Configuration Management is a discipline to ensure that the configuration of an item (and its components) is known and documented and that changes are controlled and tracked.

Configuration management applies technical and administrative direction and surveillance over the lifecycle of an item to: identify and document characteristics, control and document configuration changes, record and report the status of proposed changes, and audit configuration items to verify conformance to specifications, drawings, interface control documents, and other contractual requirements.

Related terms: configuration management training, configuration software, IT configuration management

Rental of computer and audio-video equipment can be a low cost, low overhead solution to temporary business needs. There are a number of companies that offer nationwide equipment rental services. Rental plans usually fall into two price categories: day-to-day and long term rental. Day-to-day rental rates are higher on a per day basis than long term rental rates, but are perfect if your company needs a laptop or projector for a short business trip. Long term rental plans are an alternative to purchasing computer equipment outright. In many cases, the best deal is to rent used equipment on a long-term basis, with rent-to-buy features kicking in after a sufficiently long rental period.

Related terms: equipment rental, projector rental, laptop rental, networking equipment rental, AV equipment

Collaboration Software is sophisticated software to organize team work over the web. Collaboration software solutions offer the ability to communicate complex information within groups and to customers, to organize thoughts and ideas, and to manage information for meetings, presentations, projects, proposals, research, contacts, etc.

Project management tools automate and simplify task management, while web conferencing tools such as screen sharing, instant messaging and polling enable instant real-time collaboration regardless of where each of your team members are located. So your team can work with resources outside your organization as effectively as if they were down the hall.

Related terms: web conferencing software, teleconferencing, collaboration software

CMMS Short for Computerized Maintenance Management Systems, CMMS are software systems to automate and streamline the maintenance of equipment, fleets or facilities.

Computerized maintenance management systems offers a number of sophisticated features. CMMS can create an equipment event log to record events associated with a piece of equipment or vehicle, will generate work orders automatically according to a schedule or manually from service request, can log authorized uses of a piece of equipment, and will track scheduled services (PM), maintenance history, employee time, downtime, parts inventory and purchase orders. All of this data, combined with built-in reporting tools, gives a powerful, efficient maintenance management system.

Related terms: CMMS management

The CAN-SPAM Act is a new anti-spam law that sets national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. The bill's full name is the "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003."

The bill permits e-mail marketers to send unsolicited commercial e-mail as long as it contains: an opt-out mechanism, a functioning return e-mail address, a valid subject line indicating it is an advertisement, the legitimate physical address of the mailer. The bill includes many other provisions, such as the formation of a national do-not-spam list, and the prohibition of certain email address collection methods.


Related terms: spam, junk email, spam filter, anti spam software, spam blocking, do not spam list, email filters

A call center is an umbrella term that refers to reservations centers, help desks, information lines or customer service centers, regardless of how they are organized or what types of transactions they handle. In its most sophisticated form, the term refers to a voice operations environment that provides a full range of high-volume, inbound or outbound call-handling services, including customer support, operator services, directory assistance, multilingual customer support, credit services, card services, inbound and outbound telemarketing, interactive voice response and web-based services.

The term call center can be misleading, as the transactions may be more involved than simple 'calls,' and a 'center' may not accurately represent the potentially complex, multi-site environment.


Related terms: inbound call center, outbound call center, telemarketing, contact center, predictive dialers, call center outsourcing

Business Process Management systems provide the capability to design, deploy, execute, analyze and optimize end-to-end business processes. They coordinate the flow of tasks, access to resources and the exchange of information among employees, customers and partners. Importantly, BPM systems are intelligent in that they capture information about the execution of each process to enable continuous process improvement.


Related terms: BPM systems, workflow, BPM outsourcing, business process management

Business Intelligence (BI) describes the process of turning data into information and then into knowledge. The intelligence becomes more useful to the user as it passes through each step. By sifting through mountains of data and delivering the condensed information in an organized fashion, business intelligence systems offer management insight into business environments and guidance in setting and achieving organizational goals.


Related terms: BI, Business Intelligence Systems, Enterprise Business Intelligence

Bug Tracking Software is used by developers to record defects and changes in software products. Bug-tracking solutions are designed so that any member of the development team can access the bug database to log bugs and make changes. A record of all changes is kept, including time of original bug identification, bug description, changes / fixes applied, as well as the developer who made the entry or change. Bugs can be categorized based on criteria such as urgency or location, and hence can be quickly sorted according to query.


Related terms: bug tracking software, configuration management

Budgeting Software is powerful management software to create flexible and sophisticated budgets, specific to your needs. Budgeting solutions typically offer the ability to model budgets to fit your business, align budgets with strategic plans and forecasts, increase collaboration while streamlining the budget process, and offer incorporation with general ledger, payroll, and other critical applications.


Related terms: budgeting software, forecasting software

Short for web browser, the software application you are most likely using to view this web page. Web browsers are used to locate and display web pages on the internet. Standard capabilities include displaying graphics and text, while plug-ins allow for audio, video, web conferencing and other multimedia features. Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla Firefox and Netscape Navigator are examples of web browsers.


Related terms: IE, webcast, web conference, internet conferencing, video conferencing, web conference service providers

While including the usual PDA applications (address book, calendar, to-do lists, etc.) as well as telephone capabilities on newer models, the BlackBerry is primarily known for its ability to send and receive e-mail anywhere it has access to an appropriate wireless network, as well as for its built-in keyboard optimized for "thumbing", or using only your thumbs to type.