BTS INFORMATIQUE DE GESTION Session 1999 E1.2 : LANGUE ANGLAISE APPLIQUÉE À L’INFORMATIQUE ET À LA GESTION (partie écrite) Durée : 2 heures Coefficient : 2 L’usage d’un dictionnaire bilingue est autorisé. Les calculatrices sont interdites. WHEN THE NETWORK IS THE COMPUTER By Maria Madison After mainframes, minis and PCs, it looks as if corporate computing is poised to enter yet another phase: the era of network computing. The agent of change, as in so many other areas, is the Internet. Today's PCs already connect to networks of one sort or another. But unlike a 5 networked PC, a network computer does not require a hard disc, floppy disc or CDROM drive. Applications software is downloaded from the network only for as long as it is needed to complete a task. For many applications, the bulk of the processing takes place not on the network computer, but elsewhere on the network. And by using a common interface _ _for applications in the form of a relatively simple Web browser users will not need to 10 learn and relearn new software every time an application is introduced or modified. As a result, the biggest appeal of network computing lies in its simplicity. "To-day's information technology [IT] is actually slowing down business expansion because it is so complicated," says Gerard Gatt of software developer Citrix. […] The simplicity of network computing will be a powerful argument for its adoption by 15 corporate users, says ...