Due to the embryonic nature of the technology the research began with a general web search to locate any information about the topic. This found many sites that provided varied information about .NET. From these a general overview was gained. Further searches within the main sites led to more technical information and then case study material, particularly from Microsoft sites. Further discussion was provoked by non-Microsoft sites such as Sun Microsystems and more impartial information from O’Reilly.
More conventional methods of research were also conducted, but with a lack of success mainly because the technology was so new. Any books to be found were concerned with the technical aspects of the technology and geared towards programmers and developers, not business. The books were mainly training manuals on how to use the new developer tools such as Visual Studio.NET. One book was purchased however, “Introducing Microsoft.NET” by David Platt and published by Microsoft. (This book was dismissed early on in the research but upon writing this final report has been re-visited and has proved quite useful in these final stages of the project.) The research mainly focused on the World Wide Web, which in itself posed a problem in that not all sources on the web are reliable, and information received from Microsoft in the form of CD ROM.
As mentioned in the summary it was found to be useful to investigate the development of the use of the Internet in order to give background information as to why the .NET technology might have been developed. Scott Garvey, director of Industry Solutions at Microsoft suggests that there are 3 generations to the Internet;
1st Generation: Creating a presence on the web
2nd Generation: The birth of Dot Coms and the generating of revenue
3rd Generation: Creating a digital economy and to generate profit
The first generation of Internet use, from a business perspective, concerned itself with creating a presence on the Web and analysts worked upon the basis of how many hits a site got as to whether it was successful. A web site was not concerned with generating revenue simply another means of advertising.
The second generation of the Internet saw the development of DOT COM companies and began to mark its success by the generation of revenue. By using the Internet to sell products or services this generated massive competition in the relevant markets and dot COMs didn’t look at gaining sales by cutting profit margins, more often than not, they actually made losses in order get sales. This was the beginning of e-commerce and so people seemed to be willing to take massive losses in the hope that one-day they would begin to make a profit.
The third generation of the Internet is now beginning to develop. Businesses are using the Internet more and more for communication and now for transactions. The Telecommunications laws are about to see the addition of digital signatures to enable contractual transactions to take place via the Internet.
It is this third generation of Internet technologies that Microsoft.NET is laying claims upon. It will allow full integration of hardware and software thus allowing businesses to interact with each other anywhere in the world and across all platforms. It claims to be a total business solution. According to Sanjay Parthasarathy, Vice President Platform Strategy at Microsoft, “.NET is aimed at accelerating . . . . distributed computing.” (Parthasarathy, 2000). He explains that because bandwidth is so inexpensive now processing can be done wherever it is most optimal as with Napster which uses participating computers on the network as servers.
With this development of the Internet and other technologies it was a necessity for someone to develop a system where any device could talk to any other device, where any application could interact with any other application and where businesses could conduct their transactions over the Web. Sun Microsystems had developed a system (JAVA) to allow integration between components but it only supported one language [1]. Microsoft.NET supports many languages [2] and so seems to have the edge.
Microsoft.NET is a complete package, from developing web services and web sites to enabling businesses to use the Internet via the .NET servers. This is the reason it claims to be a total solution to many business problems. It provides a new way for developers to create web sites by offering building block services for things like security and client adaptability, to give developers fast access to these tools which normally take a long time to incorporate. It also allows developers to create XML web services without having to learn a new language – always a barrier to success when new languages have to be learned. The XML language allows the data to be integrated into any application, unlike HTML (the industry standard for the Internet at present) where the information available on the Internet is merely viewed by a dumb terminal, XML allows the user to look at and use the data in any application. This means businesses cannot only view information but also use it and interact with it. The .Net servers provide businesses with the infrastructure required to deploy, manage and run XML web services. There are 10 Enterprise servers under development at this point in time, which provide different levels of access and service. One example is the BizTalk Server which is used to build XML based business processes across applications and organisations [2]. Another is the Host Integration Server which is used for bridging data and applications on legacy systems [2]. Services being offered by Microsoft.NET allow routine tasks to be easily integrated; Microsoft Passport, the first of such services, is conducting such things as password authentication. Client software is being developed to enable access to XML services regardless of where you are or what device you are using. Some client software is already in use such as Windows CE and Windows 2000.
The single book that was purchased (as mentioned earlier) was initially dismissed as it was quite technical in its content and was difficult to understand when being read by a non-computing person. However, once an overview of .NET had been established and an understanding of the technology had developed more, the technical jargon did not seem as foreign and the book was re-read to allow a deeper understanding of what .NET was about.
The initial conclusion about the reason .NET had been developed (distributed computing) was borne out by the author where he said, “Stand-alone PCs are much less useful than networked PCs” (Platt, 2001, p 1). The statement that “Hardware for connecting to the Internet and bandwidth for transmitting data are cheap and getting cheaper” (Platt, 2001, p 2) is also very true. This fact has a knock-on effect in that more and more of us are now connected to the Internet with the expectation that we can do anything with it, from conducting our day-to-day business (banking etc.) to using it to view video or talk to relatives across the world. In the same sense businesses expect to be able to conduct their day-to-day activities with greater ease and less cost using technology. This leads to problems with infrastructure. Using applications across the Internet “poses new classes of problems that are difficult and expensive to solve.” (Platt, 2001, p 2). The fact that applications are implemented on different hardware connected by the Internet bring many problems due to the uncontrolled nature of the beast. Platt likens it to controlling a toddler in your own living room then trying to control that same child in Grand Central Station. “Same kid, same goals, entirely different requirements.” (Platt, 2002, p 3).
One of the biggest problems with Internet applications is the need for security. Security needs to deal with many things – user authentication, user permissions, data encryption. The problems facing businesses are more to do with infrastructure than business process. Microsoft.NET claims to deal with all of these issues in a simple way using building block services as mentioned earlier such as Microsoft Passport for user authentication. By having services in place the developers can just tap in to the one’s required for the job instead of having to write their own code. “Microsoft.NET provides prefabricated infrastructure for solving the common problems of writing Internet software.” (Platt, 2001, p 7). The .NET Framework provides the run-time environment for developers to use in this way.
The.NET Web Services allow client machines running any operating system to talk to any other machines and access dedicated applications without the need for a generic interface. Something that programmers and developers have struggled to come to terms with has been the problem of which language to use when developing applications – “We’d like to be able to write software once and run it on a variety of platforms.” (Platt, 2001, p 17). That is exactly what Java had promised but many say failed to deliver. Microsoft.NET claims to allow just that. The .NET Framework uses managed code which in turn runs in the Common Language Runtime environment (CLR). Whilst this is beginning to get a little more technical than is understood by a business student, it is simplified by David Platt (p. 20, 21) “Every CLR-compliant development tool compiles its own source code into a standard Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL, or IL for short), . . . . . . all development tools produce the same IL, regardless of the language in which their source code is written,”. By then using the just-in-time compiler the code is produced for the platform on the machine. This technology is still in its infancy though and we have yet to see how it develops.
The findings of this literature search provided the background and underpinning knowledge as to why Microsoft.NET had been developed and what it claimed to do for businesses. It also confirmed the fact that there was no printed material available about the topic save for technical literature to allow developers to learn how to use the tools and develop business solutions. There was no literature which stated what .NET could do for businesses wanting to use the Internet to conduct their every day processes. It was clear that businesses would have to employ the services of IT consultants to look at their business processes and see how .NET could be used to allow the Internet to be incorporated into this.
Case Study Investigations
During the course of this project the search for case study material was hampered somewhat by the quest to find unbiased information. There was no case study material available that had not been released by Microsoft. Therefore it seemed that only successes had been reported. This obsession with finding non-Microsoft published case studies prevented proper investigation of material published and it proved difficult to look at it objectively.
These problems encountered were caused, for the most part, by the author due mainly to the naivety of knowledge of the topic and the embryonic state of the technology. The outcome of these investigations meant that objective 5 of the Terms of Reference was not met. Also Objective 4 could not be totally completed, as the selection process of case studies for objective 5 was not done.
What did become apparent from the case study material was that the problems encountered by the businesses were of such a diverse nature and yet by using different parts of the .NET technology these could be overcome.
“Dollar Rent A Car is one of the world’s largest car rental agencies, with more than 400 locations in 26 countries” (Appendix 3). Dollar wanted to expand its business by opening up its existing reservation system on its mainframe to its partners. By using .NET connected software it was able to allow its partners to access the functionality of its reservation system via XML Web Services with very little additional effort on their part. Partners now access the internal systems directly or using the BizTalk server. Peter Osbourne, Group Manager at Dollar stated, “We’ve already seen significant incremental revenues . . .” (Appendix 3).
“Nasdaq.com is the world’s first electronic stock market . . .”(Appendix 4). Its primary source of revenue comes from advertising space which is directly linked to the number of hits the site receives. It is also tied by the demographics of the site’s user base. In order to attract the right customers it has employed the .NET Alert service to deliver the appropriate messages to the customer by their preferred method – cell phone, e-mail or messenger and according to their particular preferences. The Microsoft.NET Passport service is also used to provide a common identity to users whereby the method of delivery is determined according to the user’s online status. Both of these are delivered over the Internet via the XML web services used by Nasdaq. The benefits this brings to the business can be seen by Nasdaq being able to “rapidly and cost-effectively . . . reaching out to users in a unique, personalised and highly relevant manner.” (Appendix 4). This should in turn bring users back to the site to use the information received by the Alerts. This should then increase the revenue from advertising by increasing the value of the brand to investors.
MSNBC.com is a general news site on the Internet with over 3 million visitors to it each day. Its main challenge is the distribution of news as it happens. Headlines are placed on other web sites which then link back to the main MSNBC.com site. When new spaces on sites are acquired additional coding has to take place to enable the partnership to exist. This made the cost prohibitive to tap into the huge market available. MSNBC re-worked it business solution to use XML Web services thus reducing the need to re-work its code by a massive 80%. “The ability to easily and cost-effectively accommodate these new partners will lead to increased distribution, which translates into higher site traffic and increased advertising revenues for the company.” (Appendix 5).
A little closer to home, Marks & Spencer are using the Windows 2000 Server to transform the way it does business. Customer transactions will be collected in almost real time from over 300 stores. This in turn will allow stock delivery to become more efficient and result in better product availability and better selection. The use of the BizTalk server will look at the contents of transactions and send it to the right place. The use of EDI to communicate with suppliers will no longer be done by batch processing but will use almost real time processing to allow better communication with partners. By using this technology Marks & Spencer will be able to facilitate B2B e-commerce more cost-effectively allowing for “real-time event-driven promotions and . . . distribution.” (Appendix 6). Marks & Spencer used a results based methodology to measure the business value of using such a system and it was found that the NPV of the system would be £12 million (Appendix 6).
As these case studies show, Microsoft.NET is a diverse technology which can be employed in a myriad of ways to provide a business solution.
Choice of Software
Objective 1 of the Terms of Reference was to produce an interactive presentation explaining in simple terms what Microsfot.NET is. It stated in the constraints that Adobe Premier was to be used to facilitate this. However, it should have stated Adobe Director as it was this package that allows the user to create interactive presentations and not Premier which deals with video material.
As the project progressed it seemed that it might be more of a challenge to use a piece of software that had not been covered in earlier modules of the degree course. So it was decided to investigate the facilities of Macromedia Flash 5 to see if this could be used as a form of interactive presentation. This would mean that the author could develop new skills. The software package Adobe director also caused some restrictions in that the author did not have access to this at home and due to the fact that the degree was being undertaken part-time this did pose a problem.
The tutorials and lessons within Flash were the first method of learning to be used and investigated, and from these it was clear that an interactive presentation could be successfully created from a basic knowledge of the software. Further tutorials were also found on the Internet on various web sites, the most useful being www.help4flash.com[3]. Once a basic understanding of how Flash works was obtained, planning of the slide show was done firstly on paper to establish the scenes, and then an outline of the text was typed up in Word. This would help to ensure the content of the presentation was understood before getting involved in the technicalities of the software. The details such as font and colour were decided once the creation of the presentation in Flash began. The actual appearance of the Flash software and the functionality used for this simple presentation was not dissimilar to Adobe Director and so it turned out that using Flash was not as much of a challenge as first anticipated.
The more detailed presentation to be created for objective 6 was to use Microsoft PowerPoint. This decision was mainly because both the author and college used this software and it was generally seen as industry standard for such activities. This was also at the suggestion of the sponsor.
Problems Encountered
The problems encountered as a result of this project centred mainly on the lack of information available and the naivety of the author.
There was found to be no books on the subject apart from those, which concentrated on developer’s tools. As mentioned in the literature search section the Internet became the main source of information, concentrating mainly on the Microsoft sites. Also product information obtained directly from Microsoft provided useful sources.
The weakest part of the research was the lack of a starting point or focus in the beginning and the endless search for unbiased information. Here naivety played a large part of the expectation to find independent, unbiased information. This lead to the failure to meet objectives 4 and 5.
At the beginning of this project the investigation was a mammoth task with paths leading in all directions. Microsoft.NET was such a huge topic that it was difficult to find an area to concentrate on. The Sponsor also posed problems (unwittingly), in that he appeared to be looking for a more technical slant on the project and wanted it to look at how the new programming languages used were constructed. He also leaned towards a comparison of existing languages with the new ones. However, the author was a student on the Business pathway and so had no knowledge or interest in this side of the technology. Eventually the Terms of Reference were agreed and took on a more business-oriented centre.
Changing the path of the investigation of the problem solved part of the dilemma of finding a focus. The initial research for this project was concentrated on Microsoft.Net itself, what it is and what it does. It was only as time progressed that it became apparent that some background investigation of the Internet and how it was used by businesses needed to be undertaken in order to see where .NET would fit in the future. Understanding the way in which the Internet and World Wide Web has developed over the years and knowing how businesses used it and how they wanted to be able to use it in the future, allowed for a better understanding of why Microsoft.NET was developed and how it offers business solutions to enable the Internet to become an integral part of the business world. This was probably the most valuable part of the research as it was a path not previously thought of and yet set the scene for understanding the technology.
The research eventually found a focus and was consolidated by producing the Interim Research Report. This gave a clear understanding of what Microsoft.NET was and why it had been developed.
Producing the simple interactive presentation posed its own problems, mainly due to the inability of the author to travel to the college to use the Jaz room. This came down to the fact that the author was a part time student with commitments elsewhere connected to her full time job as a teacher. The problem was solved by the decision to learn a new package – Macromedia flash. This meant that the work could be undertaken at home. Although the software was new to the author it was very similar to Adobe Director in that it used a stage, layers and a timeline. It also had similar methods of producing animation and the actual ‘look’ was very similar. This meant that it was quite easy to learn how to produce a flash presentation.
Time seemed to be a major problem to this project as mentioned earlier with regards to work commitments and pressures from another qualification the author was in the process of gaining. However, at the time of writing this report it was felt that the lack of time was probably no real detriment to the end project.
The Extent to Which the Objectives Were Met
Objective 1:
“To examine the new Microsoft.net initiative and create an interactive presentation explaining, in simple terms, what it is.”
To begin with it must be said that this objective seemed to be the most simple. However, it was the one that turned the project on its head and forced a re-think of where to begin. Because the topic was so huge and encompassed many strands the initial research for this became unwieldy.
The objective was met when the research changed direction to concentrate in the first instance on why Microsoft felt the need to create the .NET platform. This culminated with the understanding about the three generations of the Internet as discussed earlier in the Literature search section. This shift allowed a better understanding of what the initiative is.
The Interactive presentation is quite simple in the language it uses and was used in a lesson by the author with a GCSE ICT class of Year 11 pupils; at the end of which discussions took place about the topic. The author evaluated the lesson and assessment of the pupils learning was found to be successful on the whole. The pupils had a basic understanding of what .NET was and why it was important to businesses.
It was felt that this objective had been met successfully.
Objective 2:
“To identify similar technologies and examine where Microsoft.net fits in the market.”
During the research phase of the project it was discovered that there were no technologies like Microsoft.NET. SUN Microsystems had developed a system (JAVA) to allow integration between components but it only supported one language [1]. Microsoft.NET supports many languages [2]. At the time of writing this report there was a court case in progress, that SUN had initiated, which hampered the gathering of information about the comparisons of the two systems.
Further investigations into a system developed by IBM which integrates systems was also not successful. Correspondence with IBM yielded no information whatsoever and at the time of researching on the Internet there seemed to be nothing available about the system.
Although on the face of things it would seem that this objective had not been fulfilled it was felt that indeed it had been successfully met: If not in the way of providing information about similar technologies, it was met by the fact that it showed that Microsoft had, yet again, developed a market leader with this new technology. However, it must be said that Microsoft appears to have no real competitors. This is probably due to the fact that Microsoft makes itself extremely visible to everyone. The advertising campaign on television at the time of the release of the .NET technology proves the point by delivering its message to everyone not just business users. SUN Microsystems and other companies such as Linux do not have the same public presence.
Because of this it was felt that this objective had been met successfully.
Objective 3:
“To find out and categorise the business problems Microsoft.net is trying to solve.”
This objective again seemed quite straightforward. That is until the research into the subject began. The more the topic was understood, the less straightforward this objective became.
Research did not open any doors to enable this objective to be met by categorising the business problems.
Contact was made with Microsoft in the UK via the telephone. The people at the .NET Business Centre could not identify which problems the initiative would solve for businesses. It seemed that the initiative could be used to solve all problems faced by businesses where technology and the integration of systems was concerned. Microsoft could only say that businesses would work with systems consultants to develop a solution to their problems using the .NET tools and servers.
Whilst this objective had not been met in the way that had been stated, by categorising the business problems, it was still felt that this stage of the research was successful due to the fact that Microsoft confirmed that the .NET platform and tools could be manipulated to produce the desired outcome for businesses.
Objective 4:
“To find, evaluate and select case study material of businesses using .net technologies.”
This objective caused the major problem of the research. Many case studies were found but as discussed earlier, the quest to find case studies by non-Microsoft sources, detracted from the value of the case studies found. The naivety of this line of enquiry meant that this obsession with finding non-Microsoft published case studies prevented proper investigation of material published and it proved impossible at the time to look at it objectively.
This objective was not met fully, save for the actual discovery of the case studies. What the case studies did show, as discussed earlier in the case study section, was that Microsoft.NET is a diverse technology which can be employed in a myriad of ways to provide a business solution.
Objective 5:
“To make a comparison of case studies found indicating any significant success factors in the relevant categories of business problems. Develop Benchmarking criteria to facilitate this.”
The success of this objective relied wholly on the success of Objectives 3 and 4. Due to the failure of objective 4 and the lack of information found with regard to relevant business categories indicated in objective 3, this objective could not be met.
Objective 6:
“To produce a PowerPoint presentation which brings together the findings of the previous objectives in a format which provides a comprehensive knowledge base.”
At the time of writing this report the PowerPoint Presentation was underway but not yet complete. The format was to be one of an interactive presentation to allow the user to access information in their own way. This would mean that they could explore the information held within the presentation to suit their own knowledge requirements.
It was felt that this objective would be met successfully.
Quality of the End Products
The overall quality of the end products can be seen to be of good quality in terms of the objectives met and the information contained within them. The content has been met with approval from the people who have seen it and is said to have given good background knowledge and understanding of the subject from a business point of view.
To be critical of the flash presentation; it is not very sophisticated in its delivery, with basic animations and tools having been used in the development. However, it does fulfil its objective to produce a simple interactive presentation. The content is also simplistic but again it gives a basic understanding of the subject.
As stated earlier the PowerPoint presentation was not complete at the time of writing this report, but it was felt that it brought together the complete investigation of this project in a manner that was easily accessible and understandable to people at any level. It does not contain the technical language and information that would be necessary for developers but that was not part of its remit.
The aim of this project was to “Investigate the Purpose of the Microsoft.NET Initiative”. The combination of the two presentations allows the viewer to familiarise themselves with the initiative and to understand what its purpose is. To this end it would seem that the end products had been successful even though not all objectives had been met.
Conclusion
Self Management
Throughout this project it has been necessary to balance the deadlines of academic studies with the pressures of home life, two demanding teenagers, a husband who has not had a wife for two years and a new career as a trainee teacher. This has been very difficult at times and sometimes near to impossible. The ideals that the summer vacation would provide ample time to virtually complete the project were to prove impossible. The fact that the files were never looked at should really have been expected. Although, in reality the summer weeks had not been accounted for in the schedule (Appendix 7) and meant that this was no detriment to the project at all.
The result has been a demanding and difficult schedule in this final stage of the degree. It has only been achieved by careful planning using schedules and calendars to ensure deadlines were met (sometimes by the skin of the teeth). Self-Management has always been a major part in any task undertaken throughout the degree course, but the requirements of the last months has seen this pushed even further. At times it has felt as though the project was never going to end and at one-point thoughts of abandoning it to settle for a pass degree were toyed with (for about a week). It was felt that more time had to be given to the new teaching career and that the project simply was not worth the heartache it was causing. At the time of writing this report and with the support and encouragement of many people the project was very near completion. With the benefit of hindsight it was now felt that the balance of all the demands was achieved in the end.
In the initial stages of the research far too much time was spent in the pursuit of impossible ideals, as discussed earlier about the quest for impartial information. This resulted in much time wasted and caused some objectives to be impossible to meet.
Much more has been learned since the initial research and after the summer break. The lapse of time and the break from studying the topic allowed the formulation of fresh views about it. The case study material was studied in more detail and although the objectives linked to these were not met a better understanding of the business problems was gained.
Involvement of Others
External contacts were very few for this project due to the fact the technology was so new and in the developmental phase. Marks & Spencer were approached to try to gain some insight about the success of the introduction of .NET technologies to their business. It was somewhat naïve to expect that such confidential information might be released to a complete stranger. A reply stating the fact that such financial information would be sensitive and as such not publicly available was received. Microsoft proved to be more helpful and provided much material to be used.
Gaining feedback from the sponsor for this project was also a major hurdle and at the time of writing this report only two short meetings had been possible prior to the summer break, with feedback on the interim report gained only briefly by e-mail. This was due to timetabling constraints on both the sponsor and the author where it proved impossible to get the time needed for constructive feedback. The project constraints seem more suited to full time students than part-time students.
Lessons Learned
Many lessons have been learned from this project. The most important one was that of not allowing ones-self to become obsessed with one particular aspect of any research. To continually strive to find something that just does not exist suffocates the life of the project. By pursuing an impossible goal the real motivation for the project becomes lost and results in nothing being achieved.
Another important lesson is to not lose sight of the things that really matter, such as quality time spent with family. The commitment needed to gain a qualification such as a degree as a part-time student is something that should not be taken lightly.
The culmination of two and half years of work has been this project. It was not until the project was undertaken that the realisation of why the inclusion of some of the earlier modules had been a necessity. For example, “Managing Change” helped immensely with the time management of this project. The module “ICT for Strategic Advantage” gave some background knowledge that could be applied to the business problems addressed by .NET.
The choice of this particular project was initially made because there was no end product to develop and so this seemed to be an easier option than some of the other titles available. Initial understanding (rather mis-understanding) of what a project entailed was this; find out about the topic via research, write about the findings and come to an informed conclusion. The fact that this was not how the project developed was quite a surprise. With hindsight the choice of a project without an end product was a very difficult one to complete. Certainly it has seemed more difficult to write this report without being able to talk about a tangible end product, no analysis of existing systems required, no implementation, no testing to report back on, no software development, no user guides to develop and no user acceptance to consider.
Last, but definitely not least, is the knowledge that everyone else undertaking this project is experiencing exactly the same problems and feelings as you. It might have been helpful to have more opportunities, as a part-time student, to meet with fellow project students. This would have helped to dissipate the feeling of isolation that developed over the two semesters.
And finally, valuable lessons have been learned from both the degree in general and the project in specific that can be taken forward and used in the future: The ability to embark on informed and useful research relating a particular topic, as well as the ability to interpret and translate this research into useful material. In addition to this, activities such as project planning are extremely effective and are certain to be used with success in the future.
Bibliography
Referenced articles
Sanjay Parathasarathy, 2000. The Simplest Way to define .NET [Online]. USA: Microsoft: [Accessed on 12/2/02] Available at: <http://www.microsoft.com/net/defined/define_net.asp>
Platt, D., 2001. Introducing Microsoft.NET. Washington: Microsoft press.
Articles referred to in the report
[1] Farley, J. 2000, O’Reilly [online]. USA: O’Reilly. Available at:<http://java.sun.com/features/2000/11/dotnetvsms.print.html> [Date Accessed: 2/3/02].
[2] Gates, B. 2001, Microsoft.Net Today [online]. USA: Microsoft. Available at:< http://www.microsoft.com/net/defined/net_today.pdf > [Date Accessed: 15/2/02].
[3] Beginner Tutorials, [Online]. Available at: <http://www.help4flash.com/tutorials/beginner.shtml> [Date Accessed: 20/9/02].
Not in Adobe Premier as stated in the Terms of reference
With exception of objectives 3 and 5
Microsoft doesn’t really seem to have any competitors.
Author of many computing books
Obsession by the author – trying to find impartial information
As this software package had not been used before by the author
The software was only available in the Jaz Room at the college
and the author had access to Flash 5 at home.
Registered Teacher Programme was being undertaken at the time and meant a great deal of work