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Social Responsibility
The Software Market
Marketing software generally follow the marketing scheme as any other product. Marketing is often referred to as a combination of the following four factors (the four P’s):
+ Product
- The software package must produce to the satisfactory for the targeted customer and it is also important to determine the appropriate target market.
+ Place
- The availability of the software in certain locations. It must be readily accessible for the person to whom you wish to sell the software; through the Internet, or disturbing it through retail stores are some of the possibilities.
+ Promotions
- Ensuring that people notice about the product. This may include advertising, online marketing, direct marketing and personal selling.
+ Price
- An appropriate price must be suitable to ensure the maximum market saturation or to obtain maximum profit. When determining the price of a package it is important to consider wholesales, upgrades, discounts and reseller mark-up.
Maintaining Market Position
The software market is at a constant flux, therefore for a product to maintain in the market it must meet the requirements of the customer, such programs include: Microsoft office, Educational, and web application products.
The product position must be held, once the market has been found. To ensure that the product is still feasible an S.W.O.T. analysis is enforced. The Swot analysis involves determining the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats for your product. Techniques used to maintain the market position:
Mission and Purpose: The software Developer must produce a product that meets the requirements of the targeted audience. The product must be able to find and keep a niche in the marketplace.
Quality: The quality of the product must be good, meeting the requirements of the targeted market; It should be easy to use, thoroughly documented. and meet the needs of the target market.
Reliability:The software product should work as specified.
Support/Maintenance: Current customers are prone to purchase upgrades or new products than customers who aren’t familiar to the software. Efficient and Effective support should be supplied to help new customers.
Upgrades: To keep the satisfaction of the customer, Upgrades and bug fixes should be made with the software product. Since technology is changing rapidly and new operating systems are constantly changing; therefore fail to provide upgrades will mean the software product may be unreliable or outdated.
Growth Strategies: Finding New customers, or lowering prices which will suit the budget of the customers, advertising in different locations i.e. overseas.
Other Social and Ethical Issues
National and Interantional Legal Action Resulting from software Development
Different Countries have different types of legal action against copyright breaches and piracy. One example is the case of Autodesk v Dyason. This case extended the protection of computer software to include computer programs in both source and object code; the 1984 definition of ‘computer program’ from the amendments to the Copyright Act 1968.
Another example of International legal action in the past is the case of the Microsoft v Apple. Apple was the first to globally distribute the GUI. Soon, Microsoft released a GUI Similar to Apple. Both Microsoft and Apple sold it all over the world before any legal action was taken. But eventually Apple claimed that Microsoft had stolen their idea for the GUI. However Microsoft did not steal Apples idea as certain aspects were different, a settlement was reached; now both companies continue to distribute operating systems.
Computer Viruses
A virus is a program that has a specific operation that is usually harmful to a computer's "health" and has the intention to do damage and is of a destructive nature. The main question is raised who gave the virus?
For Example: Peter if Bob a game Burnt on a CD that has a virus on it; It is still complicated in understanding whose fault is it. Peter could be at fault due to the fact that he gave the game to him or Bob who didn’t have an anti-virus program to check for viruses.
Social and ethical issues vary from situations dependent on its individual circumstances.
Reliance on Software
In today’s society, the reliance on software and technology has increased. Software is the most important aspect of:
+ Entertainment
+ Education
+ Economy
+ Businesses
+ Appliances
+ Warfare
Software must be thoughtfully developed and comprehensively tested to ensure that humans are not in danger, by causing an accident. The technology created is primarily not the problem, but the technology being used by humans is the main cause. Many of the world’s most serious accidents –Exxon Valdez, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl – have been a result of fatigued humans trying to operate technology which is set to run 24 hours a day.
Although there are disasters, there are benefits; Software in our life has made various things easier and less complex. The use of software has made an exponential growth in laziness, less activates are done, this is mainly targeted at teenagers. As programmers program more games teenagers are likely to play the game rather than outdoor activities. Software has led to the diminishing of conservative routines.
Year 2000 Problem (Y2K)
The year 2000 problem was the software programs only recorded the last two digits of a year, to save space. People were concerned that when the millennium rolled over the year 2000 would be stored as 00, which may have been mistaken for 1900.
Globally Companies would have spent approximately one trillion dollars USD to ensure that all major computers will avoid this problem. It was predicted that once the roll over began machines and devices would cease working or produce an irreversible error in operations.
Very few Problems had attributed to the Y2K bug; If there was a more serious problem, organisations would be liable, due to the fact that problems can be foreseen and would be well publicised. After the Y2K bug most companies invested large amounts of money, complaining that the Y2K bug affected their hardware. Some Organisations did experience difficulties such as Sydney Trains and Ansett airlines.
Although many said the Y2K bug was a hoax, there are numerous positive outcomes, including: Organisation and Government companies, updated their computer equipment; and have required more of an understanding of the IT resources.