University of Missouri-St. Louis - Chapter 4: Information Systems Hardware
University of Missouri-St. Louis - Chapter 5: Information Systems Software
Dave Bourgeois and David T. Bourgeois - Chapter 1: What Is an Information System?
To begin, we must define information systems, which utilize hardware, software, and other mechanisms to fuel the technology that we use today. Information systems are combinations of hardware, software, and telecommunications networks that people build and use to collect, create, and distribute useful data, typically in organizational settings. Information systems are made up of five components: hardware, software, data, people, and process. Hardware is the part of an information system you can touch – the physical components of the technology, while software is a set of instructions that tells the hardware what to do.
Hardware is the computers, keyboards, disk drives, iPads, and flash drives that we tangibly touch as we use modern technology. There are several categories of software, with the two main categories being operating-system software, which makes the hardware usable, and application software, which does something useful. Examples of operating systems include Microsoft Windows on a personal computer and Google’s Android on a mobile phone. Examples of application software are Microsoft Excel and Angry Birds.