to those mentioned above, directed to the Managing Director of AM. There are references to attachments throughout the report. These attachments do not exist, but the references are placed there just as they would be if this were actually a Technology Report.)
Although AM is highly computerized, there is no LAN system in place, and five separate mainframes serve five separate departments: a) accounting and bookkeeping, b) technical support, c) database management, d) customer service/support, and e) sales and marketing. The task given the TM is to establish an Intranet system that can then also give Internet Access.
The research information that will solve this challenge will be presented in the following Technology Report format: a) problem statement, b) prerequisites for adoption, c) constraints and drivers, d) probable impact on production and other projections, e) required actions and strategies, f) cost evaluations, including investment/benefit ratios, and g) best estimates of the efficiency and endurance of the technology.
1982 was a watershed year that went unnoticed by the public at large but was of great interest to executives of major world corporations. In that year, for the first time in history, information technology spending outweighed basic industrial spending (Bacharach, Bamberger, & Mundell, 1995, 16-18). By 1994, more than three times as much capital was invested in information technology than was invested in industrial spending and that gap keeps growing larger.
Surely with this amount of spending, the world's businesses should be completely interconnected and computerized. However, the reverse is true, for much of this spending was done, not foolishly, but in an effort to keep up with ever-changing technology (Freeman, Hannan, 1984, 152). In Saudi Arabia, many businesses (including AM) are filled with "legacy systems" (often outdated and considerably expensive software applications) while a...