ROLE OF SOFTWARE IN TODAYS WORLD

The time frame in which computers and software have

developed has barely been more than 75 years. Yet their
impact on individual humans and on societies has been as
important as the printing press, airplanes, television, and
automobiles.

Software engineering is the study and application of engineering to

the design, development, and maintenance of software.

Typical formal definitions of software engineering are: the

application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the
development, operation, and maintenance of software. Software
engineering is relatively a new area of engineering though, but the
scope of software engineering is extremely broad. Being one of the
prominent branches of the field of Engineering, its growing among
the fastest fields in the world today.

It must be noted that the term software development can be used for
every type of software development whether its as simple as visual
basic for applications Modules for Microsoft Word, Excel or Access
or developing large, expensive and complicated applications for
businesses or creating software for gaming entertainment.

Not just in a specific field, but every field of work, specific software is
needed. Since the software is developed and embedded in the
machines in order that it could meet with all intents and purposes of
the users belonging to various professions, software engineering is of
great application and assistance.
 SOFTWARE IN SOME SPECIFIC DOMAINS:

1.AIRLINES:
When it comes to the aviation and airline industry there are different
types of airline software used that helps keep things flowing
smoothly. Be it booking flights, managing airline crew, ensuring flight
operations are organized, etc.

Airlines have recognised that they need an independent, radar-based

source for truly accurate live updates in systems that depend on
accuracy and detail.

In airline system , computers software are used to control passenger

aircrafts and vehicles. Early aircraft were controlled by moving parts
attached to the controls using cables .In modern, fly-by-wire system,
electronic signals from the cockpit are sent to that adjusts the flight
surfaces. Computer is embedded in the pilots controls. It is linked up
among different cities and gives full information about its flight and
seat reservation.

EXAMPLES:

Lufthansa Systems AirSP, BagScan, BagTrail, Lido OC, MultiHost,

NetLine/Crew, NetLine/Ops, NetLine/Plan,
NetLine/Sched, ProfitLine /Price, ProfitLine/Yield,
SIRAX
Boeing Maintenance Support Services
Airplane Health Management - AHM
Airplane-On-Ground Operations - AOG
Allowable Configuration Manager - ACM
Bridging Services
Component Repair & Exchange
Electromagnetic Dent Removal
Facility Studies
MSG-3 Maintenance Programs
Maintenance Manuals
Maintenance Operations/Management Services
Maintenance Support Services
ModEvaluator
Reliability Programs
Tool Design Services
Turn-Time Analysis

Boeing Digital
Boeing Digital Technical Documents
MyBoeingFleet
 Portable Maintenance Aid - PMA

Enterprise One
Enterprise One

2.HEALTHCARE:
Medical software companies are involved in building and delivering products,
systems, services, or solutions within a medical space, serving the following needs:

Medical record (or electronic health record) keeping: These are software
and services for use by any size organization from an individual doctors clinic
to large hospitals or even government organizations keeping a nation's
biometrics.
Medical practice management: Used to enhance and streamline the medical
practice process from booking an appointment to printing prescriptions to
billing and payment, these applications can be used at individual doctor's
offices and large hospitals.
Networking and content management solutions: These software
applications are used for multiple purposes, such as connecting various
medical entities (e.g., patients to hospitals or drug companies to medical
representatives, pharmacies, labs, etc.)
Medical services through web-based portals: These portals range from a
simple business listing on a website for a clinic to appointment booking to
promotional and advertising solutions. These ready-made products can be
purchased as a customized theme for new website or can be a recurring
service to provide promotion, advertising, and appointment booking.
Hospital management: These are software and services that support various
operations in the running and management of large hospitals. An individual
doctors clinic may find medical record keeping software sufficient, but a large
hospital will additionally need other modules to maintain schedules of multiple
doctors, inventory management of various devices in the hospital, its billing
and payment system, as well as modules to be used by hospital security staff.
Software or middleware to operate a medical instrument or device: An
electrocardiogram instrument may be built by company A, but the software
that facilitates its working may be built by company B.
Software for medical research and analysis: This stream focuses on
providing software, applications, and systems to medical research companies,
aimed at facilitating and automating their research work.
EXAMPLES:
McKesson Corp.: NYSE-listed McKesson, through its technology solutions segment,
provides software, services, and consulting to hospitals, physician offices, imaging centers,
home health care agencies, and payers and offers connectivity services to streamline
communication between patients, providers, payers, pharmacies, and financial institutions. It
has a market cap of $47.93 billion and its institutional holdings are 86%.

Cerner Corp: NASDAQ-listed Cerner Corp has a market cap of $21 billion
and institutional ownership of 83%. It is a reputable provider of healthcare IT solutions,
services, devices, and hardware. Additionally, it provides solutions for health care process
optimizations.

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc: Allscripts is listed on NASDAQ and has a market
cap of $21.1 billion. Allscripts provides clinical, financial, connectivity, and information
solutions and related services to hospitals, physicians, and post-acute organizations.

3.BANKING:

Banking software is enterprise software that is used by the banking industry.

Typically banking software refers to Core Banking Software and its interfaces
that allows commercial banks to connect to other modular software and to
the interbank networks. It can also refer to the trading software used
by investment banks to access capital markets.

Commercial or retail banks use what is known as core banking software which
record and manage the transactions made by the banks' customers to their
accounts. For example, it allows a customer to go to any branch of the bank and
do its banking from there. In essence, it frees the customer from his/her home
branch and enables him to do banking anywhere. Further, the bank's databases
can be connected to other channels such as ATMs, Internet Banking and SMS
based banking.
Banking software is used by millions of users across hundreds or thousands of
branches. This means that the software must be managed on many machines
even in a small bank. The core banking system is a major investment for a retail
banks and maintaining and managing the system can represent a large part of
the cost of running a bank.
With the help of these software companies, there is efficiency and proper
management of transactions both in the front and back offices of the banking
firms and other financial institutions. This in turn has a big impact on the
consumers, making the process of banking run much more smoothly and
quickly.
EXAMPLES:

Canopus EpaySuite

CoBIS Microfinance Software

EBANQ

Apex Banking Software

4.RETAIL STORES:
Most of the retailers use inventory management softwares to track and manage
their inventory.
some of the benefits of using an inventory management software:

Detailed selling price, costing, deal margins, inventory valuation and

movement
Comprehensive FiFo costing method which will take complicated
excels to track
Know your margins for different customers and sales channels
Manage your complete workflow from sales, purchasing and delivery
Complex sales and purchase relationship for companies keeping full,
partial or completely no stock
 Track all your sales receivables and purchase payables
Knowing the ups and downs. A computer system keeps tabs on all
products sold and when they were sold, allowing the owner to identify
trends easily and stock up or down accordingly.
Smart replenishment. A computer system can make it so much easier
to re-order. This means that replenishment can be done in smaller
quantities and more frequently, reducing stock holding and exposure to
risk.

In summary, independent store owners will find that sophisticated and easy to
use retail software programs are more affordable than ever and offer many of
the capabilities and benefits that have helped larger stores maintain their
competitive edge.

EXAMPLES:

RetailPoint POS Software:

Mobile point of sale (POS) technology that delivers a functional,
accessible and compatible retail management system.

NCR Counterpoint:
Point-of-sale, inventory management software, built-in customer loyalty, automated purchasing, and
configurable reporting.

5.EDUCATION:
Educational software is computer software, the primary purpose of which is teaching or self-
learning.
TYPES:
Courseware:
is a term that combines the words 'course' with 'software'. Its meaning originally was used to
describe additional educational material intended as kits for teachers or trainers or as tutorials for
students, usually packaged for use with a computer.
Classroom aids :
Some educational software is designed for use in school classrooms. Typically such software
may be projected onto a large whiteboard at the front of the class and/or run simultaneously on a
network of desktop computers in a classroom. This type of software is often called classroom
management software.
Assessment Software:
With the impact of environmental damage and the need for institutions to become
"paperless",[3] more educational institutions are seeking alternative ways of assessment and
testing, which has always traditionally been known to use up vasts amount of paper. Assessment
software refers to software with a primary purpose of assessing and testing students in a virtual
environment. Assessment software allows students to complete tests and examinations using a
computer, usually networked.

Operating systems
While mainstream operating systems are designed for general usages, and are more or less
customized for education only by the application sets added to them, a variety of software
manufacturers, especially Linux distributions, have sought to provide integrated platforms for
specifically education.

EXAMPLES:

Anatomy

3D Indiana
Bodyworks Voyager Mission in Anatomy
Primal Pictures
Visible Human Project
Botany

Forever Growing Garden

Chemistry

Aqion - simulates water chemistry

Children's software

ClueFinders titles
Delta Drawing
Edmark
Fun School titles
GCompris - free software (GPL)
Gold Series
JumpStart titles
KidPix
 Lola Panda
Museum Madness
Reader Rabbit titles
Tux Paint - free software (GPL)
Zoombinis titles
Computer science

JFLAP - Java Formal Languages and Automata Package

Cryptography

CrypTool - illustrates cryptographic and cryptanalytic concepts

Dictionaries and reference

Britannica
Encarta
Encyclopdia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite
Geography and Astronomy

Cartopedia: The Ultimate World Reference Atlas

Celestia
Google Earth