Background

Discuss about the IT Infrastructure Management PG for Journal of Mobile Communications.
 

The mistake AstraZeneca made they did not consider their business might change drastically than what the contract they had could accommodate. The company was much dependent to their IT capabilities as well as their R & D (Moss and Marvin, 2016). They failed to cover all the details in case of an eventuality occurring and the vital aspect part in the contract for instance the termination of the contract (Moss and Marvin, 2016). In the contract it only comprise of the server hosting as well as the storage for the scientific, network and communication along with the commercial and the supply chain operations. These are the only components which were incorporated in the contract. AstraZeneca decided to terminate the contract with the IBM, due to the tough case with the organization Moss and Marvin, 2016). One of the reasons the deal failed was the usage of the outcome based specifications. These specifications in the contract were primarily accustomed to promote the aspect of innovation among the vendors. The contract was thought to be a ground breaking model , however it failed since AstraZeneca business was transforming quickly and contract was not signed for these sort of pace. 

IBM organization knew very well that the large as well as long term IT outsourcing contracts are usually difficult to change and in most of the time they accrue profits through making of the major investment for the first 2 years since the service in most of the time is usually set up and it is customized and then making their profit margin in last 2 years or perhaps three years (Sels, Vansteenwegen, Dewilde, Cattrysse, Waquet & Joubert, 2014). The organization required to have dealt with every detail with regards to the termination of the contract, for instance the continuing services that is to be offered and precisely what their fees were to be.

The agreements are five or even more years because they are difficult to alter due to the way the vendor accrues profits from the deal (Moss and Marvin, 2016). With regards to the large outsource deals, the vendor render primary investment when it comes to the first two years since the service is set up and customized. The vendors generally anticipate making their profit margin within the last 24 months or perhaps three years.

Case Study: AstraZeneca and IBM IT Outsourcing Contract Termination

The factors may have been due to the poor assumptions. The two organizations might have overlooked at the crucial information and they rush to signing of the deal (Sels, Vansteenwegen, Dewilde, Cattrysse, Waquet & Joubert, 2014). Additionally, there could have lacked knowledge related to outsourcing and the preparation of the contract from the client. 

Yes, I think it was doomed to fail. Even though there was termination of the contract, it was bound to end eventually (Moss and Marvin, 2016). There could issues related to poor services and increase in the fees which were related to the contract when it ended.

The contracts cover the provision standards of the IT solutions offers that are SLAs and the pricing together with the cooperation policy. The policy contains the 13 guidelines which stipulate the terms of the collaboration (Moss and Marvin, 2016). Certainly one of the principles which it contains is the fix first, pay later. This implies whenever an urgent information technology happens , the vendors and AstraZeneca cooperate to be able to resolve the issue first without requesting any question in regards to the cost. In the previous time the vendor could have examined on the contracts in order to confirm its responsibilities and at the same time protect the margins, and this delays the fix. In return to the fast solutions, AstraZeneca agreed to the much faster payment to vendor (Moss and Marvin, 2016). In case of the discrepancy of the contract, both these parties could attract a considerably independent arbiter who can oversee on the cooperation policy.

Through the use of the arbitrator it is more affordable compared to the filing of lawsuit (Moss and Marvin, 2016). Furthermore, with the arbitrator they consume a lot less time, and they could confront the parties less as they simply had agreed in advance on the arbitration practice.

The mobile computing has changed considerably within the last couple of years. The portable devices which connect with the wireless to the internet are a lot lighter, thinner and powerful (Sanakulov & Karjaluoto , 2015). The widely used smartphones devices are now capable to perform capabilities for example watching the full length films that were unavailable on the desktop computer computers some time ago. The new kinds of the handled devices such as Kindle EReader along with Apple iPad are presently applied more rapidly (Sanakulov & Karjaluoto , 2015 ) . Together with the growth of the Smartphone, such powerful devices were designed in the number of the new mobile commerce possibilities. The wireless connectivity to the internet, via the Wi-Fi as well as the telecommunications network has become more ubiquitous (Wang, Yuan, Turel & Tu, 2015). In this research it will review on the technological foundations for the mobile computing as well as commerce.

Technological Foundations of Mobile Computing and Commerce

The mobile computing landscape has developed a lot rapidly over the last decade (Sels, Vansteenwegen, Dewilde , Cattrysse , Waquet & Joubert , 2014). Traditionally, it had been discovered that the users had to go their computers to be able to run programs or perhaps access the internet based services. The computers were linked through the wires to the peripheral devices, other computers as well as networks (Wang, Yua , Turel & Tu , 2015) . The lack of the mobility had restricted on the performance of people in sales, education, and equivalent job whose work happened away from the office.
The wireless technology made the mobile computing as well as commerce to be a source of numerous opportunities for the business (Tan, 2017). Due to the constant innovation in the mobile equipment marketplace has made it more challenging to categorize on the end users of the devices (Wang, Yuan, Turel & Tu , 2015). The technology foundations of the mobile computing incorporate the mobile devices, mobile operating devices and software together with the wireless coverage.

The initial latest cell phone was developed by the researchers at the Motorola in the mid-70s. Ever since time of mobile devices have evolved from the massive, simple devices, which were used for two way communication to more effective networked systems (Tan, 2017). According to the International Telecommunication Union in 2011, they estimated that more than 5 billion of the world population uses the mobile phones (Tan, 2017).

There are various operating systems which are found in the mobile phone the following are the types of the systems which are used.

Android Os. This is the most popular OS with a 46% when it comes to the global share in the market (Tan, 2017). The use of the operating system is not restricted to the smartphones, it might also be found on the tablet computers, notepads as well as the e-readers (Wang, Yuan, Turel & Tu, 2015).

iOS: It was initially called the iPhones OS, this kind of the innovative platform is credited to spur growth within the Smartphone segment. The operating system is used in the Apple iPhones, iPad products as well as the iPod Touch (Sánchez-Prieto, Olmos-Migueláñez & García-Peñalvo, 2016). These devices were the first to be use the touch screen.

Symbian: It had once dominated on the Smartphone market and its current market share is around 16% and it is much negligible in the US (Pousttchi, Tilson, Lyytinen & Hufenbach, 2015). The OS usually run on the phones which were manufactured by Nokia organization.

Mobile Commerce Challenges and Opportunities

Mobile commerce

The mobile commerce is regarded as purchasing or perhaps selling of the goods and services utilizing a wireless, handled device for example the cell phone or the tablet computer (Yadav, Sharma & Tarhini, 2016). The different terms such as the mobile ecommerce, Mobile Retailing as well as the mobile marketing is all part of the Mobile Commerce (Joyce, Gupta, Eanuga, Vaidya, Kasturi, Gupta & Sistla, 2015). The mobile ecommerce usually emphasizes on the usage of the mobile application as well as the mobile web sites in order to carry out the transactions and does not entail the interaction to the traditional retail stores (Tan, 2017). On the other side mobile retailing emphasizes in the in-store shopping using the mobile devices, but will include the situations in the event the customer orders from the website or perhaps the mobile app (Joyce, Gupta, Eanuga, Vaidya, Kasturi, Gupta & Sistla, 2015).  There have been numerous reasons as to why the client and the businesses have been slow to embracing on the Mcommerce these are;

• Concerns in regards to the privacy and the security
• Slow network connections speeds
• Mobile devices which are primitive
• There is lack of the technological standardization

It is important to note most of those obstacles have been decreased or simply eradicated.

Conclusion

In this research topic it was on the mobile technology and commerce. The research has explained the various mobile technologies and at the same time reviewed on the technological foundations for the mobile computing as well as commerce. The research has also highlighted on the mobile commerce and the various challenges which affects it.

References

Joyce, S. J., Gupta, P. C., Eanuga, A. K. R., Vaidya, M. S., Kasturi, K. C., Gupta, R., … & Sistla,  K. M. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,098,958. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark   Office. 

Moss, T. and Marvin, S., 2016. Urban infrastructure in transition: networks, buildings andplans. Routledge. 

Pousttchi, K., Tilson, D., Lyytinen, K., & Hufenbach, Y. (2015). Introduction to the Special Issue on Mobile Commerce: Mobile Commerce Research Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow—What Remains to Be Done?. 

Sanakulov, N., & Karjaluoto, H. (2015). Consumer adoption of mobile technologies: a literature   review. International Journal of Mobile Communications, 13(3), 244-275. 

Sánchez-Prieto, J. C., Olmos-Migueláñez, S., & García-Peñalvo, F. J. (2016). Informal tools in      formal contexts: Development of a model to assess the acceptance of mobile technologies    among teachers. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 519-528. 

Sels, P., Vansteenwegen, P., Dewilde, T., Cattrysse, D., Waquet, B., & Joubert, A. (2014). The  train platforming problem: The infrastructure management company perspective. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 61, 55-72. 

Tan, Y. (2017). Introduction to the Special Issue on Mobile Analytics and Commerce. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 18(4), 286-287. 

Wang, Y., Yuan, Y., Turel, O., & Tu, Z. (2015). Understanding the development and diffusion of mobile commerce technologies in China: A biographical study with an actor-network  theory perspective. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 19(4), 47-76. 

Yadav, R., Sharma, S. K., & Tarhini, A. (2016). A multi-analytical approach to understand and predict the mobile commerce adoption. Journal of enterprise information management,  29(2), 222-237.