Huffman Trucking Paper

Upon reviewing Huffman Trucking’s networking model, it appears that most of their IT components—software and hardware—are outdated. But I digress. The purpose of this paper is to answer the following questions: 1. Why do you think these operating systems were chosen? 2. What are the implications of the operating systems that are in use by Huffman Trucking?

That said, I will not expound on why a company like Huffman Trucking should update their IT infrastructure as soon as possible, except to say that—for security reasons alone—the investment would far outweigh the costs. Rather, I will attempt to explain why Huffman chose a Windows operating system back in the late 90s when (it appears) their network was first implemented.

Operating Systems (OS) are, of course, nothing more than a series of computer programs. But unlike your typical word processing application or favorite Tetris game, an operating system is the first piece of code that a computer executes when it is turned on. The operating system loads itself into available memory and then begins managing all of the resources inside the computer. Once up and running, it then provides a User Interface (UI) for other applications that any user can execute.

At the time Huffman incorporated an OS into their business model, the company had three major players to choose from: Microsoft, Mac OS and Unix. (Linux, of course, was also available, but it was—and still is—used primarily by computer “hackers” and other IT gurus who needed little in the way of software or network training. And since guys like that don’t often find employment at small transport-hauling companies, Huffman ended up using Microsoft 3.x and 9x as their primary operating systems.

The decision to use a Microsoft product at that time (circa 1997) most likely came about because of Microsoft’s position in the OS