Tracy R Reed wrote:
Where does one learn to use phrases like "vertical apps"?
MBA school. It's actually quite old.
The terms "vertical" and "horizontal" used to refer to how business were
organized.
A "horizontal" business has lots of fairly unrelated business functions
but does not control much of the supply chain. Google is a nice example
of a very horizontal business.
A "vertical" business tends to have fewer unrelated business functions
but goes quite a way back the supply chain. IBM used to be a *very*
vertical business in computer chips and boards. For example, IBM used
to (may still) own a *lead mine*, transport company, solder
manufacturer, PCB manufacturing, chip manufacturing line, chip
packaging, and chip testing. That is vertical integration.
Nobody talks about horizontal software, because it tends to be like
Unix. Focused on one task and often easily replaceable.
Companies like SAP and Oracle *love* vertical software because it is a
big hunk of proprietary garbage that is specific to your business and is
very hard to root out once in place. They make lots of money from
making vertical software.
-a
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
