Large parts of underrated people in any organizations right now are the people who comprise the Management information Systems or information Technology department of companies. Though these people were not really given much importance before, the boost of technology in helping out corporate entities has totally changed this scenario. Though at present, more corporate organizations do not see the benefits of putting up or giving due emphasis to this division, one can only need to point to over achieving companies in their success as a proof of the added benefits and deeper analysis of how their respective companies are operating and at what level they are at the moment. Needless to say, these people bring innovations to the old style of corporate success. Without a doubt, the fast paced development of technology has aided a large portion of corporate entities in evaluating and forecasting better operations and profits. With the new manner of collective data from their operations and transforming them into easier ways of analyzing through graphs and figures, people can now find out in a day how they operate and what they need to possess to be able to improve and even medicate certain deficiencies from their actual operations. Though for some companies, having this kind of a department may not be feasible, comparing this scenario to a company that relies on consultancy basis may not be as cost effective. There are times when the needs of a company may become already outrageous that they would eventually consider their consultant corporate partners as impotent and ineffective, which is very unfair since there are instances that some demands may also need the value of time management or curing periods, to whichever case it may be applicable. Moving forward, there will be times that the importance of these people will be realized once they are nearing stages of leaving behind the company for better opportunities for growth and development of their skills. Once this point arrives, a question arises for all corporate entities with regards to security of their systems or maybe even the safeguarding of their data or documents. Though this may be hard to defend at times, legal process is the usual resort for some companies. However, it would seem unprofessional for such an occurrence and more often, it is these people who would be ruining their names rather than the company’s. More plainly put, systems can be restored at some point, credibility and trust never.

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information technology is a mix of telecommunications and computers, which is concerned with storing, processing, updating, sending and receiving of information which is something which people need for their development and well being.

It is the information technology which has brought awareness about the value of information to every common man. information is one of the three basic elements beside energy and matter that make up the man-made environment and hence determine the importance of information to human life. information is a key factor to ensure achieving socio-economic progress of society.

The key issues are not simply the effects of automation of manual work due to rapidly developing computer technology. But the key issues are new technologies which are responsible for bringing the continuous change in society by ensuring the availability of information required to raise the profitability and productivity industries as well as other sectors of economy.

Many economists agree that information technology has now become the main prerequisite for social progress and economic development in almost all the countries of world. Without efficient technology accurate and reliable information cannot be guaranteed and without right information social progress and economic development becomes far most difficult.

Today, information has become the more important part in developing economic condition of a developing country and plays a major role in economic success. In a fast developing country like China and India, availability of the newest and latest information in agriculture, science and technology and other fields need to be assured in the fastest and simplest forms.

India is basically an agricultural country so agriculture methodology in India should incorporate latest and best industrial practices from all over the world. The new agricultural techniques should be purchased from foreign and should be implemented in India to achieve the objectives.

So for purchasing and hiring the latest technology the basic element that is required is information. Not only in field of agriculture but in almost all fields information important because every development process depends on the availability of right kind of information at right place and at right time.

Role of information: Thus the major roles played by information Technology are:-
1. Economic progress of country
2. Increase knowledge
3. Automation of workflow
4. Increase level of Exports over imports
5. Development of more effective resources
6. Better utilization of existing resources
7. Improve living standards of people

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The media is abuzz with reports of illegal music and movie downloading, peer-to-peer file sharing and the related legal and legislative battles being played out in courts and in Congress. Many of these discussions perpetuate a myth that existing, or soon-to-be developed, digital rights management (DRM) technologies are the key to solving the entertainment industry’s piracy woes. As support for this notion, many people cite Apple’s successful iTunes music download service. The conventional wisdom is that since iTunes uses DRM and iTunes is successful, then DRM must have been instrumental in that success. The truth is that Apple’s DRM technology, called FairPlay, was indeed instrumental in Apple’s success, but not because FairPlay prevents piracy.

For preventing piracy, FairPlay is not only totally ineffective, it was built that way on purpose. The iTunes client software enables consumers to burn the songs that they purchase to audio CDs. Once on CD, songs are unencrypted, unprotected and completely beyond the control of FairPlay. You can copy the song to a file share; make a million duplicate CDs; or re-encode the song in another format by using legitimate tools like Windows Media Player. So, since the notion that FairPlay prevents piracy is simply not factual, why did Apple bother to include it in iTunes?

There are two very logical reasons for Apple to use FairPlay. One has nothing to do with the effectiveness of its anti-piracy features and everything to do with marketing. That is, having a DRM-based copy protection illusion made it much easier for Apple to convince record labels to distribute their music through iTunes. Another reason for FairPlay’s existence has nothing to do with protecting rights holders from piracy and everything to do with protecting Apple from competition. Apple’s iPod player and iTunes service were designed to work together. FairPlay is used to keep out interlopers. Any would-be iTunes or iPod clone maker would almost certainly have to reverse engineer FairPlay, which makes the task of creating a decent clone much more difficult and gives Apple both technical and legal counterattack options. Apple showed its cards when RealNetworks announced Harmony, a technology it developed to enable iPod users to buy songs from Real’s on-line music store. Apple responded by threatening that future software upgrades will probably break Harmony’s compatibility. Apple also suggested that Real’s actions may have been a violation of the law because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes circumventing copy protection illegal. While the validity of Apple’s legal argument is far from certain, one thing is clear: Apple intends to use its DRM to protect its own commercial interests, which have absolutely nothing to do with protecting rights holders from piracy.

Hackers have found technical ways around FairPlay. Digital content pirates, however, do not have to crack FairPlay; they can simply take advantage of a gaping, built-in hole. But even if we disregard all past experience with copy protection and assume that FairPlay could be made foolproof, it would still provide little or no protection from piracy to rights holders. Copies of digital content are exact copies. They do not degrade no matter how many times you duplicate them. Consequently, even just one unprotected copy of a digital work can be perfectly duplicated millions and millions of times while being distributed by using file sharing technologies. Since many of the latest file sharing technologies, which include the wildly-popular Bittorrent, are freely available in source code form to anyone, the tactic of litigating against proprietary P2P software and service companies is becoming much less effective. The entertainment industry has started going after the operators of Bittorrent servers, but as soon as one is taken down, more spring up. Technical measures for thwarting file-sharing have also been attempted, but countermeasures are created almost as fast. The inescapable conclusion is that, short of a complete government-enforced lock-down of the Internet, entertainment businesses will increasingly have to face the challenge of competing with free.

Another challenge for DRM is its negative value proposition for consumers. In the real world, a significant number of microwave oven clocks blink 12:00 for years on end because consumers are either unable to learn how to set their clocks, or they are just unwilling to bother. Yet some in the entertainment industry continue to flirt with the idea that consumers will not only tolerate, but also pay for, complex DRM-based solutions that are terrible for preventing piracy, but pretty good at inconveniencing the very consumers upon whom commercial success depends. This notion that DRM can protect rights holders and help them to compete with free is perpetuated by the purveyors of multiple incompatible DRM solutions. These vendors find an eager audience with some executives who are so desperate to insulate their business models from change that they are willing to believe that DRM snake oil is the answer.

In order to create a service that consumers would use, Apple had to provide burning capability in the initial implementation of iTunes. One cannot be certain, however, that such a feature will always be available. At some future point, Apple could decide that it is in Apple’s best interest to remove the CD burning feature. If that happens, the only way for customers to get Fairplay-encrypted music out of iTunes will be to circumvent Apple’s DRM, which is illegal due to the DMCA anti-circumvention provision and similar laws in other jurisdictions. It is also important to note that burning capability is notably absent for iTunes video downloads. With the growth in popularity of Apple’s iPod, there has been a corresponding growth in Apple’s market power. You can expect Apple to do everything possible to increase that power and erect barriers to competition. With laws like the DMCA on the books, a critical barrier to competition has the full backing of the government’s taxpayer-funded law enforcement resources.

Apple’s iTunes has demonstrated that you can indeed compete with free. But as this document has shown, the actual effectiveness of Apple’s DRM in thwarting piracy played no part in that success. It is important to note, however, that iTunes could not be successful solely by using proprietary encryption to lock out competitors and by promoting its DRM to rights holders as an elixir to piracy. The other half of the iTunes formula for success is completely dependent on peoples’ behavior: if consumers did not recognize value in iTunes, they would simply not use it. Moreover, virtually every song legitimately purchased through iTunes can be acquired for free via illegal means. Apple’s iTunes service, in combination with the iPod player, offers consumers a complete and integrated solution that is easy to use, flexible (e.g. you can burn songs to CD) and stylish. iTunes is attractive to consumers, not because FairPlay DRM is restrictive, but in large part because it is not.

Vendors and pundits are doing a profound disservice to the entertainment industry by perpetuating the DRM myth and holding up iTunes as an example. With iTunes, Apple has demonstrated the value of DRM for neither consumers nor rights holders. Apple has shown, however, that you can successfully compete with free, and get consumers to open their wallets, if you offer them something better. The entertainment industry should take heed from the real iTunes example: create something that provides convenience and value, not costly complexity, and and you just might take away the incentive to acquire works illegally. That would make digital piracy obsolete.

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The compact disc has been around since 1978, developed by Phillips and Sony. The reason it was developed was to take over for the Laserdisc as the industry standard digital audio disc. Since its invention, we have seen many updates on the compact disc technology. The most recent being the CD-R and DVD discs. With the CD-R, you can now burn your own discs at home, and then modify those discs at a later date. DVD technology allows us to record video onto a disc, where we used to only be able to record audio and data. As time rolls by, and the disc industry advances, we are presented with new forms of these technologies. The two new contenders are Blu-Ray discs and HD-DVD, here’s a little information about each of these new disc types.

1. Blu-Ray
This type of disc, also known as Blu-Ray Disc, is the next generation of optical disc. It was developed by the Blu-Ray Disc Association, a group of consumer electronic/PC/media manufacturers, including: Apple, HP, Mitsubishi, Phillips, Sony, and others. The Blu-Ray disc type was mainly developed for recording, rewriting, and playing back high-definition (HD) video. It’s also perfect for storing large amounts of data, exceeding previous DVD-R disc storage capabilities. It can hold more than 5 times the amount of information that a traditional DVD can hold, up to 25GB single layer, and up to 50GB dual layer. One of the main differences of the Blu-Ray disc is the type of laser that the disc is read with. Normal DVDs are read with a red laser, the Blu-Ray discs are read with a blue-violet laser. The main benefit of this change is the wave length of the laser types. The traditional red laser has a wider focus, so the blue-violet laser can be focused more precisely allowing more tightly packed data. This equals more data in less space on the disc, this results in the additional storage space available on the new Blu-Ray discs. These new discs are backwards compatible with regular DVDs, which they are expected to replace in the near future.

2. HD-DVD
HD-DVD discs, High Definition Versatile Discs or High Definition Digital Video Discs, are very similar to the Blu-Ray discs. This disc type is being developed by a group of consumer electronics/PC companies, headed by Toshiba. They also use a blue-violet laser to read the contents of the disc, which results in an increase in storage capacity compared to normal DVD discs. The HD-DVD can store 15GB single layer and 30GB double layer, making their storage capacity 10GB per layer smaller than the Blu-Ray. But Toshiba has announced a triple layer disc that can hold 45GB of information, and the HD DVD discs can hold both HD DVD and regular DVD information on one disc.

Right now these two disc types are battling it out to become the next generation of DVD disc technology, conjuring up images of the battle between Betamax and VHS in the 80’s. I guess we’re all wondering who’s going to come out on top? In my honest opinion, I believe that Blu-Ray will become the new standard. Both disc types offer HD capability and large data storage capacity, so it’s kind of hard to say which is better. The Blu-Ray, with its greater maximum storage capacity and the fact that it’s being backed by more of the large consumer electronic/PC/media manufacturers, I believe will win the battle. But it’s all still up in the air, so only time will tell.

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Statement processing and delivery has grown up and requires much more than high end Printers and Inserters. Technology Tools have emerged which give Quicker Speed of Delivery, Greater Collection Rates, and Increased Sales.
Quicker Speed of Delivery
Electronic Invoicing has emerged as a mainstream method for customers to receive their bills. Electronic Invoicing provides tremendous advantages to both Billers and Customers. Customers appreciate the convenience and Billers can deliver their invoices much quicker and at a reduced cost. Currently 32% of customers are paying at least one bill over the internet. It is projected that 52% of customers, by the year 2010, will be paying at least one bill over the internet (EBPP Forecast: 2005-2010 Forrester Research). This trend (if taken advantage of) will result in cheaper bill delivery, a quicker collection period, fewer customer service calls, and happier customers who stay longer.
Outsourcing of bill delivery has become the cheapest and quickest method to print and mail bills. Most Billers who have chosen to outsource the printing and mailing of their bills have been pleasantly surprised. They have discovered that they have reduced a headache, can do it cheaper, and they can get the bills to their customers quicker. Many outsourcers have strategic printing locations around the US set up in locations to maximize 2nd and 1st day USPS deliveries. These outsourced printers will load balance based upon the most advantageous shipping routes and potentially bring the national average shipping day (ASD) from 2.8 days to 2.0 days. In addition, many outsourcers are willing to provide service level agreements which provide for same day printing and mailing of invoices. These two advantages can bring down bill delivery by up to 3-4 days.
Greater Collection Rates
Reducing the number of return bills will increase collection rates. Mailing technology has improved over the past 3 years to give a Biller more power in getting the bill to the customer. Data Hygiene tools such as Standardization, CASS, NCOA, MAXCOA, DSF, LACS, Merge/Purge will increase delivery rate hits by up to 15%. USPS Confirm is a postal product that allows first class mail to be tracked through the mail system. The cost is minimal and the advantages are great. This product allows the Biller to know that all mail pieces were printed and delivered to the post office and it allows the Biller to track any invoices that were undeliverable. It is a great tool for tracking down missing invoices and early identification of address issues in your system.
Electronic Invoicing provides greater collection rates because these invoices always make it to the customers - even if they change their physical address. Customers access these invoices by their email address. In addition, money is collected at least 4 days quicker because the mail delivery times are eliminated.
Increased Sales
The billing process is a marketing medium that has been underutilized in the past but is starting to be recognized as a powerful marketing tool. Dynamic messages can be inserted onto paper bills as well as electronic bills based upon purchasing habits of your customers. If asked, savvy bill outsourcers will track your customers’ sales in their databases from the monthly invoices they receive. With this data they can provide powerful marketing strategies for Billers which will increase cross selling, up selling, and customer retention.
Print and Mail services for Bill Delivery has become much more than just heavy metal printing and insertion equipment. A technology art has developed around the heavy metal to provide more sales, quicker collection, and more control of the entire process.

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