Computers in the Workplace

During the fourth week of our class we were directed to choose a specific industry and describe the functions of computers for that industry. I chose the Corporate Office as my industry.  Corporate computing does not really change much from industry to industry and so you can classify the Corporate Office as its own industry.  In each corporate office, there are usually many different types of computers that are necessary for the business to maintain functionality and profit.  On the low end of the spectrum, a corporate office has entry-level workers that use desktop PCs to complete the tasks for their jobs.  The function of these computers are mostly for document editing and creation.  In the finance department, the workers are using Microsoft Excel on their Windows PCs to manipulate earnings statements, customer invoices, materials invoices, etc.  The sales teams use CRM tools to document leads and track inventories.  The HR team has access to the payroll software, recruitment tracking tools, and email to keep up with issues that their employees raise.  In these general computing roles, computer literacy is absolutely vital.  If an employee does not know how to work a computer, they will not be able to log their time nor complete any other basic tasks for their positions.

After entry-level positions, there are employees that need to have more intermediate computer literacy.  There are several examples of these types of users.  First, are the marketing professionals.  These users typically use Apple products such as iMacs because of their powerful hardware needed to manipulate marketing products using software from the Adobe Creative Cloud suite.  These users need more than basic computer literacy in order to understand how to complete their work using complex image editing and creation software.  Another group of people that need intermediate computer literacy is the software development users.  These employees need to be able to understand how the code they write will interact with other pieces of software that are deployed to similar systems.  Devs also need to be able to complete troubleshooting on their systems, and they also need to be able to troubleshoot the pieces of software that they are creating.  If a software developer does not have an intermediate level of computer literacy, they probably will not be in their position for very long.

The previous two levels usually make up the bulk of all corporate users.  But there is still a third group of people in the corporate environment that need to have an expert level of computer literacy.  These employees are the users who make up the IT Support staff.  These users will have experience on the greatest variety of computer equipment.  For their day to day activities, they will typically use laptop PCs to check their email, document their work on their ticketing systems, create documents and reports, etc.  Beyond their PCs, they will also use more powerful computing systems like servers.  Servers have software installed on them that supply different services to every other department in the business.  These computers are both usually too large to have at a desk and have sensitive information and so they are stored in network closets named the Main Distribution Frame (MDF).  People in the IT staff need expert literacy because they need to understand how every piece of hardware and software fit together as well as knowing what needs to happen to make sure that each moving part is working the way it is designed.

Considering the historical trends of computing, you can forecast how computer hardware, operating systems, and networking will affect corporate computing over the next ten years.  First, Microsoft has announced that their Windows 10 operating system is actually modular.  They used this strategy to allow their software to be an operating system for the Internet of Things (IoT).  The Internet of Things is a concept that is used to describe how all modern digital equipment is being networked together.  As an example, there are currently several different types of Windows 10.  For this discussion, my examples are Windows 10 Professional, Windows 10 Holographic Edition, and Windows 10 IoT Core.  Win 10 Professional is currently one of the primary operating systems in the corporate computing world.  This operating system is meant for the everyday corporate user to allow them to complete most of the tasks for their position.  The Windows 10 Holographic Edition is the operating system they created to run their augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) hardware that will be released in the near future.  This version of Windows is necessary to translate data into holographic displays.  The holographic technology will completely change the face of computing in a similar fashion to how computing followed an exponential curve through the 1990s.  Holographic technology will allow users in a corporate environment to not need to buy computer monitors anymore because the headsets will allow for nearly limitless screen real estate.  It will allow engineering departments to collaborate on different projects in real time with members of the team anywhere in the world with a stable internet connection.  The marketing teams will be able to superimpose marketing materials on the sides of buildings, benches, cars, or anywhere else they would want to display information, allowing the design professionals to see their creations as they would look when the project is finished.  The applications of augmented reality, in the corporate environment, will reach into every possible department and will increase employee efficiency exponentially.  Additionally, there are new networking technologies that will keep increasing the speed of data transfer that will one day match and beat the speed of the human mind.

Computer literacy is critical at every level of corporate computing.  Without employees being computer literate, corporations would not be able to function or turn a profit.  Also, while technology keeps increasing in complexity, if a user is not literate on current computer systems, they will be completely lost on the new technologies that will be introduced to them in the future.