| .NET | .NET (dot net) is an umbrella term that applies to a collection of products and technologies from Microsoft. Most have in common a dependence on the Microsoft .NET Framework, a component of the Windows operating system. |
| AD | The Active Directory service provides user and computer accounts and distribution and security groups in the Microsoft Windows operating system. The operating system integrates user, computer, and group security with the Windows security subsystem as a whole. The Windows operating system uses a user to authenticate the identity of the user and to authorise or deny access to domain resources. |
| AJAX | Asynchronous JavaScript and XML - AJAX is not a technology in intself, but a term that refers to the use of a group of technologies. This technique makes web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have ro reload each time the user requests a change. |
| AX | Axapta - one of the ERP software packages available from the Dynamics Range. |
| BACS | Bankers Automated Clearing Services is a United Kingdom scheme for the electronic processing of financial transactions. |
| B2B | Business to Business. |
| B2C | Business to Consumer. |
| BI | Business Intelligence provides a complete tool set to integrate, analyse, report, and mine data to enable an organisations' infrastructure. |
| BRL | Business Ready Licensing - a pricing model introduced in August 2006 by Microsoft to substitute modular-based pricing. |
| CAL | A Client Access Licence is Microsoft's name for various "keys" which must be purchased and enabled to allow various functionality on Windows based servers. |
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management: includes the methodologies, technology and capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships. The general purpose of a CRM software system is to enable organisations to better manage their customers through the introduction of reliable systems, processes and workflow engines. |
| CSV | Comma-Separated Value. |
| C# | C# (C Sharp) is intended to be a simple, modern, general-purpose, object-oriented programming language. |
| Dexterity | C++ optimised for Business Applications. |
| DHCP | Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol - set of rules used by a communications device (eg computer, router or networking adapter) to allow it to request and obtain an Internet address from a server which has a list of addresses available for assignment. |
| DNS | Domain Name System - stores and associates many types of information with domain names, but most importantly, it translates domain names (computer hostnames) to IP addresses. |
| Dynamics | In 2005 Microsoft rebranded Microsoft Business Solutions to Microsoft Dynamics. The new brand focuses on people and process-centric design. The products in this range include AX (formerly Axapta), NAV (formerly Navision), GP (formerly Great Plains), SL (formerly Solomon), RMS (Retail Management Services) and as of December 2005 CRM (Customer Relationship Management). |
| EMEA | Europe, Middle East and Africa. The region classification for a division of an international company that operates in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. |
| EPOS | Electronic Point Of Sale. Capturing data at the time and place of sale. Point of sale systems use computers or specialized terminals that are combined with cash registers, bar code readers, optical scanners and magnetic stripe readers for accurately and instantly capturing the transaction. |
| ERP |
Enterprise Resource Planning. When "ERP" is discussed today, it is rarely in the context of planning how resources are to be expended. Rather, it refers to an enterprise view of the business' in other words, a view of a company and all its parts as connected whole, rather than small silos of activity.
ERP relates to the software infrastructure that holds the entire company together internally, on the one hand, and supports the external business processes the company engages in, on the other.
- ERP applications address a business process.
- ERP applications are modular.
- ERP applications are integrated.
- ERP applications include a company's reach beyond its walls - to its suppliers, customers, and partners.
- The entire ERP suite will address all areas (or the great majority) of a company's business functions.
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| FIFO | First in First Out. |
| GP | formerly Great Plains. |
| GUI | Graphical User Interface. |
| HRM | Human Resource Management. |
| HTTP | Hyper Text Transfer Protocol is a communications protocol used to transfer or convey information on intranets and the World Wide Web. |
| HTTPS | Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure - adds an SSL encryption/authentication layer to HTTP. |
| IPO | Initial Public Offering - the first sale of a corporation's common shares to public investors. |
| IPsec | Internet Protocol security - a set of protocols to secure IP communications. |
| ISA | Internet Security & Acceleration (Server) - integrated edge security gateway that helps protect the IT environment from Internet-based threats while providing users with fast and secure remote access to applications and data. |
| ISP | Internet Service Provider. |
| ISV | Independent Software Vendor is a business term for companies specializing in making or selling specialized software products that offer higher productivity to organisations than more generalised software such as basic spreadsheet or database packages. |
| KPI | Key Performance Indicators: are used in Business Intelligence to assess the present state of business and to prescribe the course of action. |
| L2TP | Layer 2 Tunnelling Protocol - used to support virtual private networks (VPN). |
| LIFO | Last in First Out. |
| MBS | Microsoft Business Solutions, now including the rebranded Dynamics range and Microsoft Retail Management System. |
| MOSS | Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is a single, unified suite of enterprise-scale applications that satisfies diverse business-critical needs, such as managing content and business processes, simplifying how people work together across boundaries, and enabling better informed decision-making. Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports all of the intranets, extranets, and Web applications across an enterprise within one integrated platform, instead of relying on separate fragmented systems. |
| MUI | Multi-lingual user interface. |
| NAT | Network Address Translation - involves re-writing the source and/or destination addresses of IP packets as they pass through a router or firewall |
| NAV | Soloman - one of the ERP software packages available from the Dynamics Range. |
| OTC | Over The Counter trading is to trade financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, commodities or derivatives directly between two parties |
| OLAP | On-line Analytical Processing - a business reporting system which includes ia data-mining and enables multi-dimensional analytical queries to be reported on. |
| PDA | Personal Digital Assistants - handheld computers that were originally designed as personal organisers, but now have far greater versatility and functionality and now include pocket computers or palmtop computers. |
| PDF | Portable Document Format was created by Adobe Systems in 1993 as a multi-platoform file format for text and images. |
| PIM | Personal Information Management - a software designed to facilitate the recording, tracking, and management of certain types of personal information, including calendars, e-mails, contact records, tasks, notes. |
| Pivot report | Alternatively known as PivotTable - a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation. A pivot table is a powerful data summarisation tool in Microsoft Excel and other electronic spreadsheet programs. Among other functions, it automatically sorts, counts, and totals data stored in a spreadsheet and creates a second table displaying the organised data. Its name describes the drag and drop "rotation" or pivoting of the summary table as selected variables or rows and columns are moved. New totals or other calculations are automatically updated. Pivot tables are useful to quickly create crosstabs. |
| PO | Purchase Order. |
| POP | Purchase Order Processing. |
| R&D | Research and Development. |
| RFID | A Radio Frequency Identification tag is an object that can be attatched or incorporated into a product for the purpose of identification using radio waves. |
| RMS | Retail Management System from Microsoft's Dynamics range. |
| ROI | Return On Investment - Used to measure the efficiency with which financial resources available to a company are employed by management. |
| RPC | Remote Procedure Call - protocol to allow a computer program running on one computer to cause a sub-routine in another address space, commonly on another computer, to be executed without the programmer explicitly coding the details for this interaction. |
| RSS | Programs known as feed readers or aggregators can check a list of feeds on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that they find. |
| SharePoint | An Umbrella term for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) & Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). |
| SL | Soloman - one of the ERP software packages available from the Dynamics Range. |
| SOA | Service Orientated Architecture. |
| SOP | Sales Order Processing. |
| SQL | Structured Query Language is a computer language used to create, retrieve, update and delete data from relational database management systems. SQL has been standardized by both ANSI and ISO. |
| SSL | Secure Socket Layer is used to encrypt communcations across a network for privacy and security. |
| TAP | Technology Adoption Programme |
| TCO | Total Cost Of Ownership, a very popular buzzword representing how much it actually costs to own the complete system. |
| VAT | Value Added Tax is a tax on the final consumption of certain goods and services |
| VBA | Visual Basic for Applications. |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network. |
| VoIP | Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP, IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network. |
| WWF | The Workflow engine is a component in the Windows Workflow Foundation which makes workflow an integral Windows platform capability, promising to dramatically increase the availability and simplicity of workflow-enabled applications. The workflow engine is used to enforce the workflow definition and execute workflow events. |
| WSS | Windows SharePoint Services. |
| WWW | World Wide Web. |
| XML | Extensible Markup Language - an industry standard file format. |
