Networks

Networks

The other week, we studied a thing called networks. Not just any old 'network' but networks which have meaning to corporate strategies, animal behaviour, banking and open source software.

From what I can see in the diagram above, I can identify that each of these networks have different properties and effects which determine how successful they are in the outside world. The centralized network is based on the princple of one Master identity, for example Microsoft - They have their central director/president (now Steve Ballmer) and links are distributed from him to upper management stations who control the companies assests and co-ordinate corporate strategies and inspect work areas. If the Centralized diagram continued, then the links are distributed from these managers to supervisors/workers stations who they are in control of. So it's some sort of hierarchical approach going on here... the higher you are in the chain, the more powers and control you have in the company. This is a weaker network when it comes to controlling all the stations and links in the company. There is too much to manage for one Master Identity to control, causing a collapse in communication.. especially in banking sectors. Too much demand for money can cause the links to shatter causing poor co-ordination to parts of the company meaning these stations to dissolve (loss of jobs or loss of customer support/interests).

Decentralized networks still has the principle of 'Master identities' but power is distrubuted across several stations which have links to each other, but have their own spread of links to seperate stations (this could also spread into more and more stations depending on the size of the business or entity. Decentrilized networks can be used in an example such as an Armed forces role. Each ranking General command lower ranking stations (people) such as leutenants who will command whoever is lower ranking than them. If the Decentralized network was expanded in the diagram, the leutenant stations would form different links down to the next ranking station which is most likely to be majors. The lower the rank toward Sergeants, the more soldiers there are to command. This Decentralized model is fairly ideal for this kind of commanding job as it shares powers to different areas whether it being Army, Navy or Airforces. This helps distribute the command to head Generals who can co-ordinate and communicate each force easily in military campaigns and is ideal for organisation but only to a certain degree because links are not distributed to other commands. This network is again like a Hierarchy but it is more distributed and no central master entity exists. So power is distributed between the links more carefully.

Distributed networks is very common in the animal world with flocks of birds and schools of fish. All stations in this network have links to each other and there is no actual central identity so power and organisation is equal sharing. So for animals, the flock of bird and the shoals of fish look out for each other, when a bird is ill the other birds will guard it, when the shoal is under attack from a shark the fish will form a mirage to try and trick the predator. Distributed networks are not always the best choice for huge businesses as it is based on how much resource is available such as communication and the speed in which is is delivered. Terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban use distributed networks to share power between their infidel splinter groups which is useful individual tactics in terms of espionage and sabotage. Because Communication technology has developed so quickly, radio, internet and mobile capabilities have made these small terror groups efficient against larger stationary armies.

The Distributed network idea is commonly used in computer networking. Social networking websites such as Facebook, Bebo, Myspace where users of the site add people who they know. When the person accepts the friendship request a link is joined with the person who added them. This can continuously grow and grow until there are no more people left that the person knows. There is no master identity in networking as friendship adding and social networking is only involved. No individual person can take control and everyone has the same amount of control as the other person does. The Internet as a whole is a Distributed network because everyone can access entertainment such as Online Tv, Online games, social sites, the latest news/weather; music and radio all at once. Everyone has free access to this, all you need is a computer and an internet connection and you're up and running.

Open Source is Freedom?

Freedom to do whatever you want is exciting and very rewarding in terms of gaining free useful software from the internet which brings me to my next topic: Open Source Software. Open-source software is a new approach of giving the public free-software for them to use for Free and only free - no catches. Open-source gives the freedom for developers to give something to the public for free. Many people actually donate money back as a sign of good will depending on how great the product is. For some companies, Microsoft and Apple dislike the idea of Open Source as it undermines their corporate strategies and makes them look greedy. (Fair enough if they want to keep profits). But this isnt a good idea when listening to public opinion. The public want cheaper software from these big companies. They want it as convienient as possible so they can carry on with their lives enjoying the products they need for computing. Open-Source operating systems such as Linux churns out some great O/S' such as Ubuntu which normally gets updated every 6-12 months to even better software is regarded as one of the best free-sources ever. Recently Microsoft has released Windows 7, and I tell you it wasn't too bad for price. Students can earn the software for just £20-£30. I recently purchased a laptop from Comet and they offered me Free Windows 7 upgrade if I paid just £10 P&P and a week later Windows 7 was on my doorstep. It shows that at least some big corporations are look at different strategies to selling their products as cheaply as possible to the general public. However, Open-Source really does benefit in popularity and is starting to make Apple and Microsoft compete to gain the upper hand in the 'Popularity Market'.

Update 29/10/2009

A website called Dreamspark is available for university students. It's made by microsoft and is designed to offer free software such as Visual Studio 2005,8 and even 2010! As long as the student has a valid university email and hotmail account, they are allowed to access many software which is ideal for most university courses.
This is a great example of Microsoft trying to compete with open source. http://www.dreamspark.com/