July 2004 - Vol. 47 No. 7

July 2004 issue cover image

Features

Opinion Editorial pointers Jul 1 2004

Editorial Pointers

In less than a decade, the Internet has become so ingrained in our daily lives that many of us would agree we could not imagine living without it. But is it truly indispensable? Hoffman et al. surveyed the domestication of the Net and found not only an astronomical rise in the number of users in […]

Diane Crawford

Computing Applications

News News track Jul 1 2004

The National Science Foundation and the National Science Board (which oversees the NSF) issued their strongest warnings yet regarding the loss of U.S. dominance in critical areas of science and innovation and the shortage of U.S. scientists entering technical fields. In two New York Times reports, federal and industry experts traced the steady decline of […]

CACM Staff

Computing Applications

Opinion Forum Jul 1 2004

Pearl Brereton neglected to include product usability in the software procurement paradigm, as she described it in "The Software Customer/Supplier Relationship" (Feb. 2004). Whether organizations are buying large amounts of commercial off-the-shelf, custom, or component software, all are concerned about productivity and total cost of ownership. But software product selection is multi-dimensional, including functionality, price, […]

Architecture and Hardware

Opinion The profession of IT Jul 1 2004

The Field of Programmers Myth

The persistent public image of computing as a field of programmers has become a costly myth. Reversing it is possible but not easy.

Peter J. Denning

Computing Applications

News On site Jul 1 2004

Is Telemedicine the Panacea For Sub-Saharan Africa’s Medical Nightmare?

"Ever since my eye swelled up, I've gone to church to pray for a cure...I always knew He would send a way to make me better---I just didn't know it was going to be from London," says Anna Mobutsu, a 23-year-old farm laborer, who cannot imagine journeying farther than a bus ride from her home in the small African town of Nelspruit. An illiterate single parent with a 7-year-old and an elderly mother to support on about $56 a month, Anna does not even own a TV to introduce her to a world beyond her own. "But this afternoon I went to London" [2].

Victor W. A. Mbarika

Computing Applications

Opinion Security watch Jul 1 2004

The Hipaa-Potamus in Health Care Data Security

Regulations intended to improve health care data access have created new security risks along with headaches for patients and practitioners.

Rebecca T. Mercuri

Architecture and Hardware

Opinion Technology strategy and management Jul 1 2004

More Lawyers Than Programmers?

Microsoft must alter its strategy to avoid an increasingly litigious future.

Michael A. Cusumano

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoint Jul 1 2004

What Global Sourcing Means For -U.S. IT Workers and For the U.S. Economy

The result is likely to be increased IT employment diffused throughout the U.S. economy, especially in non-tech industrial sectors.

Catherine L. Mann

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

Has the Internet Become Indispensable?

We seem to be in the midst of an Internet revolution and entering an era of enhanced digital connectivity. The pace of social change resulting from the diffusion of this technology, both in the U.S. and globally is, by many accounts, dramatic. In less than ten years, the Internet has become indispensable to many people […]

Donna L. Hoffman, Thomas P. Novak, and Alladi Venkatesh

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

The Impact of Internet use on the Other Side of the Digital Divide

Exploring factors influencing the social impact of Internet use.

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

High-Tech Forensics

An Oregon police department successfully enlists tech-savvy citizens to serve as police reserve specialists.

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

Universities Marginalize Online Courses

Why should faculty members develop online courses if the effort may be detrimental to their promotion or tenure?

George P. Schell

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

Demystifying Integration

This framework helps navigate the standards maze to develop a flexible applications infrastructure that advances an organization's strategic business needs.

Kaushal Chari and Saravanan Seshadri

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

Erp in China: One Package, Two Profiles

How and why the same software system implementation can produce fundamentally different results.

Maris G. Martinsons

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

Why Western Vendors Don’t Dominate China’s Erp Market

Examining cases of failed ERP system implementation in China and explaining the unique circumstances.

Huigang Liang, Yajiong Xue, William R. Boulton, and Terry Anthony Byrd

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

Investor Perceptions of Traditional and Online Channels

How should financial service firms, online and off, adjust their customer-acquisition and -service strategies to reflect investors' changing expectations?

Troy J. Strader and Sridhar N. Ramaswami

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

Representing Composites in Conceptual Modeling

Using an object or entity class to represent a composite provides straightforward answers, making this approach superior to the use of relationship classes or associations.

Graeme Shanks, Elizabeth Tansley, and Ron Weber

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Jul 1 2004

Improving the Quality of Business Object Models Using Collaboration Patterns

Project managers and systems analysts can tackle the challenges of representing system requirements using the object-oriented approach.

Narasimha Bolloju

Computing Applications

Practice Jul 1 2004

A Model For Evaluating It Security Investments

Assessing the return on investment has always been a sticking point for technology investments. Similar to IT productivity paradox [1], Return on Security Investment (ROSI) has become a controversial topic due to immense growth of e-businesses. Defining the value of security investments is challenging. However, it is clear that “security consumers will need to understand […]

Huseyin Cavusoglu, Birendra Mishra, and Srinivasan Raghunathan

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Opinion Inside risks Jul 1 2004

Insider Risks in Elections

Many discussions of voting systems and their relative integrity have been primarily technical, focusing on the difficulty of attacks and defenses. This is only half of the equation: it’s not enough to know how much it might cost to rig an election by attacking voting systems; we also need to know how much it would […]

Paul Kocher and Bruce Schneier

Computing Applications

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