W. 2003. No end to war. New York: Continuum. Stake, R. 1995. The art of case study research. Sage Publications, Inc. Yin, R. 2009. Case study research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

The Real Value of “E-Business Models”

Summary Note: The real value of â€Å"e-business models† Research Questions Asked * What is the meaning of e-business model? * Do the e-Business model really matter to create a thriving e-firm? * Can only a good e-business model will give the strength to company to get success? * What are the real key factors determining the survival or failure of e-firm? The e-business model is a model used by the e-commerce company to better be organized for providing a product or service, generating revenues and, especially, creating and adapting to the new market and technologies.Summary This article suggests in a critical way how this important model could be applied to different types of company, distinguishing the model by categories. It pays attention how the particular model is not the only successful key of the company, but it will an important tool if the company understands the linkage between it, its core business and the marketplace environment. The article presents some cases of failure and success, and how it creates a thriving for the firm. Supply chain model Direct sales: the firm provides a product or services directly to a customer ( Dell, Cisco, Aol) * Intermediary: the firm sells goods from a third party (Amazon) * Electronic marketplace: make easier the direct communication between buyers and sellers (Autobytel) Revenue model * Income is generated directly from the customer transaction * â€Å"Free sires where the income is generated through advertising or sponsorship (Napster) Internet business can also be distinguished according to the markets they serve * B2B business to business * B2C business to consumer Click and mortar: relies on offline asset * Pure play model: purely net based Failure and key of success Odds of survival of different business models compared| E-tail vs direct sales | 0. 93:1| Portal vs direct sales| 0. 97:1| Marktplace vs direct sales| 1. 30:1| Pay vs free| 0. 80:1| Clicks/mortar vs pure Net | 11:01| * E-tail and portal si tes are slightly less likely to survive than direct sales sites * Marketplace model are likely to survive that direct sales sites * Free sites are a little more likely to survive than pay sites * Clicks and mortar are 11 times more likely than pure Internet sites.Observation : * Firm that are part of group have a strategic advantages as brands, customers and suppliers relationship and cash * E-models are flexible and they enable rapid growth. Why some company in the same market will get success and some are not? * Logistic strategies – Case of eVineyards and Wine. com: the first decides to set up own retails store in each location generating a quicker and more reliable service. The second decided to outsource by relying on retail partners in various location, but it generated longer delivery times and out-of-stock problems Channel conflict: some firms have to cease trading via the Net owing to conflicts with existing channel partners (Starbucks, Levi Strauss, Reebok) * Free a nd pay web sites: the mass of users is attracted when the service is free * Lack of customer benefits is a common cause for the failure of the company * Network externalities: some firms focus on creating an high numbers of user, reeling in a large enough user base to make it attractive for the other users to join (eBay) * Level of utility and value added: to achieve a high target market penetration it may be necessary to be innovative (Priceline)What to take from it? * Each model raises particular issues * There is not a â€Å"perfect model† * Key factor is understanding and managing the particular problem inherent in their model * The chances to be successful are much higher when the firm is a part of a larger group Critique * It's a bit old. * It does not tell us , how is perfect business model look like? Questions for class * Is necessary to have a business model? * What are the key drivers of success in the business model? * How will these change in the future?

Essay 2 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

2 - Essay Example He shows a burning urge to learn in the beginning. He spends long hours studying. His goal changes when he creates a monster. He failed to realize the implications of having a monster. He invited evil to his door step. The theme of family is illustrated in this theme under Victor’s ambition. Victor thinks parents do not understand. The tragedy would have not occurred if his dad had given reasons not to read Agrippa. Mary Shelley explains in her novel that having a supportive family is a great solution to the problems of the society. However, the nice family in this novel ends up in the middle of the woods exiled in a cottage. Not so good for a family. Victor’s ambition resulted into the death of his mother. However, Victor is exonerated morally from the tragedy responsibility since such happening was not in his control. Walton’s desire to have a friend reflects the urge the monster feels for a mate. In this novel, gender is not an issue: it is about intimacy and closeness, not sex. Frankenstein gives a gratifying â€Å"depiction of family affection.† However, this is not usual in a novel complete with tragedy, murder, and despair. These tragedy, despair, and murder take place due to the absence of connection to either society or family. Isolation is the true evil in this novel. Victor’s ambition resulted into loneliness. When Victor becomes lost in his researches, he isolates himself from the society. He loses responsibility and implication of his actions due to this isolation. Victor’s monster becomes vengeful because of isolation, and not because it is evil. Monster gets filled with overwhelming anger and hate. The monster wants Victor to be lonely the way it is. This results in violence, hatred, and revenge. Through Walton and Victor, Mary Shelley in her novel exhibits human beings as very ambitious, though flawed. The two characters shared a dream to transform the society and bring glory to their families

Summertime Dues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Summertime Dues - Essay Example text is narrative since it captures the interest of the reader while focusing on the central theme of the character that students adopt during summer jobs. In addition, Kirn’s text takes the form of an expository text since it informs the reader about summer jobs and the lessons drawn from most of these jobs (Cooper et al. 146). The main theme of Kirn’s text has a basis on the character that students espouse during summer jobs. In this case, Kirn noted students who failed to work during the summer and choose other pursuits found themselves disadvantaged since they failed to learn some traits in modern day work although some of these traits may be mainly negative (364). In this case, Kirn is of the view that these characters developed during summer jobs are crucial in future jobs. Conversely, Kirn is of the view that summer jobs are merely political schemes or entitlement programs hatched to keep unruly kids busy and away from their parents (365). Kirn’s writing style is interesting. In this regard, only a few writers are able to inform as well as hold the reader’s interest all through the text. Kirn is in the group of exceptional writer, and the most interesting part of his style is that the article is informative, and it is thought provoking. In this case, this style of writing makes the reader to beginning questioning the rationale of summer jobs. In addition, the style of writing is interesting since it evokes a feeling of the need to prepare students by teaching them ethical practices before engaging in summer jobs. While it is evident that Kirn’s article is both expository and narrative, it would have been more appropriate for Kirn to strike a balance between the uses of these text types in the article. In this regard, the article appears to be more of a narrative. In effect, Kirn failed to present more facts on summer jobs by primarily dealing with his personal experiences. However, it would have been more appropriate for Kirn to present more

Software Management Metrics Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Software Management Metrics - Research Paper Example In this scenario, the majority of software development firms follows well-known industry standards such as ISO/IEC 15504 and CMMI. Additionally, in an attempt to improve the quality of developed products as well as their firm’s development potential and efficiency, a large number of approaches have been suggested in previous researches. Without a doubt, process assessment allows software development firms to understand their process capability and productivity, and taking into consideration the results of this assessment that firm can look forward to an improvement in its development processes by determining and understanding the strengths, weaknesses and risks associated with its processes and how to prevent them. Though, Software Engineering Institute’s CMMI (capability maturity model integration) is specifically designed to measure the capability of processes of software development firms. In this scenario, a software development firm with high level maturity level i s believed to have more mature software development process as compared to software development firms those having a lower maturity level. Hence, these firms can develop software products more constantly. In their research article, (Hwang) define software process capability â€Å"as the potential of a software development firm to develop software products consistently and predictably.† In the same way, a capability level refers to a wide collection of process characteristics and measures that work in cooperation to bring a significant improvement in the capability of a software development firm to carry out a software development process. In addition, CMMI is based on five levels and each level is intended to offer a major improvement of capability in the performance of a process (Hwang; VanHilst, Garg and Lo; Pressman). A software metric can be defined as any measurement or calculation utilized to measure some

Museums are catalysts for regeneration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Museums are catalysts for regeneration - Essay Example They are able to connect the past with the present, serve as reminders of a historic past, and provide a link between the old generation and the new one. They enable people to explore collections for inspiration, enjoyment, and learning. Investing in cultural projects such as museums has been the task of tourism, which is both indispensable and necessary. Likewise, urban development strategy has been the investment in cultural projects such as iconic museums and arts centers intended to enhance city image alongside catalyzing private sector participation and attracting tourists (Grodach 2008). Museums possess educational and cultural mandates, which are being transformed as institutions continuously play an increasingly important part in economic development and tourism promotion strategies (Tufts and Milne 1999). Museums are concerned with not only its traditional public mandate, but also with its ability to enhance consumption experiences while contributing to a diversified tourism product. The museum as a catalyst for cultural landscape regeneration is seen in its expansion in variety as well as explosion in popularity over the last decades, in which marked change in its role in society is significantly observed (Falk and Dierking 2002). In the past, the museum was oriented primarily towards research and collection. Today, it is increasingly viewed as an institution for public learning and has placed an emphasis on education – a task that it never did in the past (Falk and Dierking 2002). The issue of educating the public did not arise in the past and visits then were conducted privately. It must also be noted that, museums used to be for public collections alone, shared with others selectively by the curator. Although for many, the museum remains to hold a secondary function, it was observed that over time, its role as a public asset has become increasingly important (Falk and Dierking 2002). A quarter of century ago, most

Grammar and Composition Drafting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Grammar and Composition Drafting - Essay Example In my view, technology plays a destructive role in the modern society because it produces weapon with which people kill each other, ruins people’s morality through boosting greed in them, and destroys nature since it is often impossible to control. The middle part of your paper is the body of the paper. It develops the most important points which support your thesis statement. It contains three paragraphs. These paragraphs follow the points listed in the three-step format. Technology produces weapon with which people kill each other. Billions of people have been murdered with the help of technology since the day a shotgun was invented. Patrick Thomson, a Director of the Royal Museum in Sussex, says, â€Å"Who knows how many people would have lived longer but for the ordinary shot gun† (Thomson, â€Å"Destruction Today†). Similarly, Wendy Clifford, an American reporter, believes weapon plays a fatal role in 2 out of 20 domestic conflicts where it is used (Clifford, â€Å"Domestic Violence and Weapon†). Technology ruins human morality through boosting greed in people. When we see new iPads or iPhones advertised on TV, we wish to get these things even if in reality we do not need them. Other examples of greed for more technologically advanced and thus â€Å"better† things include: wishes to change cars, cell phones, software, and television. Technology destroys nature since it is often impossible to control. Nuclear explosions, oil spills, and animal extinction – these are horrible results of technological progress. It seems, if humanity continues to â€Å"develop† with the same pace, our planet Earth will become a deserted place in the following 100 years or even less. All in all, it is hard to find something less ruinous and destructive than technology invented by people. Since weapon kills people, greed for new gadgets â€Å"kills† morality and human inventions destroy nature, technology may be easily believed to play a destructive role in

A Credit Default Swap (CDS) Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

A Credit Default Swap (CDS) - Coursework Example The creditor must make periodical payments (which are taken to be insurance premium) to the insurer, and the insurer will pay the creditor in case the there is default. The fixed periodical payments made by the creditor or the buyer of a Credit Default Swap are known as the CDS fee or commonly referred to as CDS spreads. The buyer of the Credit Default Swap can only receive the exact value of the credit or loan and can not be compensated beyond that value. The seller of the Credit Default Swap (or the insurer) takes possession of the defaulted credit or loan, obtains right of ownership and can therefore sue to recover the credit. The value of the spreads to be paid should be determined so that the buyer of the Credit Default Swap can pay the correct value for the Credit Default Swap. Consider an example where a buyer of Credit Default Swap enters a five year contract to pay CDS spreads on Ford Motors credit with a principal of $10 million at 300 basis points. This means that the buye r pays $300,000 per year and obtains the right to sell bonds worth $10 million issued by Ford of that value in the event of a default by Ford. This thesis is divided into three parts which cover the topic in Credit Default Swap spreads in details. ... Bonds with AAA rating are considered to have almost no chance of default and its CDS spreads are expected to be lower compared to D rating which have a very high risk of default and its CDS spreads expected to be far more expensive. Probability Model There are other quantitative methods that can be employed to determine CDS spread to be paid. The probability model is one of the quantitative methods. This method recommends that credit default swaps should trade at a significantly lower spread than company bonds. The price of a Credit Default Swap is determined using a representation that considers four factors which are; issue premium, recovery rate (which is the percentage repaid in the event of default), credit curve and LIBOR curve. The price of a Credit Default Swap would be determined by adding the discounted premium payments. To explain the probability method better, imagine a case of one year Credit Default Swap which will be effective on lets say date t with a quarterly spread payment taking place on dates t1, t2, t3 and t4. If the nominal for the Credit Default Swap is N and the issue premium is C, then the value of the periodical spreads is given by the formula NC/4. If we imagine the default can only happen on one of the payment dates, then the swap agreement can end when; it lacks a default within agreed time and so the spread payments are made and the agreement endures until maturity date or, a default takes place either on first, second, third or fourth compensation date. The price of the Credit Default Swap is now determined by assigning probabilities to the five probable results. Labor Rate Labor rate can also be employed to benchmark the price for Credit Default Swap securities of a listed company. Labor is the interest fee which

The prevention of Obesity in Childhood Term Paper

The prevention of Obesity in Childhood - Term Paper Example Obese children tend to suffer from some symptom of attention deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD). Childhood obesity is a major worldwide concern especially in the developed countries and now are reaching epidemic proportions (Dehghan et al,2005). The prevalence rate is increasing worldwide and has been growing rapidly in the recent years(Procter , 2007). Therefore, this increase is considered a very critical issue by global public health authorities(Jones et al ,2008: North Ireland centre for diet and health,2001). In US the prevalence of obesity among children increased between year 1973 to 1994 by 11%. While, between 1999 and 2000 obesity increased by just 4%(Dehghan et al,2005).On the other hand 27.6% of American children and adolescents aged 2 through 19 years were overweight or obese between 2003 and 2006(Maryer, 2009). Similarly the UK saw a rise in the rate of childhood obesity from 8% to 20% between the years 1984 to 1993(Dehghan et al,2005). So, childhood obesity has been observed in the developed countries and developing countries as well. Moreover, childhood obesity i s high in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. According to Dehghan et al (2005), one in every six children aged between 6 and 18 years old is obese in Saudi Arabia. Obesity is defined as "an excess of body fat The World Health Organization (WHO) defines "overweight" as a BMI more than 25 or equal , and "obesity" as a BMI more than 30 or equal. The exact reason for obesity is not fully understood and it is believed to be a disorder with multiple causes. For instance environmental factors, lifestyle favorites, and cultural environment play crucial roles. In general obesity is assumed to be the results of an increase in caloric and fat intake. It is known many food favorites responsible for these caloric and fat intakes. Such as excessive sugar intake by soft drinks, increased portion size, fast foods, and steady decline in physical activity have been playing major roles in the rising rates of obesity all around the world. Thus, both over-consumption of calories and reduced physical activity are involved in childhood obesity. Knowing a child's BMI (Body Mass Index) can help you find the kids who are at risk of becoming overweight. 2. Analysis Childhood obesity can be defined as a condition where excessive body fat negatively affected on a children's health and wellbeing. Thus due to the increasingly rising prevalence of obesity in children and its many adverse effects on healthy life, it is being identified as one of the growing and major public health issues in the world. In fact strong evidence on the subject suggests that over the billions of children are overweight and obesity. The evidence clarifies and argues the importance of prevention of childhood obesity. The overall aim of this review is to investigate and examine the effectiveness of varying interventions to prevent childhood obesity in terms of either from healthy lifestyle education, or by combining the effects of both dietary education interventions and physical activity interventions to prevent obesity in childhood. This aim will be achieved through two specific clear targets. The first one is to evaluate the effectiveness of dietary education interventio ns versus control. The second one is intended to assess the action of the combined impact for both of dietary educat

The Courthouse Hotel Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Courthouse Hotel - Essay Example At the Courthouse Hotel, individuals in management positions felt that there were no opportunities for further achievement. For this reason, turnover rates at the Courthouse Hotel are high. Turnover in this form is detrimental to the entire morale of the organisation. Staff witness unsatisfied co-workers quitting their jobs because of the assumption that in terms of personal avenues for success, the company is a dead-end. As a consequence, the entire group suffers lack of confidence in the organisation. The Courthouse Hotel has poor retention rates. People resourcing and hiring practises are faulty and disordered. Staff persons are employed on an as-needed basis, which means the hotel uncertainly staffed, insufficiently prepared for business or anticipated business growth. As the current people resourcing practise stands, the hotel will not succeed. Hiring procedures will not meet the needs of a sixty percent growth in trade. In terms of staff already employed by the hotel, these employees show no little satisfaction with their jobs. Employees ponder the improved flexibility and conditions offered by the national and international hotel chains in town. Facing company change, the new business owner should fear leave-taking. Unless assured of their future success with the Courthouse Hotel, the current staff will leave before the fruits of renovations are encountered. The acute fault of peo... II. Recommendations A). Management Strategy Based upon the observed framework of the old hotel and the future needs of the renovated hotel, staff stability must be fortified. Considering the anticipated sixty percent growth of trade, the continuation of present employees is desired for sheer capatown of staff. The strategy suggested to the new owner of the Courthouse Hotel is the Ashridge Mission Model (. This model comes from the Cultural School of Strategic Management, teaching that the organisation must function as a cohesive unit, succeeding internally as well as externally (Mintzberg 2005). The company mission is a strategic tool to provide unity of direction and confidence of staff. The strengths of the Ashridge Mission Model counter the defects of the Courthouse Hotel. Pertaining to Stability of Tenure, the 'Mission' of the model is intended to motivate staff to excellent performance, thereby instilling confidence in their position. Pertaining to Unity of Direction, or the inaccessibility of staff feeling was inaccessible to all staff, the Ashridge model's strength is in its Mission Statement. The Mission Statement "provides a sense of direction" and is intended to "refocus an organisation during crises."(Ashridge) Although reorganisation is not a crisis, the incapatown of the current management to facilitate change while reinforcing staff morale is an acute predicament. The shared values provide unity among employees and improve their Espirit de Corps. The value in using this model to restrategise people resourcing is clear. Employees have reason to lack morale and confidence in their management team, also confidence that they will retain their jobs. The have little motivation to do so.

Police Corruption Essay Example for Free

Police Corruption Essay This paper intends to reintroduce â€Å"police corruption† by defining it, briefly mentioning real-life examples, discussing its types and levels, stating that there is also ‘right corruption’, restating its causes and effects, as well as, how this dilemma may be addressed. Police Corruption Defined â€Å"Acts involving the misuse of authority by a police officer in a manner designed to produce personal gain for himself or others† is the technical definition of â€Å"police corruption† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 296). In addition to that it is said that the act of â€Å"police corruption occurs when a police officer accepts money, goods, or services for actions they are sworn to do anyway or when they accept anything for ignoring actions they are sworn to invoke legal procedures against† (Ivkovic, 2005, pp. 15 32). Real-Life Examples of Police Corruption There are several true-to-life incidents with regards to â€Å"police corruption†; take for instance the following: During the 80s there were seventy five police officers in Miami who were charged for â€Å"police corruption† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 297). There were some who were arrested because of â€Å"drug dealing† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 297). In New York City, almost the same incident occurred in 1992 since there were six police officers who bought drugs in their â€Å"inner city precincts and selling it in the suburban communities† where they dwell in (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 297). During the same year, a police chief was convicted of illegally taking $2,600,000.00 from their department (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 298). Then in 1996, there were three police officers in Detroit who were involved in a â€Å"Texas-to-Michigan cocaine smuggling ring† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 297). During the same year, there were six police officers in Illinois accepted money in exchange of allowing twenty drug dealers do business in their area (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 297). In addition to that, a police director was sent to prison for â€Å"malfeasance, mail wire fraud, tax fraud, accepting gifts, making false statements, and forging documents† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 298). Corruption Types There are several types of â€Å"police corruption† and these are the following: First is technically referred to as â€Å"taking gratuities† which is defined as accepting tips in petty amounts or price cut on products bought (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 298). Accepting tips is not usually illegal, however, if the police officer accepts such and will grant the request of a person that he carries out something negative then the police officer should be charged for it (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 298). Second is known as â€Å"taking bribes† which is defined technically as accepting money with the purpose of undermining the objectives of the â€Å"criminal justice system† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 298). Third is â€Å"theft/burglary† or stealing of money or property while carrying out their responsibilities (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 298). â€Å"Theft/burglary† is considered another type of â€Å"police corruption† because there are many ways of doing so (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 298). For instance, since police can have access to â€Å"warehouses and store†, they can easily rob these themselves if they are tempted to (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 298). The last is known as â€Å"internal corruption† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 298). It is defined as â€Å"paying colleagues or other people in the police department in exchange for special assignments or promotions† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 299). There are other uncategorized types of â€Å"police corruption† including the following: 1) accepting free meals; 2) accepting discounted products/services; 3) taking advantage of other people who are weak/helpless; 4) taking from establishments which are not highly protected; 5) asking for money in exchange for protecting activities which are illegal; 6) taking money in exchange of fixing cases; as well as, 7) planning to steal or rob an institution like a bank or a convenience store   (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 299). Levels of Corruption Interestingly, there are â€Å"levels of corruption† as well and these are the following: It begins with the first level which is known as â€Å"rotten apples and rotten pockets† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 299). Here, only one police officer is involved in an act of corruption (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 299). The next level of corruption is called â€Å"pervasive and unorganized corruption† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 299). Here, several police officers are involved but they do not have plans on how exactly they are to carry out such a corrupt act (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 299). The third and final level is an invasive and well thought-out corruption (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 299). Here, almost everybody is involved; at least within the precinct or the department the policemen belong to (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 299). The police officer usually begins by considering taking gratuities like meals/products/services for free which may result from peer pressure (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). Next to this stage, a police officer may consider accepting money to neglect regulatory wrongdoings (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). Unfortunately, a police officer may ‘develop’ into the final stage of corruption which involves accepting ‘gifts’, as well as, asking for it; he or she may now be on the lookout for a ‘kickback’ (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). Right Corruption Fascinatingly, not everything about â€Å"police corruption† is negative (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). There are instances wherein an act of corruption may be carried out to achieve a greater cause (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). Effects of Police Corruption However, it cannot be denied that there are countless negative effects of â€Å"police corruption† (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). Unfortunately, it weakens law implementation which leads to prevalent delinquent acts (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). It also eliminates self-respect not only for the police officer but for the entire department itself making it more impossible for discipline to be established within the organization (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). Furthermore, the society loses their hope that they may be protected against delinquent people and other threats which leads to non-belief in the whole criminal justice system itself (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). Causes of Police Corruption â€Å"Police corruption† exists because of the following: 1) It occurs because it is observable and thus can be learned/imitated; 2) It happens because the nature of their work allows them to carry out a ‘corrupt’ act they are sometimes tempted to do so because they have the power to do so and because they can earn a lot by doing so; 3) Police officers are not very well motivated by their work due to the following: inadequate pay, no room for growth, no extensive training, etcetera and so they tend to engage in â€Å"police corruption† (Ivkovic, 2005, pp. 63 -96). Addressing Police Corruption Fortunately, there are steps we can do to address this problem (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). Experts say that it is important to acknowledge first that â€Å"police corruption† is being experienced (Ivkovic, 2005, pp. 97 134). Second is to institute â€Å"internal affairs divisions† to watch and regulate police officers (Dempsey et. al., 2005, p. 300). Third is to motivate the police force so that they will love their jobs and would not engage in â€Å"police corruption†, for instance, they should be trained, rewarded/praised, provided with a good salary, as well as, promoted when necessary (Ivkovic, 2005, pp. 97 134).

Analysis Of Ethical Egoism Philosophy Essay

Analysis Of Ethical Egoism Philosophy Essay Moral standards inform our actions, behaviours, and thoughts. The foundation of these standards stem from our cultural heritage passed on through generations. Introducing morals into the ego bears the philosophy of ethical egoism, which is a normative theory, based on the promotion of ones own good in accordance with morality (Moseley). Shaver avers that based on the ethical egoism theory it is necessary and sufficient for an action to be morally right and that it maximizes own good. The promotion and pursuance of ones self-interest underscores the normative theory. It prescribes the motivation of ones thought, behaviour, and action. To understand the ethical egoism theory we must first know certain principles behind it. Ethical egoism is a normative theory, which means it prescribes how we should think, behave, and act. Shaver presents three features of ethical egoism as individual, personal and universal. He states that individual ethical egoism is notion that all persons should serve self-interest. Personal ethical egoism is the belief that one should act from the motive of self-interest (Shaver). Universal ethical egoism is the doctrine that all persons should pursue their own interests exclusively (Shaver). The foundation of a coherent theory of ethics is in truth, consistency, and completeness. In truth means that a statement of action is either true or false and not both. Consistency means that there should be no contradictions or incompatible statements. Completeness means that there should be no moral truth, which is not provable from the basic moral principles of the theory (Moseley). Shavers argument (qtd. in Rachels) in favour of the theory is that we are better position to know what is good for us. He further argues that since to seek out the good of others is to interfere, we should mind our own business. His point is that all of our commonplace practices from corporate social responsibility to a welfare system are borne of self-preservation and interest. Shavers other submission (qtd. in Rand) in favour of the theory is that a form of egoism was one of the thrust the American Revolution. He further argues that capitalism a 19th Century business model of the American history helped in rapid economic and cultural development that the nation also experienced. In opposition to the theory, Moseley (qtd. in Bayer) believes that it fails to provide the moral and arbitration framework to resolve conflicts. He holds that it is contradictory that pursuit of self-interest can be right and wrong. Moseley states that a successful pursuance of self-interest can be a deterrent if it prevents others from seeking their interest though perceived as a moral triumph. Finally, opponents say that ethical egoism is prejudicial because it divides people into two groups and discriminates against one group based on some subjective difference. Critics have touted this as best objection to the theory, for it provides the soundest reason why the interests of others ought to concern the interests of the self. The theory fails to answer certain fundamental questions of criteria of categorization, like the difference between self and others that justifies placing self in a special category. This makes the theory an arbitrary doctrine, in the same way that racism is arbitrary (Moseley). Some strengths of the theory are that, sometimes acting in ones self-interest often benefits others .e.g. going to college is in your self-interest, and it will help keep you off welfare, crime. In pursuing your self-interest, you will get a job, which will benefit others, or you start a business to make money, but you must have satisfied employees and a competitive product thereby helping others. In choosing your own interest, you must have the personal freedom to choose. Hence, as an egoist you must allow everyone to pursue his own personal interest (universal ethical egoism); consequently, egoism leads into a right-based theory where each individual has certain inalienable rights or a rule-based theory where certain rules of conduct are in the interest of everyone to observe. That is we are all better off if everyone obeys the law for we have to give up some good to achieve our maximum possible good. (Moseley). Notable weaknesses of the theory include the fact that it cannot be generalized or recommended to others because such a recommendation would be against ones self-interest; there is no way to justify the belief since it applies to just one person. Another problem is that it is difficult to figure out what own interests means. It cannot be ascertained whether the phrase mean short-term or long-term benefit, pleasure, happiness, preference, or something else, for what gives you pleasure might not be a benefit or in your interest. (Moseley). One thing is certain about all the arguments presented, that the theory is controversial, inconsistent, and incongruous and cannot therefore be used as a basis to guide and direct our actions, habits, and beliefs. It is imperative to state that a theory is but an opinion or point of view if not grounded in truth, consistency, and completeness.

Overview Of It Infrastructure And Emerging Technologies Information Technology Essay

Overview Of It Infrastructure And Emerging Technologies Information Technology Essay IT infrastructure consists of a set of physical devices and software applications that are required to operate entire enterprises. But IT infrastructure is also a set of firm wide services budgeted by management and comprising of both human and technical capabilities. These services include the following: Computing platform used to provide computing services that connect employees, customers and suppliers into a coherent digital environment, including large mainframes, desktop, and laptop computers, and personal digital assistance and internal appliances. IT management services that plan and develop the infrastructure, coordinate with the business units for IT services, manage accounting for the IT expenditure, and provide project management services. IT standard services that provide the firm and its business units with policy to determine when, how and which information technology will be used. IT education services which provide training in system use to employees and offer managerial training on how to plan for and manage IT investment. IT research and development services that provide the firm with research on potential future IT project and investments that could help the firm differentiate itself in the market place. This service platform perspective makes it easier to understand the business value provided by infrastructure investment. For instance, in the US, the real business value of a fully loaded personal computer operating at 3 gigahertz that costs about $ 1000 or a high speed internet connection is hard to understand without knowing who will use it and how it will be used. Define IT infrastructure from both a technology and a services perspective. Technical perspective: Defined as the shared technology resources that provide the platform for the firms specific information system applications. It consists of a set of physical devices and software applications that are required to operate within the entire enterprise. Service perspective: Defined as providing the foundation for serving customers, working with vendors, and managing internal firm business processes. In this sense, IT infrastructure focuses on the services provided by all the hardware and software. IT infrastructure is a set of firm-wide services budgeted by management and comprising of both human and technical capabilities. Information technology infrastructure has the shared technology resources that provide the platform for the firms specific information system applications. IT infrastructure includes investment in hardware, software and services such as consulting education, and training that are shared across the entire firm or across business units in the firm. An IT infrastructure firm provides the foundation for serving customers, working with vendors, and managing internal firm business processes. Stages and technology drivers of IT infrastructure evolution Technology drivers of IT infrastructure evaluation The changes in IT infrastructure describes the result in development of computer processing, memory chips, storage devices, telecommunication and networking hardware and software design that have exponentially increased computing power while reducing costs. The term hardware, software and firmware occur frequently in any literature concerned with computer. It is important at the outset to have some understanding of their meanings. Hardware: Physical components in computer circuits, keyboards, disk drivers, disk and printers are all examples of pieces of hardware. Software is a set of instructions, written in specialized language, the execution of which controls the operation of the computer programmes. Firmware Is the permanent storage of programme instruction in hardware. It is usually used to refer to a set of instructions that is permanently encoded on micro-chips. The term firmware is used because it is the inseparable combination of hardware and software. (Business information system by Graham Curtis and David Cobham 6th edition 2008). List each of the eras in IT infrastructure evolution and describe its distinguishing characteristics. Five stages of IT infrastructure evolution include: General-purpose mainframe and minicomputer era (1959 to present): Personal computer era (1981 to present): Client/server era (1983 to present): Enterprise computing era (1992 to present): Evaluation of infrastructure The IT infrastructure in organisations today is an outgrowth of over fifty years of evolution in computing plate forms. There have been five stages in this evolution, each representing a different configuration of computing power and infrastructure elements. The five eras are general purpose mainframe and minicomputer computing, personal computer, client/server networks, enterprise computing and cloud computing. Infrastructure components IT infrastructure today is composed of 7 major components. These components constitute investment that must be coordinated with one another to provide the firm with a coherent infrastructure. Describe the evolving mobile platform, grid computing, and cloud computing. Mobile platform: more and more business computing is moving from PCs and desktop machines to mobile devices like cell phones and smart phones. Data transmissions, Web surfing, e-mail and instant messaging, digital content displays, and data exchanges with internal corporate systems are all available through a mobile digital platform. Net books, small low-cost lightweight subnotebooks that are optimized for wireless communication and Internet access, are included. The emerging mobile digital platform As computing increasingly take place over the network, new mobile digital computing platform has emerging communication devices such as cell phone and smart phone, the blackberry and iphone, taking on many functions of hand held computers, including transmission of data, surfing the web, transmitting email and instant messages, displaying digital content, and exchanging data with internal cooperated system. The new mobile platform also includes small low cost light weight sub note books called net books optimized for wireless communication and internet access, with core computing function such as a word processing, and digital e book readers such as amazon, kindle with some web access capabilities. More and more business computing is moving from PCs and desktop machines to these mobile devices; managers are increasingly using these devices to coordinate work and communicate with employees. GRID computing Grid computing: connects geographically remote computers into a single network to create a virtual supercomputer by combining the computational power of all computers on the grid. Grid computing takes advantage of the fact that most computers in the United States use their central processing units on average only 25% of the time for the work they have been assigned, leaving these idle resources available for other processing tasks. Grid computing was impossible until high speed internet connection enabled forms to connect remote machines economically and move enormous quantities of data. Grid computing requires software programmes to control and allocate resources on the grid. Client software communicates with a server software application. The server software breaks data and application code into chunks that are than parcelled out to the grids machines. The client machine can perform their traditional task while running grid application in the background. The business case for using grid computing involves cost saving speed of computation agility. For example, Royal Dutch/Shell group is using a scalable grid computing platform that improves the accuracy and the speed of its scientific modelling applications to find the best oil reservoirs. Cloud computing Cloud computing: a model of computing where firms and individuals obtain computing power and software applications over the Internet, rather than purchasing their own hardware and software. Data are stored on powerful servers in massive data centres, and can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection and standard Web browser. The growing bandwidth power of the internet has pushed the client/server model one step further, towards what is called the cloud computing model . Cloud computing refers to a model of computing where firms and individuals obtain computing power and software application over the internet, rather than purchasing their own hardware and software. Currently cloud computing is the fastest growing form of computing, with an estimated market size in 2009 of $8 billion, and a projected size of $160 billion 2012. In Cloud computing hardware and software capabilities are provided as services on the internet. Data is permanently stored in remote servers in massive data centre and accessed and updated over the internet using clients that include desktop, notebook, entertainment centre net book and mobile devices. For example, google application provides common business application online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and user data are stored on the server. Since organisations using cloud computing generally do not own the infrastructure, they do not have to make large investments in their own hardware and software. Instead, they purchase their computing services from remote providers and pay only for the amount of computing power that is actually used. Some analysts believed that cloud computing represents a sea change in the way computing will be performed by corporations, as business computing shift out of private data centres into the cloud computing is more immediately appealing to small and medium size business that lack resources to purchase and own their own hardware and software. However large corporations have huge investment complex proprietary systems supporting unique business process, some of which give them strategic advantages. The most likely is a hybrid computing model where firms will use their own infrastructure for their most essential core activities and adopt cloud computing for a less critical system. Cloud computing will gradually shift firm from having a fixed infrastructure capacity toward a more flexible infrastructure, some of it owned by the firm and some of it rented from joint computing centres owned by computer hardware winders. Current trends in computer hardware platforms? Computer hardware platform In 2008,285 million PCs were shifted worldwide, with a market value or $253 billion. There were Investments of more than US$ 18 billion in hardware manufacturing in India including telecoms hardware. This has stoked expectations of a hardware boom. These components include client machines (desktop PCs, mobile computing devices such as I-phones and blackberrys, and laptops)and server machine. The server market is more complex, using mostly Intel or AMD process in the form of blade servers on racks. Blade servers are ultrathin computers consisting of a circuit board with a processor, memory and network connection that are store in a rack. The supply of computer hardware has increasingly become concentrated in top firms such as IBM, HP, DELL, SUNMICRO system, three chip producers, Intel AMD and IBM. The industry has collectively settled on Intel as the standard processer, with major exceptions in the server market for Unix and Linux machine, which might use sun or IBM Unix processer. Businesses can benefit from autonomic computing, virtualization, and multicore processors. Autonomic computing Benefits of autonomic computing include systems that automatically do the following: Configure themselves Optimize and tune themselves Heal themselves when broken Protect themselves from outside intruders and self-destruction Reduce maintenance costs Reduce downtime from system crashes Virtualization Benefits of server virtualization include: Run more than one operating system at the same time on a single machine. Increase server utilization rates to 70 percent or higher. Reduce hardware expenditures. Higher utilization rates translate into fewer computers required to process the same amount of work. Mask server resources from server users. Reduce power expenditures. Run legacy applications on older versions of an operating system on the same server as newer applications. Facilitate centralization of hardware administration. Multicore processors Benefits of multi-core processors: Cost savings by reducing power requirements and hardware sprawl Less costly to maintain as fewer systems need to be monitored. Performance and productivity benefits beyond the capabilities of todays single-core processors. Handle the exponential growth of digital data and the globalization of the Internet. Meet the demands of sophisticated software applications under development. Run applications more efficiently than single-core processors giving users the ability to keep working even while running the most processor intensive task in the background. Increase performance in areas such as data mining, mathematical analysis, and Web serving. Current trends in software platforms Define and describe open source software and Linux and explain their business benefits. Open-source software provides all computer users with free access to the program code so they can modify the code, fix errors in it, or make improvements. Open-source software is not owned by any company or individual. A global network of programmers and users manage and modify the software. By definition, open-source software is not restricted to any specific operating system or hardware technology. Several large software companies are converting some of their commercial programs to open source. Linux is the most well-known open-source software. Its a UNIX-like operating system that can be downloaded from the Internet, free of charge, or purchased for a small fee from companies that provide additional tools for the software. It is reliable, compactly designed, and capable of running on many different hardware platforms, including servers, handheld computers, and consumer electronics. Linux has become popular during the past few years as a robust low-cost alternative to UNIX and the Windows operating system. Thousands of open-source programs are available from hundreds of Web sites. Businesses can choose from a range of open-source software including operating systems, office suites, Web browsers, and games. Open-source software allows businesses to reduce the total cost of ownership. It provides more robust software thats often more secure than proprietary software. Declining communications costs and the internet. A fourth technology driver transforming IT infrastructure is the rapid decline in the costs of communication and exponential growth in the size of the internet. An estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide now have internet access. The exponentially declining cost of communication both over the internet and over telephone network (which increasingly are based on the internet). As communication costs falls towards very small numbers and approach zero, utilization of communication and computing facilities explodes. To take advantage of the business value associated with the internet, firms must greatly expand the power of their clients/server networks, desktop clients, and mobile computing devices. There is every reason to believe these trends will continue. One reason for the growth in the internet population is the rapid decline in internet connection and overall communication cost. The cost per kilo bits of internet access has fallen exponentially since 1995. Digital subscriber line DS L and cable modems now deliver kilobits of communication for a retail price of around two cents. Standards and network effects Todays enterprise infrastructure and internet computing would be impossible both now and in the future-without agreements among manufacturers and widespread consumer acceptance of technology standards. Technology standards are specifications that establish the compatibility of product and the ability to communicate in a network. Technology standard unleashing powerful economy of scale and resulting in price declines has resulted in manufacturers focussing on the product built to a single standard. Without these economies of scale, computing of any sort would be far more expensive than currently is the case. In the 1990s, corporations started moving towards standard computing and communication plate forms. Windows PC with the windows operating system and micro soft office desktop productivity applications became the standard desktop and mobile client computing platform. Widespread adoption of the UNIX has made possible the replacement of proprietary and expensive main frame infrastructure. In telecommunications, the Ethernet standard enabled PCs to connect together in small local area network, and TCP/IP standard enable these LANs to be connected into firm-wide networks, and ultimately, to the internet.