Sunday, February 19, 2012

Understanding Software

There are two types of software; system software and application software. We use system software every time we turn on our device. System software enables us to use our hardware. Application Programming Interface connects the four layers of communication through the device. The user is the outer layer. The application is the next layer followed by the operating system. The operating system (OS) communicates with the hardware then the information travels back through that path which ends at the user.  The OS is like a traffic cop to the application software. We view our applications through a platform that communicates with the OS and the hardware. There are two types of application software: Desktop software, for one person, and enterprise software, for many people.We use desktop software individually and  on a daily basis when we use applications like Microsoft Word and Open Office. These applications require a purchase and a license agreement. What happens when we are part of an enterprise and we have a lot of different needs as well as users? Software packages. More precisely, enterprise resource planning software packages. ERPs integrate many functions of a business such as finance, inventory, human resources and accounting. Though not easy to integrate, a time-saver in the long run. ERPs can aid in sales by monitoring each sales rep's progress, satisfy their order fulfillment and  trigger inventory replenishment. ERP systems not only aid in sales and inventory departments. They now assist customer relationship management, supply chain management and business intelligence. If you want to research more about enterprise resource planning systems, check out this website: http://www.erp.com/. You can see the top providers of ERPs and even read reviews about them.

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