The Wold Is Flat: Part 2

Brandi Barnett
1/17/13
IST 1100

Well here we are again fellow lurkers it is another assignment on why Thomas L. Friedman thinks the world is flat. This time around the paper-blog will be discussing more computer based technical advances. The life advances on why the world may be flat include: Workflow software allowed work to flow, open source software where you are collaborating on projects , and outsourcing is split services.

     Workflow software no one really knew what it was and pretty much was kept on the down low. It was a way of communicating with business associates all the way around the world in a better fashion. Of course, with all this new technology people started to get greedy and wanted more to do with this new found invention. Consumers wanted to buy and sell things over the internet and may be provide good with whatever they came up with. Then, came programs like HTML it provided consumers the same based computer language. Another example of workflow software is PDF, which is a file format that captures elements of a printed document as an electronic image. It has become a big thing in the college world.

     Open source software is a free based downloading source that lets people contribute and improve the software. It should be free and free to all. Open source was created so people can get out of the control of corporations. Mozilla Firebox is an open source software which is a free web browser installation. It had over ten million downloads. One of the reasons why it is so popular is that you can add extensions sometimes for free to the browser like an app. This was a huge turn around that can actually help people in other parts of the world. Since, out source programs can literally run on any sized computer. The internet explorer is dying a slow death.

     Outsourcing was probably the only thins that came out positive during the Y2K phenomenon. Computers went into a frenzy during the 90’s with the height of Y2K. It was too much for the every day worker with hardly any knowledge on how to correctly fix a computer problem they realized they can rely on other people and not just people from inside their own house. This is where India enters the equation they had enough software engineers and people who can fix the problem with their advanced skills and so many IT schools. It was not just beneficial and problem solving situation it was learned that by using sources from the outside world it is a lot cheaper and faster to get something done correctly and on time.

     This book is definitely an interesting read it is not something I would generally go and pick up myself. Out of the six events that have caused the world to go flat so far that has been covered. I have only found one to be enjoyable. I hope you are enjoying the book so far than I have. I can not wait till it picks up some speed and covers events I am truly interested and invested in. Maybe off shoring will be it.