Module 2

Module 2

In this section of the book the author talks about more 3 more flatteners  He talks about workflow software, open source software and outsourcing.

Workflow Software is described by Friedman as a software that can be used in companies to make everything work together. He explains the software revolution developed after people who were connecting wanted to do more with the internet than just browsing or sending emails.  This gave companies the ability to communicate between departments. Before the workflow  companies had different systems on each department, depending on their needs, that didn't mean that they were not successful just that work didn't flow digitally because maybe in a company someone from the sales department still had to go to the warehouse to verify if the item needed was on inventory. We needed something that would ensure that everyone's emails and software could connect with everyone else's email and software.

A good example is the company I used to work for. It was a medical insurance company. I had to make sure that our customers were cold find a doctor with our product and all their claims were covered. I did not worked in the claims department or a doctors office but using their software system and without having to move from my office I was able to verify the claims that someone else had worked on another department, check their notes from the doctors office and a lot more. Communicating with other offices within the same company that were not even in the same building that I was at the moment.

Open source Software is also knows as community developed software and this one is created by programmers and given away for free download.  The programmers also let anyone that has something to improve this software to collaborate. The free software movement is a bigger deal that what some people think, right now almost every kind of software can be found with a free alternative. An example that I know and is also mentioned in the book is Open office, It has the basic features of Microsoft office but you don’t have to pay from $99 to $200 to use it. Most of the companies that offer paid software are very expensive and It is nice to have another option, I think that is a fact that makes open source so important in our lives.

The author also talks a little about uploading and with this comes Blogging , podcasting , YouTube and Wikipedia. All of this ones just illustrates how popular uploading has become. All this sites have allowed the users to share, view, contribute and also learn from others.

The last flattener on this module is outsourcing. The author explains how United states benefited from India, any service, business, call center or business operation that could be done over the internet could be outsourced to the cheapest provider. Outsourcing from America to India as a new form of collaboration exploded. He explains that Indian companies were good and cheap. The Y2K gave India a bigger chance to collaborate with western companies, to upgrade their  computers the companies had to find who will do the job for as little money as possible, and the Indians companies did just that. That makes outsourcing important, the effectiveness and cost. After that Indian companies started to develop their own products and transform themselves from maintenance to product  companies.