The personal computer industry – a marketing perspective

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[...] Technology and thus innovation are advancing every year due to which the competition in the marketing industry is becoming very severe. The manufacturer with the best and most unique innovation mostly wins a huge chunk of market share for a particular period. For example, Acer introduced Blu-ray drives in their laptops which boosted their product sales for a short while. Technology should be positively innovated. Positive innovation changes the complexion of a market and drives consumers to buy products which appeal to them. [...]

[...] Ever since there has been increasing focus on this factor, additional certifications have been needed by computer companies which have led to increased costs of products. For example, in Canada, due to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, the costs of computers have gone up by $15. Economic Factors The growth of the PC industry is exploited by many global factors. Many companies like HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer are global companies. A major affecting factor affecting these companies is the global currency exchange rate. A company can be directly affected by the strength or weakness of the US dollar against other currencies. [...]

[...] Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION METHODOLOGY ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION Environment Scanning Macro Environment Analysis Micro Environment Analysis The Marketing Mix Product Price Place Promotion Product Innovation From a Marketing Manager's Perspective About Dell Market Segmentation at Dell Product Innovation Shortcomings at Dell Potential Hazards faced by Dell Improvements required at Dell CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS 20 APPENDICES 21 Appendix Appendix Appendix Appendix Appendix REFERENCES 25 THE PERSONAL COMPUTER INDUSTRY A MARKETING PERSPECTIVE 1. INTRODUCTION Personal Computers, meaning a machine to be used by only one person, have thrived for decades. The historic systems were built with a magnetic drum memory and gave the person complete control on the machine's registers and its various modes of operation. Many were only intended to be operated as an extension of a desktop calculator where it could run a specific program from its memory. [...]

[...] [online] Available at: http://allthingsd.com/20120915/its- official-the-era-of-the-personal-computer-is-over [Accessed: 13 Jan 2013]. [...]

[...] All the big players can invest a lot in R&D and hire elite people for the top management. Thus their scope of innovation is very large. Smaller companies have no chance to compete with such stiff competition. However, in a competitive market, identifying a major customer demand and fulfilling it is much important. For example, ASUSTek launched the netbooks as a minnow in the year 2007 and it achieved a growth rate of 103% in 2008 since they were the only netbook producer of that time. [...]