Industry report (E-marketing)

p A Report on E-Marketing Computers This essay reports on the current activity in e-marketing computers . It discusses the English language markets . in particularly in the US and UK . The three companies considered here are Apple , Hewlett Packard (HP and Dell , all regarded as notable exponents of e-marketing . The conclusion drawn is that e-marketing alone is not as yet a viable strategy for this industry in general but it has been a successful approach when marketing solely to corporate customers

Industry Background

The computer industry within the English-speaking world is made

up of only a few suppliers of any size . During 2005 the worldwide shipments of PCs grew in volume by over 16 according to IDC , and by 9 in terms of value . The Austin , Texas firm Dell supplies more PCs worldwide than any other company - 18 .1 of the market against HP , the number two , at 14 .9 . The next largest suppliers are Lenovo (ex IBM ) at 7 .7 , Gateway Acer and Fujitsu /Siemens , each having less than 5 . All of these companies ' computers use Microsoft 's Windows operating system . The core functionality they deliver to the user is therefore essentially identical . Apple Computer , which had around 3 .5 of the world PC market in 2005 , ships cmputers that run its own operating system - MacOS Whereas Apple sells most of its notebooks to individual users , Dell sells most of its product to corporate clients , as does HP but to a lesser extent

The Windows /PC world is one where prices continually decline while performance and hardware functionality improve . Hardware is manufactured almost exclusively in the Far East while software in the English Language markets originates almost entirely from the USA . Increasingly the actual computing function is being treated as a commodity with only increased memory and faster performance as differentiators . This can be expected to change to a degree when (Vista ) the next generation of Microsoft 's OS becomes deployed . At this time the major product differentiators tends to be graphics performance , screen size /quality and connectivity options . The combined result under Vista should be a new emphasis on the entertainment functionality of the computer and its potentially growing value as a intra-household communications controller

Defining e-marketing

Before discussing e-marketing in this industry , we need to select a definition of `marketing . One which will suffice is :- "Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception pricing , promotion , and distribution of ideas , goods , services organizations , and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives (Boone and Kurtz

A Google search for a definition of e-marketing produces the following results -

Moving elements of marketing strategies and activities to a computerized , networked environment such as the Internet . It is the strategic process of creating , distributing , promoting , and pricing goods and services to a target market over the Internet or through digital tools ( HYPERLINK "http /www .google .com /url ?sa X start 0 oi define ei iWAFRcTDEYbI2gLc9vC 6CQ sig2 _KupGYVoDHkIXUqDKn1t4w q http /aede .osu .edu /programs /e-agbiz...