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Q3 What Do Business Professionals Need to Know About Software? 125

defense, automotive, entertainment, and healthcare industries. What happens when it becomes
14
feasible to 3D print extra-large objects like cars, planes, boats, houses, and drones?
Below are three examples of nontraditional 3D printing. Consider how disruptive each one
would be to its respective industry:
tm
• 3D Systems new ChefJet can print complex sugary structures in flavors like chocolate,
15
vanilla, mint, cherry, sour apple, and watermelon. With a ChefJet, even a culinary nov-
ice could produce intricate, beautiful, and fully customized deserts.
• Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences were able to
print a 3D biological structure with blood vessels that could deliver nutrients and re-
16
move waste. This development means doctors will be able to print fully functional re-
placements for damaged tissues by simply pressing print. Not only could this save lives,
but it could also lower insurance premiums and the overall cost of health care.
• Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California has built a large-
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scale 3D printer that can print an entire house in 24 hours. This 3D home printer
would create more stable and better insulated structures, use less materials, reduce
workplace injuries, automatically install heating and plumbing, and produce the home
at a fraction of the cost.

Q3 What Do Business Professionals Need

to Know About Software?

Operating systems can become As a future manager or business professional, you need to know the essential terminology and
infected with malware. Read the software concepts that will enable you to be an intelligent software consumer. To begin, con-
Security Guide on pages 150–151 sider the basic categories of software shown in Figure 4-9.
to learn more.
Every computer has an operating system (OS), which is a program that controls that
computer’s resources. Some of the functions of an operating system are to read and write data,
allocate main memory, perform memory swapping, start and stop programs, respond to error
conditions, and facilitate backup and recovery. In addition, the operating system creates and
manages the user interface, including the display, keyboard, mouse, and other devices.
Although the operating system makes the computer usable, it does little application-specific
work. If you want to check the weather or access a database, you need application programs such as
an iPad weather application or Oracle’s customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Both client and server computers need an operating system, though they need not be the
same. Further, both clients and servers can process application programs. The application’s de-
sign determines whether the client, the server, or both process it.

Operating System Application Programs
Client Programs that control the Applications that are processed
client computer’s resources on client computers
Server Programs that control the Applications that are processed
Figure 4-9 server computer’s resources on server computers
Categories of Computer Software

14 See EDAG’s GENESIS prototype car at www.EDAG.de.
15 Venessa Wong, “A Guide to All the Food That’s Fit to 3D Print (So Far),” BusinessWeek, January 28, 2014, accessed
May 23, 2014, www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-28/all-the-food-thats-fit-to-3d-print-from-chocolates-to-
pizza.
16 Dan Ferber, “An Essential Step Toward Printing Living Tissues,” Harvard School of Engineering and
Applied Sciences, February 19, 2014, accessed May 23, 2014, www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2014/02/
essential-step-toward-printing-living-tissues.
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Ryan Bushey, “Researchers Are Making a 3D Printer That Can Build a House in 24 Hours,” Business Insider,
January 9, 2014, accessed May 23, 2014, www.businessinsider.com/3d-printer-builds-house-in-24-hours-2014-1.