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PrefaCe

In Chapter 1, we claim that MIS is the most important class in the business curriculum. That’s a
bold statement, and every year we ask whether it remains true. Is there any discipline having a
greater impact on contemporary business and government than IS? We continue to doubt there
is. Every year brings important new technology to organizations, and many of these organizations
respond by creating innovative applications that increase productivity and otherwise help them
accomplish their strategies.
Over the past year, we’ve seen the largest IPO in history ($25 billion) come from e-commerce
giant Alibaba. Amazon revealed that it’s using an army of Kiva robots to increase productivity in
its fulfillment centers by 50 percent. And we’ve seen an unprecedented flurry of IoT smart devices
aimed at personal, home, and automobile automation services hit the market. It seems like every
industry is running full tilt toward the smart door. Technology is fundamentally changing the
way organizations operate. It’s forcing them to be more productive, innovative, and adaptable.
Even innovations that we’ve known about for several years took big leaps forward this year.
MakerBot made huge strides in 3D printing by introducing new composite filaments that can
print materials that look just like wood, metal, and stone—not just plastics. Mercedes-Benz was
the hit of CES 2015 when it debuted its new driverless F 015 car with saloon-style doors, complete
touch-screen interface, and front-room seating. And Google announced it was deploying 25 of its
driverless cars around Mountain View, California, starting in summer 2015.
Large-scale data breaches were a major problem again this year. eBay, Home Depot, JP
Morgan Chase, and Anthem all suffered enormous data losses. Sony Pictures lost more than 100
TB of confidential corporate data, and Apple lost hundreds of explicit celebrity photos to hackers.
And these are just a fraction of the total number of organizations affected this year.
In addition, normal revisions were needed to address emergent technologies such as cloud-
based services, mobile devices, innovative IS-based business models like that at zulily, changes in
organizations’ use of social media, and so on.
More sophisticated and demanding users push organizations into a rapidly changing future—
one that requires continual adjustments in business planning. To participate, our graduates need
to know how to apply emerging technologies to better achieve their organizations’ strategies.
Knowledge of MIS is critical. And this pace continues to remind us of Carrie Fisher’s statement
“The problem with instantaneous gratification is that it’s just not fast enough.”

Why This Ninth Edition?

The changes in this ninth edition, Global Edition, are listed in Table 1. Substantial changes were made
in Chapter 1 to strengthen the argument that MIS is the most important course in the business cur-
riculum. The chapter now looks at the Digital Revolution and the exponential change happening to
technology. It discusses how digital devices are changing due to increased processing power (Moore’s
Law), connectivity (Metcalfe’s Law), network speed (Nielsen’s Law), and storage capacity (Kryder’s
Law). It then gives examples of how new technology creates entirely new types of businesses and
forces existing businesses to change the way they operate.
Chapter 1 also includes new salary data projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
through 2022. These salary projections cover pay ranges for typical information systems jobs,
general business occupations, and managerial-level positions.
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