The first application, horizontal, is a software program that is used across different industries for many different uses by different people. What first came to mind when I learned about horizontal applications was my use of it in a restaurant job that I had. I was put in charge of cashing out each server at the end of their shift, and the program that we used to calculate the totals and earnings of each server was Microsoft Excel. This is an example of a program that is used for many different purposes, but for that particular job, we used it to keep track of everyones daily cash outs. It made the process of collecting money run much smoother. My use of Microsoft Excel while at that job has helped me tremendously, and hopefully will help me with the Excel Project! Other examples of horizontal applications include Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office, Open Office, and Adobe Creative suite.
The second application is vertical, and is defined as a software program that is designed to meet the specific needs of one vertical business market. As with the horizontal application, when I first learned about vertical applications the first thing that popped into my mind was my job at Goodys Family Clothing (which is sadly out of business now.) We had one entire system at Goodys that was designed to run the whole store. While working there, I was assigned to many different departments, each with their own unique job requirements. Sometimes I was a cashier, and just as the lectures pointed out, the system knew which items were on sale, and which were full price. This was because when a shipment of clothing would arrive in the warehouse, we would set the prices in the scan gun, and then scan one item out of the shipment with the correct price. This would in turn set the price for the entire shipment, saving lots of time. We also had a system for price checks, which would allow customers to scan items to find out the price for themselves before purchase. Although I would never work retail ever again, Goodys was a great learning experience for vertical applications!
To further my knowledge of vertical and horizontal applications, I did some research just to make sure I had a good grasp of the entire concept. My research results took me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_application, which surprisingly didn't have very much information. I found out that this is a relatively new topic, because none of the websites really provided me with anything useful other than what I had already learned. This website even asked if I would like to expand on the information related to this topic, because they didn't feel that they had enough resources available! Perhaps I will refer them to Charlie Hairston's informative lectures :)
Side note: I used orange and blue text color in an effort to show my Gator spirit, and to wish them luck against Tennessee. Go Gators!!
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