Glossary of Terms Used

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
3GL	Third Generation Language. Intermediate-leveled and generalist language. For example, C++.
4GL	Fourth Generation Language. High-leveled language that is usually specialized on the development of human-machine interfaces. For example, Visual Basic.
5GL	Fifth Generation Language. High-leveled, pseudo-natural, self-defining, multi-facet and enhancement able language. For example, Up ! 5GL.

A

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
Actualization	Projection of an amount to a given date taking account the cost of time according to the forecasted risk. For example, for a borrowing, the interest rate that is yearly applied.
API	Application Program Interface. Norm to interface with the modules of an application. The logic is that this norm be stable in time while the modules are evolving.

B

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
B2B	Business-to-Business. Commercial relationship between two firms.
B2C	Business-to-Consumer. Commercial relationship from a firm to a particular consumer.
BAM	Business Activity Monitoring. Operational and light optimization of a set of activities in opposition with Business Process Reengineering.
BI	Business Intelligence. Generic and parameter-able vertical software dedicated to data analysis, mostly for a financial purpose. For example, SAS.
Big endian	Byte encoding that puts the lower byte first.
BPI	Business Process Integration. Recovering of the IT existing to set up new processes, in opposition with the reengineering of the information system.
BPR	Business Process Reengineering. Operational and deep reengineering of a set of activities that very used in the 1980's.

C

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
CEO	Chief Executive Officer. General director in charge of making proposal to the Supervision Board and applying the strategic plan accepted by the one.
CFO	Chief Finance Officer. Deputy director in charge of general accounting, treasury, cost analysis and funds raising.
CMO	Chief Marketing Officer. Deputy director in charge of strategic marketing, survey and operational marketing.
COO	Chief Operating Officer. Deputy director in charge of purchasing, production, logistics and human resources.
COO	Chief Sales Officer. Deputy director in charge of sales, partnerships and services after sale.
CTO	Chief Technology Officer. Deputy director in charge of technologies, techniques and Research & Development.
CISC	Complex Instruction Set Chip. Processor beholding binary high-leveled instructions, such as Intel's Pentium.
CLI	Call Level Interface. Public norm to interface software with a database. It was used and enhanced by Microsoft to build the Odbc norm.
COM	Component Object Module. Object-oriented middle-ware whose goal is to organize the applications in modules interconnected in client-supplier relationships. This norm is the property of Microsoft.
CORBA	Common Object Request Broker Architecture. Object-oriented middle-ware whose goal is to organize the applications in modules interconnected in client-supplier relationships. This norm is the property of the Object Management Group (OMG).
CRM	Customer Relationship Management. Generic and parameter-able vertical software dedicated to the clients following. For example, Siebel.

D

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
DCOM	Distributed Component Object Module. Enhancement of the Component Object Module (COM) norm in order to offer remote services.
DDE	Dynamic Data Exchange. Norm to interchange data between applications. It is the property of Microsoft
Despair valley	Learning period for which an individual or a team is less performing while the time to master what is new.

E

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
EAI	Enterprise Application Integration. Technical software realizing of standard allowing the interconnection of applications of the enterprise. For example, WebMethods or Xml.
EBITDA	Earning Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. Operating margin realized once the production and selling costs are removed from the turnover, not taking into account amortizing, financing charges.
Elasticity	Variation of the demand in percent for a variation of one per cent of the price.
ENSIMAG	Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieurs en Mathématique Appliquée de Grenoble. French high school educating engineers specialized in information technologies - hardware, operating system and fundamental software, etc.
ERP	Enterprise Resource Planer. Generic and parameter-able vertical software dedicated to the management of firms. For example, SAP.

F

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
FTP	File Transmission Protocol. Protocol to transfer files based on TCP, which is used for Internet.

G

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
GPF	General Protection Fault. Message sent by Windows when an application is living a fatal pitfall.

H

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
HMI	Human Machine Interface. Interface between the user and the application. The most ergonomic interfaces are graphical ones and mainly for Windows.
HTML	Hyper Text Markup Language. Norm to build documents based on markups, which is used for Internet.
HTTP	Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. Protocol to transfer resources beholding links between them and based on TCP, which is used for Internet.

I

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
IDE	Integrated Development Environment. Pleasant interface to develop programs based on a human-machine interface unifying an editor, a compiler, a debugger and several other tools. For example, WSAD.
INPG	Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble. Scientist place and universities to which belongs the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieurs en Mathématique Appliquée de Grenoble (ENSIMAG).
IP	Internet Protocol. Protocol to communicate through a low-leveled IT network on which is based Internet.
IPC	Inter Process Call. Low-leveled standard to synchronize processes that are performed on a same computer. It especially used by COM and CORBA.

J

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
J2EE	Java 2 Enterprise Edition. Technical platform targeting firms to build Internet / Intranet applications. This is enhanced version of J2SE
J2ME	Java 2 Mobile Edition. Technical platform targeting industries to be embedded as an operating system. This a simple version of J2SE
J2SE	Java 2 Enterprise Edition. Technical platform that is independent of hardware and base software, which was first build by Sun Microsystem.

L

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
Little endian	Byte encoding that puts the upper byte first.

M

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
MBA	Master Of Business Administration. Education cycle coming from the US for the top executives of international firms. General degree in strategy, finance, marketing, operations, human resources, international, economics, communication, etc.

N

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
NFS	Network File System. Norm to share files between computers based on TCP.
ICNT	Information and Communication New Technologies. They come from Internet wave and they were pushed by the deregulation of the telecom business line in Europe.

O

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
Océane	Obligations Convertibles par échange d'Actions Existantes ou Nouvelles Emises - Convertible bonds into existing or to be issued shares.
OCI	Oracle Call Interface. Private norm to interface software with the Oracle kernel.
ODBC	Open Database Connectivity. Public norm to interface software with data sources. It enhances the CLI norm. It is the property of Microsoft.
OLE	Object Link Embedded. Norm to compound documents using the object-oriented programming. Its is the property of Microsoft.
OMG	Object Management Group. American, non-profitable and multi-parties consortium whose objective is to state norms for object-oriented programming.

P

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
Payback	Date to which the revenue of an investment over goes the expenses due to the one, without taking into account the actualization.
Posix	Portability Operating Systems Interface. Norm defining the Application Program Interfaces (API) with the operating system for the C language.

R

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
RCE	Return on Capital Engaged. Operating margin divided by the financing resources of the firm.
RDBMS	Relational Database Management System.
RISC	Reduce Instruction Set Chip. Processor beholding elementary binary instructions, such as 68xxx of Motorola.
ROI	Return on Investment. Created value that is evaluated by actualizing the financing flows coming from the revenues and the expenses limited to an investment. It is often misused with the Payback.
RMI	Remote Method Invocation. Adaptation of the RPC norm for Java.
RPC	Remote Process Call. Low-leveled standard to call services between processes performing on two computers. It is especially used by COM and by CORBA.

S

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
S2O	Strategy-to-Operations. Application to make the business modeling and the operational meta piloting, in order to use the set-up of the strategy of the firm by integrating the instable choices forecasted for the life duration of the last one - organization / processes, technical resources and human resources.
SA	Société Anonyme - Anonymous company.
SARL	Société A Risque Limité - Limited risk company.
SAS	Société Anonyme Simplifiée - Anonymous and simplified company.
SC	Société Civile - Civil company.
SQL	Structured Query Language. Fouth generation language dedicated to relational databases.
SSII	Société de Services et d'Ingénierie en Informatique - IT services company.

T

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
TCO	Total Cost of Ownership. Total cost to arrange a system including the designing, realizing, deploying, change management and maintaining stages.
TCP	Transmission Control Protocol. Protocol to communicate through an IT multi-services network. It is the most spread.

U

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
UML	Unified Modeling Language. Norm to model an IT application in a object-oriented way to design, to realize and to deploy.
Unicode	Universal norm to encode symbols used for any languages and any dialects.

V

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
VBA	Visual Basic Application. Script language to realize automating macro functions into the Office suite of Microsoft.
Vertical software	Interconnection of technical software to build an IT solution on which will be based as a memory the organization of one or more activities of the firm.

W

Term or Abbreviation	Semantic
W3C	World Wide Web Consortium. American, non-profitable and multi-parties consortium whose objective is to state norms about to Internet.
WPC	Work Prime Contractor. People in charge of realizing the project i.e. IT department or services company.
WPO	Work Prime Organizer. People ordering the project i.e. the final user or the top management.
WYSIWYG	What You See Is What You Get. Principle applied by some human-machine interfaces in order to exactly present on the screen what the user should get in reality.