Information Technology Reference
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b.
Divide the class or discussion group into three teams, each
of which is to serve as a proponent for one of the three
dominant operating systems. Then conduct a roundrobin
debate or group argument, in which each group promotes
the thesis that its operating system should be installed in all
labs and classes at your school.
3.
Both the U.S. Justice Department and several states took
Microsoft to court, alleging monopolistic practices.
a.
Investigate the nature of these cases, and determine their
current status.
b.
Review the claims and counterclaims of these cases. To
what extent do you believe the claims were valid?
c.
Based on your readings of the cases, do you agree with the
outcomes and settlements? Explain.
4.
During an evening at home, a student listens to music, reads
an assignment, writes a short paper, answers several tele
phone calls, eats a snack (while reading and writing), and
plans a weekend shopping trip to a nearby mall.
a.
To what extent does the activity of the student represent
multitasking?
b.
How might the evening's schedule change if the student
was limited to single tasking?
5.
IBM's hardware philosophy of the 1980s for personal com
puters is sometimes called an open hardware approach. A
company shares its basic specifications, allowing others to
copy some basic elements and capture some of the market.
a.
Why do you think a company might believe that an open
hardware approach would be in its best interests?
b.
Investigate the development of the personal computer mar
ket in the 1980s to determine the extent to which this open
hardware approach helped IBM meet its objectives during
that period.
6.
Developers of the Linux operating system now follow an
“open source” policy that is analogous to IBM's “open hard
ware” approach of the 1980s.
a.
Investigate how this policy works today in practice.
