Journal of Business & Economics Research – January, 2011 Volume 9, Number 1 17 Revisiting Client/Server Computing Carl S. Guynes, University of North Texas, USA John Windsor, University of North Texas, USA ABSTRACT The role of the Information Technology department is changing as it continues to mature and adapt to changes in technology, much of that change dealing with its interaction with corporate end-users. IT departments must continue to move in a more user friendly direction or they are going to encounter serious political problems with top management. The increased interest in cloud computing, green computing, and in outsourcing are further indicators of the problems that IT departments are currently facing. Information Technology departments must approach client/server with a clear view of the lasting business benefits that it can bring rather than opposing or resisting the migration Keywords: Corporate Politics; Client/Server Computing; Cloud Computing INTRODUCTION political situation is continuing to evolve in "Corporate America" that significantly impacts corporate Information Technology (IT) departments. The IT departments are feeling increased pressure from the end-user community to provide them with even more control over their data and the ability to run the software of their choosing on their own workstations. For example, recent advances in mobile computing have made it possible for customers carrying handheld devices to have access to data and information services regardless of their physical location. Customers expect the same level of service in terms of availability and performance from the mobile applications as with their non-mobile counterparts. Different types of client/server computing architectures are used today that facilitate such mobile access of data. In order to achieve high performance and availability, replicas of data servers are usually added to tolerate failures and balance workloads. The role of the Information Technology department is changing as it continues to mature and adapt to changes in technology, much of that change dealing with its interaction with corporate end-users. IT departments must continue to move in a more user friendly direction or they are going to encounter serious political problems with top management. The increased interest in cloud computing, green computing, and in outsourcing are further indicators of the problems that IT departments are currently facing. One reason that client/server computing is still popular is because end-users believe that IT departments are not responsive enough to their needs. The reason that client/server computing is still growing in popularity is because top management believes that it will save them money, and end-users believe that it will solve many of their computing problems. Unfortunately, neither of the above is necessarily true. A major problem is that neither top management nor end-users fully understand all that is involved in corporate computing. Top management can easily understand that the hardware for a client/server system costs less than a mainframe, but they have a difficult time understanding multi- platform software complexity and costs, or understanding the difficulty of maintaining controls that protect data integrity. The typical end-user still has little or no understanding of why they cannot upload their local data to the primary corporate database. Generally, end-users want complete access to corporate databases and are not particularly concerned with such issues as access controls and data integrity and privacy considerations. The IT department is committed to protecting the systems and data that are the lifeblood of the organization. IT management is concerned with where corporate data are being downloaded and with the stability of the networking systems that are installed throughout the organization. They continue to be concerned with maintaining the integrity of the corporate database and maintaining extensive controls to protect the data. IT management views client/server systems as presenting additional problems to an already complex situation. A