Introduction to PDA

PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)

PDA, known as personal digital assistant broad wide is a mobile device that provides a lot of personal organizers function such as calendar, appointment book, address book, calculator, and notepad. PDA can be used as is a handheld computer, also known as small or palmtop computers…
Modern PDAs also have both color screens and audio capabilities, allowing the user to use it as a mobile phone too. PDAs are used to save information that can be accessed at any time and anyplace. PDAs also offer other application such as Real One Player – a media software that is use to run songs and movies, not only that, PDA has a touch screen for users to enter data, a memory card slot for data storage and it have IrDA-(known as Infrared Ray), Bluetooth and/or WiFi. However, many PDAs may not have a touch screen, so the user will opt to use alphanumerical keypad, a directional pad and either the scroll keypad or a thumb keyboard for entering the input purposes. Connected PDAs also characteristically include E-mail and Web support
Most modern PDAs have the following features as a minimum:-

! Colour screen

! Stylus pen

! Standard software: calendar, address book, notepad and more

! Sound

! Large memory (no less than 16MB) and the memory can also be expanded by using external memory-memory cards as PDAs provide memory card slots.

! Wireless link (IrDA, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi)

! PC link

! Enormous range of software that can be installed to the PDA.

Text input is usually done in one of four ways:-

Virtual keyboard – when the keyboard is shown on the screen, which is the touch screen. The entering of data can be done by tapping letters or numerical character on the screen.
External keyboard – this keyboard can be connected via USB port or via Bluetooth
Word or letter recognition- when letters or words are written on the screen, the system will try to identify the letters or words written and will then be activating the texts or words thru text field.
Stroke recognition-a clear set of strokes represents the various letters needed. The user will learn how to draw these strokes on the screen. The strokes are often the simplified character shapes to make them easier to remember.
Nowadays Blackberry and Treo-(both are the PDA brand) have full keyboard and scroll wheels to smooth the progress of data entry and navigation. Meanwhile, Apple i phone and i touch uses a different kind of input by including a new user’s interface and a technology called Multi Touch. These days PDA is equip with a memory card slot unlike the PDA in the good old days. The memory card slot is used to slot in either SD (Secure Digital) or a Compact flash card. The card is used to store any information or data that is saved by the user when the PDA internal memory is full. Most of the PDAs nowadays have Bluetooth wireless connectivity; Bluetooth is popular in these days for PDA and other mobile devices. It can be used to connect keyboards, headsets, GPS and many other accessories, as well as sending files between PDAs and other mobile devices that is bluetooth enabled too.Many mid-range and superior PDAs have Wi-Fi/WLAN/802.11-connectivity, used for connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots or wireless networks. Older PDAs predominantly have an IrDA (infrared) port; however the modern models of PDA seldom have the technology, as it is slowly being phased out for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. PDA has a important function which is called the synchronization. Most PDAs come with the ability to synchronize to a PC. This is done through the synchronization software provided with the handheld, such as HotSync Manager, which comes with Palm OS handhelds, Microsoft ActiveSync for older versions of Windows or Windows Mobile Device Center on Windows Vista, which comes with Windows Mobile handhelds. The synchronizing function that is done from the software also prevents the loss of information stored on the device in case it is lost, stolen, or destroyed. Another benefit gain from this function is that data input is usually a lot quicker on a PC, since text input via a touch screen is still not quite favorable. Transferring data to a PDA via the computer is therefore a lot quicker than having to manually input all data on the handheld device. PDAs are also used during educations, sports, automobile navigation and for the people with disabilities and more.
PDA is used during education as a vital tool as mobile technology has become very common; it is no astonishment that personal computing has become a very important learning tool by this time. Educational institutes have commenced a trend of integrating PDAs into their teaching practices which is also known as mobile learning. With the capabilities of PDAs, teachers are now able to provide a joint and learning experience and knowledge for their students. PDAs and handheld devices are recently allowed by certain educational institutions for digital note- taking and sometimes the notes are sent to their PDA. By allowing students to have this kind of note taking, this has increased the students’ capability by allowing individuals to have spell check, amend and modify their
notes or is best known as e notes. Educators are currently able to distribute course material through the use of the internet connectivity or thru Bluetooth file sharing function from the PDA, not only the educators are doing it, nowadays, textbook publishers have launch and begun to release e- books which can be directly uploaded to the PDA. This has lessen the burden of students that is used to carrying heavy books around and this method helps to reduce the sawing of trees, which means less trees are been sawed down as less papers are being used now to produce books. Simple programs such as dictionaries, thesaurus and word processing software are downloaded to the PDA to ease the students from bring any heavy dictionaries and reference books.
PDAs are also used in the form of sports as glider pilots-(light aircraft designed to fly without the engine) pilots As PDAs is used for pre- flight preparation and to help out on the assisting of the navigation as the PDAs are GPS-(Global Positioning System) enabled to generate map displays that shows the tracks to the turn points, airspace hazards and etc. PDAs is also used by sportsman or athletes with some music enthusiasm as they can play songs while doing their favourite workouts and activities. PDAs can be used by road rally enthusiasts for calculating distance, speed, time, and GPS direction-finding as well as solo navigation.
PDAs help and give assistance for those drivers that don’t recognize the route to a place as PDA is equipped with GPS( Global Positioning System), it can be used to view the traffic condition, the easiest and fastest way to reach a destination by showing the users the road conditions using 2D or 3D displays. PDAs offer partial degrees of accessibility for people with differing abilities, based on the particular device and service. People with vision, hearing, mobility, and speech impairments may be able to use PDAs on a limited basis, and this may be enhanced by the addition of accessibility software (e.g. speech recognition).
Many PDAs run using different type and variation of architecture, although most PDAs are usually use the symbol by the Intel Xscale trademark; it is usually surrounded by some of RISC microprocessors that are widely used by PDAs and other mobile devices.

The currently major PDA operating systems are:-

! Palm OS - owned by PalmSource

! Windows Mobile Professional and Classic for use on Pocket PCs, (based on the Windows CE kernel) - owned by Microsoft

! iPhone OS - owned by Apple Inc.

! BlackBerry OS - owned by Research In Motion

! Many operating systems based on the Linux kernel - free (not owned by any company) These include

Familiar (comes in three types: GPE, Opie and barebone)

OpenZaurus (for Zaurus PDAs)

Ångström, a descendent of OpenZaurus

Intimate (for PDAs with an exceedingly large amount of memory)

! Symbian OS (formerly EPOC) owned by Motorola, Panasonic, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson……………

There are some popular brands for PDAs which is the Blackberry, HP iPAQ, i Pod touch, i phone,dopod, Htc and more.

The benefits and drawback of the device to the user…

Benefits of PDA to the user…

! PDAs can be used anytime and anywhere.

* Ease the burden of students as they can now bring fewer books.

* They can have their notes in the electronic form thus they can also have their spelling check, notes amended, and lots of things done including homework on their PDAs.

* They can share their e notes with their friends with just a click- meaning sending notes thru file sharing functions and / or with Bluetooth.

* They can send push e mail to their educators and friends about their notes.

* They can use the GPS function available in their PDA to search for the fastest and easiest ways to a destination

* It is used to store contacts and information for those who has lots of friends, clients and colleagues contact numbers. This will help them build a larger scale of communication with others

* They can use the PDA as their MP3 player too, but with a twist that they don’t need their MP3 player, they just need their PDA as PDA is equipped with Real One Player for the users to plays song and watch movies too.

Drawback of PDA to the user...

* Users (students) tend to rely on the dictionary and self check function to correct their grammatical mistake for their homework.

* Students use PDA to send and share answers during exam and chatting and gossiping with others while having exam.

* Users rely too much on the GPS function available on their PDA and can’t even memorize or remember the route to go from one destination to the other.

The Evolution of Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a handheld computer which is also known as small or palmtop computer. Newer PDAs nowadays have both colour screen and audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phone (smartphone), web browser or even portable media player. Most PDAs have access to the Internet, intranet or extranet via Wi-Fi or Wireless Wide-Area Networks (WWANs). Besides that, most PDAs also apply the touch screen technology.
PDA is created evolving from the innovation from mobile devices with computer technology to provide convenience to the users. Hence, it is actually a mobile phone with added computer enabled functions. Therefore, the history of PDA is actually similar with the history of the creation of mobile phone. In December 1947, Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young, Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for mobile phones. Philip T. Porter, also of Bell Labs, proposed that the cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas that would transmit or receive in 3 directions into 3 adjacent hexagon cells. The technology did not exist then and the frequencies had not yet been allocated. Cellular technology was undeveloped until the 1960s, when Richard H. Frenkiel and Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs developed the electronics. One of the first truly successful public commercial mobile phone networks was the ARP network in Finland, launched in 1971. However, ARP is sometimes viewed as a zero generation (0G) cellular network which is being slightly above previous proprietary and limited coverage networks.
The first generation (1G): The first commercial launch of cellular telecoms was launched by NTT in Tokyo, Japan in 1979. In 1981, the NMT system was launched in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. This was the first mobile phone technology that allowed international use of the mobile phone which also known as “roaming”. The first handheld mobile phone in the US market was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, which received approval in 1983. Mobile phones began to proliferate through the 1980s with the introduction of “cellular” phones based on cellular networks with multiple base stations located relatively close to each other. At this time analog, transmission was in use in all systems. Soon, Motorola introduced the first truly portable, handheld phone. These systems (NMT, AMPS, TACS, RTMI, C-Netz and Radiocom 2000) later became known as first generation (1G) mobile phones.
Second generation (2G): In the 1990s, second generation (2G) mobile phone systems such as GSM, IS-136 (TDMA), iDEN and IS-95 (CDMA) began to be introduced. The first pre-commercial digital cellular phone call was made in the United States in 1990. In 1991, the first GSM network (Radiolinja) opened in Finland. 2G phone systems were characterized by digital circuit switched transmission and the introduction of advanced and fast phone to network signaling. Generally, the frequencies used by 2G systems in Europe were higher though with some overlap, for example the 900 MHz frequency range was used for both 1G and 2G systems in Europe and so such 1G systems were rapidly closed down to make space for 2G systems. In America, the IS-54 standard was deployed in the same band as AMPS and displaced some of the existing analog channels. Coinciding with the introduction of 2G systems was a trend away from the
larger “brick” phones toward tiny 100-200g hand-held devices, which soon became the norm. This change was possible through technological improvements such as more
advanced batteries and more energy-efficient electronics, but also was largely related to the higher density of cellular sites caused by increasing usage levels which decreased the demand for high transmit power to reach distant towers for customers to be satisfied. The second generation introduced a new variant to communication, as SMS text messaging became possible, initially on GSM networks and eventually on all digital networks. The first machine-generated SMS message was sent in the UK in 1991. The first person-to-person SMS text message was sent in Finland in 1993. Soon SMS became the communication method of preference for the youth. Today in many advanced markets the general public prefers sending text messages to placing voice calls. 2G also introduced the ability to consume media content on mobile phones, when Radiolinja (now Elisa) in Finland introduced the downloadable ringing tone as paid content. Finland was also the first country where advertising appeared on the mobile phone when a free daily news headline service on SMS text messaging was launched in 2000, sponsored by advertising.
Third generation (3G): Not long after the introduction of 2G networks, projects began to develop third generation (3G) systems. Inevitably there were many different standards with different contenders pushing their own technologies. Quite differently from 2G systems, however, the meaning of 3G has been standardized in the IMT-2000 standardization processing. This process did not standardize on a technology, but rather on a set of requirements (2 Mbit/s maximum data rate indoors, 384 kbit/s outdoors, for example). At that point, the vision of a single unified worldwide standard broke down and several different standards have been introduced. The first pre-commercial trial network with 3G was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in the Tokyo region in May 2001. NTT DoCoMo launched the first commercial 3G network on October 1, 2001, using the WCDMA technology. In 2002 the first 3G networks on the rival CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology were launched by SK Telecom and KTF in South Korea, and Monet in the USA. Monet has since gone bankrupt. By the end of 2002, the second WCDMA network was launched in Japan by Vodafone KK (now Softbank). In March the first European launches of 3G were in Italy and the UK by the Three/Hutchison group, on WCDMA. 2003 saw a further 8 commercial launches of 3G, six more on WCDMA and two more on the EV-DO standard. During the development of 3G systems, 2.5G systems such as CDMA 2000 1x and GPRS were developed as extensions to existing 2G networks. These provide some of the features of 3G without fulfilling the promised high data rates or full range of multimedia services. CDMA2000-1X delivers theoretical maximum data speeds of up to 307 kbit/s. Just beyond these is the EDGE system which in theory covers the requirements for 3G system, but is so narrowly above these that any practical system would be sure to fall short. By the end of 2007 there were 295 Million subscribers on 3G networks worldwide, which reflected 9% of the total worldwide subscriber base. About two thirds of these are on the WCDMA standard and one third on the EV-DO standard. The 3G telecoms services generated over 120 Billion dollars of revenues during 2007 and at many markets the majority of new phones activated were 3G phones. In Japan and South Korea the market no longer supplies phones of the second generation. Earlier in the decade there were doubts about whether 3G might happen, and
also whether 3G might become a commercial success. By the end of 2007 it had become clear that 3G was a reality and was clearly on the path to become a profitable venture.
The first PDA is considered to be the CASIO PF-3000 released in May 1983. GO Corp. was also pioneering in the field. The term was first used on January 7, 1992 by Apple Computer CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton. PDAs are sometimes referred as Palms, Palm Pilot or Palm Tops.
Today, most PDAs are well-equipped with newer technology and with more added advantages. A typical PDA has a touch screen for entering data, a memory card slot for data storage and at least one of the following for connectivity: IrDA, Bluetooth or WiFi. However, many PDAs (typically those used primarily as telephones) may not have a touch screen, using softkeys, a directional pad and some sort of note program. Connected PDAs also typically include e-mail and Web support. Many original PDAs, such as the Apple Newton and the Palm Pilot, featured touch screens for user interaction, having only a few buttons usually reserved for shortcuts to often used programs. Touch screen PDAs, including Windows Pocket PC devices, usually have a detachable stylus that can be used on the touch screen. Interaction is then done by tapping the screen to activate buttons or menu choices, and dragging the stylus to, for example, highlight.

Text input is usually done in one of four ways:-

* Using a virtual keyboard, where a keyboard is shown on the touch screen. Input is done by tapping letters on the screen.

* Using external keyboard or chorded keyboard connected by USB or Bluetooth.

* Using letter or word recognition, where letters or words are written on the touch screen and then translated to letters in the currently activated text field.

* Stroke recognition (termed Graffiti by Palm). In this system a predefined set of strokes represent the various character shapes to make them easier to remember.

PDAs for business use, including the BlackBerry and Treo, have full keyboards and scroll wheels or thumb wheels to facilitate data entry and navigation, in addition to supporting touch-screen input. There are also full-size foldable keyboards available that plug directly, or use wireless technology to interface with the PDA and allow for normal typing. BlackBerry has additional functionality, such as push-based email and applications. Newer PDAs, such as the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch include new user interfaces using other means of input. The iPhone and iPod touch uses a technology called Multi-touch.
The evolution of PDAs today is far different from the day it was first invented. PDAs nowadays are being used in many aspects to make our life easier. In automobile navigation, many PDAs are used in car kits and are fitted with differential Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers to provide realtime automobile navigation.PDAs are
increasingly being fitted as standard on new cars. Many systems can also display traffic conditions, dynamic routing and roadside mobile radar guns. Popular software in Europe and in America for this functionality are TomTom, Garmin, iGO and others showing road conditions and 2D or 3D environments. Meanwhile, businesses and government organizations have relied upon rugged PDAs for many years known as enterprise digital assistants (EDAs) for mobile data applications. Typical applications include supply chain management in warehouses, package delivery, route accounting, medical treatment and record keeping in hospitals, facilities maintenance and management, parking enforcement, access control and security, capital asset maintenance, meter reading by utilities, and "wireless waitress" applications in restaurants and hospitality venues. A common feature of EDAs are the integration of Data Capture devices like Bar Code, RFID and Smart Card Readers. In medicine, PDAs have been shown to aid diagnosis and drug selection and some studies have concluded that their use by patients to record symptoms improves the effectiveness of communication with hospitals during follow-up. The first landmark study in testing the effectiveness of PDAs in a medical setting was conducted at the Brigham & Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospitals in affiliation with Harvard Medical School. Led by the team of Steven Labkoff, MD and Sandeep Shah, the Constellation project used Apple's Newton (first PDA in the market) to cater to the demands of the medical professionals. Constellation's objective was to test how clinicians in various medical environments (wired vs un wired) would use medical reference books on a hand-held device. The study validated the hypothesis that PDAs with medical content would be used to a greater degree (>40% more often) in unwired environments. Today, the company evolved from the effort Skyscape offers a wide range of resources including drug information, treatment options, guidelines, evidence based information and journal summaries including the drug & safety alerts. Other entrants include Epocrates and ABX guide, which supply drug databases, treatment information and relevant news in formats specific to mobile devices and services such as AvantGo translate medical journals into readable formats and provide updates from journals. WardWatch organizes medical records to remind doctors making ward rounds of information such as the treatment regimens of patients and programs. Finally, Pendragon and Syware provide tools for conducting research with mobile devices, and connecting to a central server allowing the user to enter data into a centralized database using their PDA. Additionally, Microsoft Visual Studio and Sun Java provide programming tools for developing survey instruments on the handheld. These development tools allow for integration with SQL databases that are stored on the handheld and can be synchronized with a desktop/server based database. On the other hand, PDAs offer varying degrees of accessibility for people with differing abilities, based on the particular device and service. People with vision, hearing, mobility, and speech impairments may be able to use PDAs on a limited basis, and this may be enhanced by the addition of accessibility software (e.g. speech recognition for verbal input instead of manual input). Universal design is relevant to PDAs as well as other technology, and a viable solution for many user-access issues, though it has yet to be consistently integrated into the design of popular consumer PDA devices.

Additional features / functions that may appear in the device in the next 5 years.

The additional features or functions that may appear in the in the next five years will be a fingerprint and iris sensor for the user before they can access to the important information on their PDA. Not only that, a “invisible keyboard”- the keyboard panel will be projected thru laser beams and users can have the keyboard size that the normal desktop computer does without having to bring a bulky external keyboard and it will make the user much more comfortable as the characters available on the keyboard will not be as small and cramped like the external keyboard that is used now. PDA size and diameter of the PDA will be like paper thin and it will be much lighter than the weight of the PDA nowadays. There will also be a mini torchlight, panic alarm and pepper spray detached with the PDA for the safety of the user. The charging for the PDA in the next five years will be partially solar as it helps when the user forget to bring their charger when they are abroad or going out. The PDA will also be installed with a device that will locate the PDA if the PDA is lost by the user, and the user can find it back easily- this can only be used when the user make a police report for the lost of their PDA and the company will then help the user find it back.In the next five years,PDA can also emit the fragrance that the user wants by keying in the product code and the receipt number of the goods.- meaning that the PDA will be the portable fragrance bottle emitter to the user.

Personal reflection:-

I, as one of the group members find that the knowledge gained from this assignment is more than I can imagine as I cant believe that a tiny little PDA will have so many function that I cant imagine. Not only that, from this assignment I learned that PDA can do many things in one time just like the mighty huge computer or laptops that we have at home. Not only that, this assignment also strengthen and providing more information to me towards the technologies that is used by the human now as I used to be an idiot in terms of the latest technology. With the progress of the technology every second, I believe that the knowledge for this device will be much greater than the old days and I hope that the PDA that we will use in the future will be much greater than what we have now because I believe that man will improve, so do the technology.

Personal Reflection:-

After completing this assignment which is on Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), I get to understand more about PDA and its history from the day I was first invented until today. PDA is an innovative creation from the combination of smart phone with computer technology. With this combination, it is more powerful to the user as it provides convenience in one handheld device. From this assignment, I have also learnt on how PDA is evolving from time to time to adapt to human demand and added more advanced technology. Generally, PDA is sort of “small computer” as it has computer software installed in it. It can perform office works, media player, Web browsing with its Internet-enabled function and more. PDA differ from the normal mobile phones as it has more added function where it is a sort of personal organizer that help to perform a lot of different tasks. Today, most of the current computer’s famous companies like Acer, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Ben-Q and others are producing different kind of PDAs besides desktop computers and laptops. However, I have learnt that the most important function of PDA is synchronizing data with a PC. This allows up-to-date contact information stored on software such as Microsoft Outlook or ACT! to update the database on the PDA. The data synchronization ensures that the PDA has an accurate list of contacts, appointments and e-mail, allowing users to access the same information on the PDA as the host computer. The synchronizing also prevents the loss of information stored on the device in case it is lost, stolen, or destroyed. Another advantage is that data input is usually a lot quicker on a PC, since text input via a touch screen is still not quite optimal. Transferring data to a PDA via the computer is therefore a lot quicker than having to manually input all data on the handheld device. Most PDAs come with the ability to synchronize to a PC. This is done through synchronization software provided with the handheld, such as HotSync Manager, which comes with Palm OS handhelds, Microsoft ActiveSync for older versions of Windows or Windows Mobile Device Center on Windows Vista, which comes with Windows Mobile handhelds. These programs allow the PDA to be synchronized with a Personal Information Manager. This personal information manager may be an outside program or a proprietary program. For example, the BlackBerry PDA comes with the Desktop Manager program which can synchronize to both Microsoft Outlook and ACT!. Other PDAs come only with their own proprietary software. For example, some early Palm OS PDAs came only with Palm Desktop while later Palms such as the Treo 650 has the built-in ability to synchronize to Palm Desktop and/or Microsoft Outlook, while Microsoft's ActiveSync and Windows Mobile Device Center only synchronize with Microsoft Outlook or a Microsoft Exchange server.
I, In as one of the group member for this assignment admit that during the beginning of the assignment, I don’t understand what are the functions, usage and the characteristics of the mobile device that we have choose for our assignment which is the PDA, and this make our assignment harder to do, but thru this assignment I learn a lot of information about the PDA, the technology of the PDA, the great invention of these technology that enable us to do a assignment about it.

Private Airplane

Sultan of Brunei 's Private Airplane This Airbus 340 aircraft was "remodeled" in Waco .. Yes, the sinks are solid gold and one of them is Lalique crystal. The Sultan bought the aircraft for roughly $100M; had it flown to Waco , brand-new, had the interior completely removed; and had the folks at E-Systems (now Raytheon) install $120M worth of improvements inside and outside. kalyanum panena inte sultan matheri orethene panenum...............toilet kodhe gold pa ayyyyyyyooooda...///..,.../////

Define and explain the concept of marketing

Define and explain the concept of marketing. Discuss the benefits and problems that an organization of your choice would encounter when practicing marketing. Provide recommendations on how your organization can improve its marketing activities

The concept of marketing

According to Philip Kotler, marketing is a social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others. In boarder term, marketing is the analysis, planning, implementation, and control of carefully formulated programs designed to bring about voluntary exchanges of values with target markets for the purpose of achieving organizational objectives. It relies heavily on designing the organization’s offering in terms of the target markets’ needs and desires, and on using effective pricing, communication, and distribution to inform, motivate, and service the markets. (Philip Kotler)
The main key points of marketing are as follows:
Managerial Process involving analysis, planning and control.
Carefully formulated programs and not just random actions.
Voluntary exchange of values; no use of force or coercion. Offer benefits.
Selection of Target Markets rather than a quixotic attempt to win every market and be all things to all men.
Purpose of marketing is to achieve Organizational Objectives. For commercial sector it is profit. For non-commercial sector, the objective is different and must be specified clearly.
Marketing relies on designing the organization’s offering in terms of the target market’s needs and desires rather than in terms of seller’s personal tastes or internal dynamics. User-oriented and not seller-oriented.
Marketing utilizes and blends a set of tools called the marketing mix – product design, pricing, distribution and communication. Too often marketing is equated either with just advertising or with just personal selling.
In marketing, it is always assume that it needs some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available. (Peter Drucker). Examples: Sony’s Walkman, Nintendo’s superior video game
Marketing includes selling but should be preceded by needs assessment, marketing research, product development, pricing and distribution. Selling focuses on products, aggressive selling and sales promotion with emphasis on price variations to close the sale. Maximize profits through sales volume. Marketing focus on customer needs. Integrated marketing plan encompassing product, price, promotion and distribution, backed up by adequate environmental scanning, consumer research, and opportunity analysis with emphasis on service. Maximize profits through increased customer satisfaction and hence raise market share. The marketing concept is a consumers’ needs orientation backed by integrated marketing aimed at generating consumer satisfaction as the key to satisfying organizational goals. A human need is a state of felt deprivation of some basic satisfaction. (Food, clothing, shelter, safety, belonging, esteem etc.) Abraham Maslow noticed that some needs take precedence over others. They are physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belonging needs and esteem needs. Human wants are desires for specific satisfiers of these deeper needs. Demands are wants for specific products that are backed by an ability and willingness to buy them. Value and satisfaction can be as follows:

The benefits and problems that an organization would encounter when practicing marketing

The organization can practicing marketing by new product development and development of marketing planning are the most important tools. The study describes the benefits and problems of new product development in the organization when practicing marketing. In second phase it describes development of marketing plan when practice marketing in a organization. There seems to be widespread belief that marketing plays or should play a significant role in the early development of products and that it is combined with other areas of expertise (e.g., industrial design) to address critical user product interaction issues. It is well established that marketing has a critical role in the product development process, particularly in the early. Even so, there is disagreement with respect to the roles of marketing and customer research as well as the importance of various inputs into the new product development process. Listening carefully to customers is among the primary reasons companies are led astray in their decision-making concerning pursuit of new product development opportunities.
Although marketing plays an important role in the development of most products, its role with respect to the design of discontinuous or radical new products still is not understood fully. Further, while there is evidence that innovation in general may involve significant inputs from marketing, evidence of the applicability of such findings to the domain of radical innovation has been mixed. Discontinuous products, which involve unprecedented performance features and creating new lines of business, often are developed in a context of extremely high market uncertainty. As a result, for these types of products it can be difficult for marketing to provide input and direction before a general product application has been established. Beyond this, questions remain concerning the role of customer input and market research in discontinuous new product development as well as the relationships between market researchers and other key disciplines (e.g., ID, R&D) involved in the development of these types of products. The development of discontinuous new products involves a process that is different from more conventional new product development particularly as it concerns the roles of marketing. For these types of products, attention to marketing and customer/user-interface issues tended to occur later in the process. Here, key aspects of discontinuous innovation, grouped according to conceptual relatedness, are shown in terms of how they relate to marketing.
There are several guidelines concerning managerial action in the development of discontinuous new products. First, in this development context marketing and industrial design importance and involvement is determined in large part by the degree of discontinuity of the product. Issues such as the uncertainty of suitable applications for the technology and the greater distance from the market in terms of time and customer familiarity with the product seem to affect the nature of the development process. The result is a shift in the timing and nature of the roles of marketing. Customer research plays in this context offers an opportunity to provide more meaningful and valid inputs into the development process for these radical new products. Activities (e.g., marketing activities) associated with the development of less radical new products are rarely possible and often are not constructive during the very early development of discontinuous new products. In this development context it is not so much that marketing and customer research techniques are inappropriate but rather that the techniques are not applied with sufficient sensitivity to the context surrounding discontinuous innovation. The challenge is to create a valid context for collecting information so as to avoid unduly discouraging innovation. One of the ways to accomplish this is to move toward adaptive co-development in which the process moves iteratively back and forth between product developers and beta test customers. Although this work suggests marketing’s role in discontinuous innovation often is focused more on testing and validation than on idea generation, this should not be taken as meaning that the marketing challenge is reduced in this context. If anything, the challenge for marketing managers may be even greater for discontinuous products since, at some point, key design assumptions must be examined and since conducting useful and valid research to do this can be quite difficult. Additionally, managers need to build links throughout the project team to ensure that the research that is carried out is conducted properly. Optimally, this would entail at least some marketing involvement with research conducted by or for a development team regardless of who conducts the study. This can help a development team to avoid unfortunate, if not disastrous, consequences. For example, in one case a project team spent a considerable amount of time and resources addressing aspects of a product that they thought based on a cursory customer study conducted by R&D team members would be of vital concern to customers.
The relevance, and indeed usefulness, of marketing theory in today’s business environment is increasingly open to question. This general skepticism has led to a progressive emphasis on how to translate marketing theory into effective marketing practice which has taken many forms, ranging from traditional management education in business and universities, to action learning programmes and to government led and sponsored local enterprise initiatives. This paper concentrate specifically on the difficulties surrounding the implementation of one of marketing’s core tools, the marketing plan as outlined by McDonald (1989). How the development of marketing planning competencies through a work-based learning programme can help a practicing manager to overcome many of the problems of its application in practice. This approach incorporates the building of marketing planning competencies in conjunction with the actual workload of the participant to construct a work based programme in which the learning is a continuous two way flow between academia and the workplace.
The recent and well-documented crisis of confidence in the marketing discipline has to a large extent centred on the lack of applicability of marketing theory to marketing practice. Marketing myths perpetuated by academics for encouraging “death-wish” marketing amongst practitioners. Basic tools and tenets of marketing management theory are being doubted and their relevance for the modern business questioned. Consumer behaviour as a theoretical black hole, calling for a new paradigm which seeks less to control consumers and more to understand them; and many believe that the marketing concept itself is essentially flawed. Moreover, this general disillusionment with the inability of marketing theory to match corporate realities has also been evidenced from within the business community. Many nonacademic voices, for example, senior business people, consultants and journalists, are listened to in preference to marketing academics. Free ling (1994) has drawn our attention to chief executives who are claiming that marketing is no longer capable of driving profitable growth and who accuse marketers of not understanding the economics of the business or of different channels of distribution. There is a large gap between the classical role of profitable marketing and how marketing is practiced by marketing departments within 100 blue chip organizations. They go as far as to describe the marketing department as “critically ill” and in need of urgent treatment, warning that the winning companies will not have “ivory tower marketers”. In seeking to redress this balance between marketing theory and marketing practice it is the marketing concept itself which has tended to receive the most attention from academics. This has been in terms of its development, extension and refinement as, for example, witnessed by the recent proliferation of relationship marketing literature. The marketing plan, which ideally should be the bridge between theory (the marketing concept) and practice (the functions of marketing), has received much less attention in terms of its basic operability in the hands of the practitioner. Yet, arguably, this is where a firm will have the most difficulty inputting theory into practice
The idea that company performance improves as a consequence of engaging in a planning process and applying well known marketing decision making techniques has not proved easy to confirm conclusively. In the United States and the United Kingdom, practitioners perceived marketing decision-making techniques to be of little value to them in helping to make key marketing planning decisions. In a review of the marketing planning literature states that the claimed benefits of better co-ordination of interrelated activities, improved environmental awareness, better communication among management and better use of resources, and so on, appear to be there for the taking and there is a strong relationship between marketing planning and commercial success.
The problems that can encounter when practicing marketing are given below:
(1) Confusion between marketing strategy and tactics.
(2) Isolation of marketing function from business operations.
(3) Confusion between marketing function and marketing concept.
(4) Prevailing organizational structures along functional lines.
(5) Lack of skills in in-depth analysis.
(6) Confusion between process and output.
(7) Lack of core marketing management knowledge and skills.
(8) Lack of a disciplined, systematic approach to marketing planning.
(9) Need to prioritize objectives.
(10) Need for a more appropriate marketing culture.
The challenge to practitioner, therefore, is to find ways to begin to close the practice gap in respect of these marketing planning barriers. It is suggested here that a competency based approach might provide a solution, although caution that any solution must go beyond the development of competencies which merely address the application of marketing techniques. Therefore, what is required is a specifically tailored approach that develops a range of core skills that enable the development of a total marketing planning competency. We outline how a work-based learning programme can effectively address this challenge.

The recommendations to improve marketing activities

The organization can improve its marketing activities by develop the key marketing planning competencies of knowledge, experience, analytical skills, leadership, vision, judgement, organizational ability, commitment and communication.
(1) Knowledge: The transfer of marketing knowledge is communicating in a jargon-free way. Emerging themes of success were used to illustrate how areas of weakness might be overcome. At the same time, introduced core marketing concepts.
(2) Experience: Experiment with the new knowledge as it accumulated in order to see what worked in improving day-to-day marketing practice.
(3) Analytical skills: Core analytical tools such as the SWOT analysis, product/market matrix
(4) Leadership: Problems of employee motivation and the team building required to bring about a company-wide integration of the marketing concept were frequently raised through regular group discussions.
(5) Vision: The maintenance of an opportunity focus is crucial for the development of marketing and is inherent in the very nature of planning. Vision is required to determine how aims and objectives will be realized through action plans and the marshalling of scarce resources.
(6) Judgement: The focus of this was to develop an ability in gathering together disparate pieces of often incomplete information and making effective choices. Judgement as a competency is acquired through there cognition of the value of experience. The review process as an integral part of marketing planning forced to assess the effect of marketing actions to date.
(7) Organizational ability: The challenge here was to develop the ability to marshal and manage resources to fully maximize the value of opportunities in the marketplace. Such resources included human, physical and financial assets. Typical examples of these are the development of action plans and time schedules, the allocation of inter-functional responsibilities, the planning and scheduling of resources and the establishment of effective control mechanisms. The emphasis throughout was to maintain the holistic perspective so essential to the workplace.
(8) Commitment: increasingly committed to the value and importance of the planning process to their individual companies.
(9) Communication: The ability to communicate effectively was integral to every aspect.
In addition, the internal and external focus of planned marketing activities served to refine communication skills, in particular through the development of their company’s promotional mix. The company should encourage formalising the communications management of industry contacts such as suppliers, customers, support agencies, distributors and so forth. There is no doubting the value of marketing planning to the effective development of any business. In spite of this, practicing managers encounter all sorts of difficulties with the marketing planning process.

Information Technology

Introduction

With the rapid growth of technologies, our economic society and life are changing significantly in the 21st century. The way to capture their competitive advantage has become the most important issue for enterprises in the rapidly changing and uncertain business environments. Many researches have pointed out that the adoption of technology is the most important tool for enterprises to keep their competitive advantage. The survival of an enterprise in the age of knowledge-based economy depends on how to improve their technological capability.
In this sense, firms should develop adequate methodologies, in order to adopt, in a successful way, new technologies in the logistics field, and also to integrate logistics into the corporate strategy for becoming even more competitive. Growing number of firms are under pressure from their partners to change their traditional management style, both operationally and organizationally, replacing them with integrated systems that help increase the speed and fluidity of physical and information flows. In order to reach this kind of integration they are investing on new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
Nowadays, as regards the data acquisition technologies, the firms usually deal with a large amount of goods and data which means that data collection and exchange are critical for logistics information management and control. Good quality in data acquisition can help firms deliver customers' goods more accurately and efficiently. To attain this goal firms could appeal to some data acquisition technologies in logistics field, such as the optical scanning, the electronic pen notepads, (Lin, 2006), the voice recognition and the robotics (Dawe, 1994).

Information Technology plays an important role

When a firm sustains profit that exceeds the average for its industry, it is called a competitive advantage over its rivals. The goal of much of business strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Competitive exist when the firm is able to deliver the same benefits to its customer at a lower cost which is considered to be the cost advantage. Not all companies will rely on internet for the establishment for the organization. Michael Porter has state that a competitive advantage enables the firm to create a superior value for its customer and superior profits for itself.
A continuing stream of information technology innovations, from the Internet to wireless networks to digital phone and cable systems, is continuing to transform the business world. Much debate has been taken place on the importance of technology and its benefits of using it. How far this is true and how successful is it in the establishment of the organizations. The continuing stream of innovations is enabling entrepreneurs and innovative traditional firms to create new business models, destroy old business models, disrupt entire industries, build new business process and transform the day-to-day conduct of business.
Briefly, the growth of the Internet, the globalization of trade, and the rise of information economics have raised the importance of information technologies and systems in business and management. It is essential that business students understand how information technologies are changing business firms and markets today and how they will likely change in the near-term future as digital technologies continue to evolve.
Nowadays companies should rely on the Internet and the networking technology to conduct more of their work electronically, seamlessly linking factories, offices and sales forces around the globe. Leading-edged firms, such as Cisco Systems, Dell Computer and Procter & Gamble, are extending these networks to suppliers, customers and other groups outside the organization so they can react instantly to customer demands and market shifts. The managers can use the systems to virtually close their books at any time, generating consolidated financial statements based on up-to-the minute figures on orders, discounts, revenue, product margins and staffing expenses. Executives can constantly analyze performance at all levels of the organization. This digital integration both within the firm and without, from the warehouse to the executive suite, from suppliers to customers, is changing how we organize and manage a business firm.
Ultimately, these changes are leading to fully digital firms where all internal business processes and relationships with customers and suppliers are digitally enabled. In digital firms, information to support business decisions is available anytime and anywhere in the organization.

Why should we choose Information Technology now and be safe

A combination of information technology innovations and a changing domestic and global business environment makes the role of IT in business even more important for managers than just a few years ago. The Internet revolution is not something that happened and then burst, but instead has turned out to be an ongoing, powerful source of new technologies with significant business implications for much of this century.
There are five factors to consider when assessing the growing impact of IT in business firms both today and over the next ten years.
Internet growth and technology convergence
Transformation of the business enterprise
Growth of a globally connected economy
Growth of the knowledge and information-based economics
Emergence of the digital firm
These changes in the business environment pose a number of new challenges and opportunities for business firms and their managements.

The importance of internet and technology convergence

One of the most frequently asked questions by Walls Street investors, journalists and business entrepreneurs is “What’s the next big thing?” As it turns out, the next big things are in front of us. We are in the midst of a networking and communications revolution driven by the growth of the Internet, Internet-based technologies, and new business models and processes that leverage the new technologies.
Although “digital convergence” was predicted a decade ago, it is now and undeniable reality. Although each industry has its favored platform, the outlines of the future are clear: a world of near universal, online, on demand, and personalized information services from text messaging on cell phones, to games, education and entertainment.
The Internet is bringing about a convergence of technologies, roiling markets, entire industries, and firms in the process. Traditional boundaries and business relationships are breaking down, even as new ones spring up. Telephone networks are merging into the Internet, and cellular phones are becoming Internet access devices. Handles storage devices such as IPods are emerging as potential portable game and entertainment centers. The Internet-connected personal computer is moving toward a role as home entertainment control centre.
Traditional markets and distribution channels are weakening and new markets are being created. For instance, the markets for music CDs and video DVDs and the music and video store industries are undergoing rapid change. New markets for online streaming media and for music and video downloads have materialized.
Today, networking and the Internet are nearly synonymous with doing business. Firm’s relationships with customers, employees, suppliers and logistics partners are becoming digital relationships. As a supplier, you cannot do business with Wal-Mart, or Sears, or most national retailers unless you adopt their well-defined digital technologies. As a consumer, you will increasingly interact with sellers in a digital environment. As an employer, you’ll be interacting more electronically with your employees and giving them new digital tools to accomplish their work.
So much business is now enabled by or based upon digital networks that we use the terms electronic business and electronic commerce frequently. Electronic business or E-business, designates the use of Internet and digital technology to execute all of the activates in the enterprise. E-business includes activities for the internal management of the firm and for coordination with suppliers and other business partners.
The technologies associated with e-commerce and e-business has also brought about similar changes in the public sector. E-business really helps the departments to store or keep the information for future reference.

Information Technologies and E-Business Models

Several classifications have been proposed in the literature to categorize E-Business models. According to Torbay et al. (2001) most authors suggest two dimensions in order to rate the business models: functional integrations and degree of innovation; type of relationships and degree of externality; power of sellers and buyers. This authors identified in literature, as 4 principal dimensions for classifying the business models the follow:
i) The user role
ii) The interaction pattern
iii) The nature of the offerings
iv) The pricing system
v) The level of customization

Torbay et al. (2001) suggest a model to classify and compare the business models. They exemplify the way how to translate the core processes of the business models into a set of
relevant measures for each component of the adopted framework. The model is divided into four main components:
(i) The set of products and services that is offered by firm and that represents a substantial value to a target customer (value proposition):
This element refers to the value the firm offers to a specific target customer segment. IT has their most important impact on new ways of creating and delivering value. Customization is another common value proposition proposed by the authors enabled by the rapid development of IT.
(ii) The relationship capital the firm creates and maintains with the customer, in order to satisfy him and to generate sustainable revenues (Customer relationship management)
IT offer a whole new range of opportunities to exploit existing customer relationships, and to identify the customers needs in order to establish and develop a long relationship with him;
(iii) The infrastructure and the network of partners that is necessary in order to create value and to maintain an adequate partner relationship management
The infrastructure component describes the value system configuration that is necessary to deliver the value proposition; that is, the relationship between in-house and/or partners’ resources, assets and activities and a network;
(iv)The financial aspects that can be found throughout the three former components, such as cost and revenue structures
Financial aspects embrace the costs required to make the productive get the infrastructure add value, and also the revenues that are generated through sales. The difference between revenues and costs determine the profitability of a firm.

Marketing strategy for customers

Through technology, the firm is able to create customer relationship management where the customers will be interacting with the purchasers via internet or online. Having detailed customer information from an eCRM system allows a company to predict the E-relationship marketing kind of products that a customer is likely to buy as well as the timing of the purchases.
Knowingly, customers are the main income in any organization which indirectly links to the best of the competitive advantage obtain in any companies. Therefore, from eCRM, customer information collected is useful for developing an effective marketing strategy. A strategy includes an integrated view of the customer, customer decision analytic, optimized customer interactions (Walker, 2002).
In addition to influencing the purchasing involvement, eCRM can also help create customized products. Traditionally customer profiles were either demographic or behavior-based. A demographic profile may have included marital status, if customer had children, where the customer lived and what magazines he likes.
A behavior based profile may describe the number of times a customer clicked a particular Website because it is more focused around the action of the customer. eCRM adds intelligence to the customer profiles and can help deploy customized products.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Quality function deployment (QFD) offers a rigorous analysis methodology for understanding customer outcomes and developing comprehensive product specifications.
QFD tools and principles are traditionally used for product development but they are just as appropriate for the development of business strategy, (Walker, 2002).
QFD strategic planning involves two key steps and they are known as:
The development of customer strategies.
The development of enabling strategies.

The development of customer strategies

QFD principles insist that business strategy must be firmly based on effective customer strategy. Corporate strategy is sometimes simplistically viewed as a top-down process where visioning leads directly to decisions on products, processes and operations. In QFD, the outcome is definitely the stakeholder in where it leads to a strategy for each business and then to the corporate strategy to manage the business portfolio.
The development of corporate strategy is a vital step and all these steps can be seen from the diagram below, Figure 1.
A major problem in planning, whether it is for products, organizations or any firms that relies on the Information Technology, is not establishing a customer strategy that properly resolves the “fuzzy front end” before latching on to the strategic direction, (Killen and Hunt, 2000 )
Failure is inevitable if plans re developed before the key deliverables are understood. Often, organizations that are striving for innovation and improved performance realize that they should be customer-driven, as customers play an essential role. The QFD approach to solving the fuzzy front end in strategy projects involves answering essentially the same questions as in product and service development projects.

What makes a resource truly strategic

In the 20th Century, IT was the main subject in business. Without IT, a company won’t survive. Which is true in those days, but in the 21st century, IT has become a commodity and no longer a competitive advantage in business.
“Their very power and presence have begun to transform them from potentially strategic resources into commodity factors of production”, Nicholas G. Carr (2003)
IT has lost its strategic advantage in business because of the time factors. In the case study, we have learned that like railways and electric power, these used to be a strategic business advantage too. With electricity, a company can be more productive comparing to a company with electricity. This goes same with railways. As time passes, the availability and cost of purchasing such utility has become cheap and affordable, they became ubiquitous. This is the same with IT. As buildings are being built, IT will also be built into the infrastructure of the building together with all the wires and pipes. This shows that IT has become a need, a commodity and no longer a competitive advantage in business.
There is only one way to use IT as a strategic business advantage as this is Innovation.
“The window for gaining advantage from an infrastructural technology is open only briefly”, Nicholas G. Carr (2003)
“Superior insight into the use of new technology”, Nicholas G. Carr (2003)
Without innovation, IT will only become a commodity. When the company is able to utilize the technology to the fullest, new or old, the company will be able to make that a business advantage.
An example is AirAsia. Online booking is very common in the world even in Malaysia. Before AirAsia came along, Malaysian were able to booked many things online such as hotels, bus tickets, even other airline company provide online service, but why is it that AirAsia is able to use online booking a competitive advantage? The answer is AirAsia utilize the technology and use innovation in the business strategy. By just forcing consumer to purchase tickets online, AirAsia were able to reduce cost in the operation. Now look at Malaysia Airlines (MAS). MAS tried to use the same business strategy but they were not as successful as AirAsia. Why?
“If an industry lags in harnessing the power of the technology, it will be vulnerable to displacement”, Nicholas G. Carr (2003)
Another good example of using Innovation as a business strategy is Apple Computers. “The designer central to Apple's recovery in the '90s has quite a list of hit products to his credit, including the iMac and iPod.”
“Rather than just draw pretty pictures, they're leading innovators in the use of new materials and pioneering production processes say, the ability to put a layer of clear plastic over the white or black core of your iPod, giving it a depth of quality that most consumers don't even realize they appreciate.”
Apple Computers was one of the biggest names in the computer world back in the 80s when computers were first being introduced to the mass market. As Apple history tells us, having innovation itself will not help make a company successful; a company must also have a good business model and strategy.
The revival of Apple in the 20th century was with the help of Innovation. First we saw the impressive new iMac (1998), PowerMac Cube (2000), iPod (2001), Mac Mini (2005), Ipod Nano (2005) and the list goes on.

The development of enabling strategies

The second major step in strategic planning is developing enabling strategies that will match the organizational capabilities with the target opportunity areas. QFD relationship matrix analysis is often dispensed with in strategic QFD because the customer positioning results in a focus on a small number of opportunity areas. The concept selection technique (Pugh, 1981), which is commonly used with QFD, has been adapted for generating and evaluating alternative strategic concepts.
Strategy concepts are sets of enabling strategies and strategic initiatives that are coherent and mutually supportive. In most organizations there are numerous solutions, ideas and suggestions to be considered – ranging from improvements in the utilization of existing resources to innovative new technologies. Strategic concepts are built up by considering each outcome opportunity and identifying the possible solutions that address the key opportunities.
Each idea is scored on its effectiveness in meeting customer outcomes using the market research data. Sometimes other criteria are also evaluated, such as cost, effort required, risk of failure and vulnerability to competitive replication. The concept selection technique allows the alternative solutions to be modified and improved during the process. In contrast, conjoint analysis requires the alternatives to be defined up front before the research is conducted, which largely precludes innovation. The technique starts with base strategic concepts that are automatically generated from all the proposed solutions for each high opportunity outcome.
Evaluating strategic concepts using clearly identified and prioritized criteria removes subjectivity and clarifies the interactions between opportunities and strategic initiatives. It also ensures strategic decisions are not technology-driven. New strategy sets are usually created by mixing and matching features from the different concepts, and this often leads to new insights and breakthrough ideas. The technique is iterative, and in each cycle the best strategic concept is examined to find new ideas. The focus on key opportunity areas means that usually only a few iterations are needed before the final set of strategies is determined.

Conclusion

The literature review suggests that information is a valuable resource. The flow of information has been recognized alongside the importance of materials flows in the logistics channel. In recent times several changes occurred that have highlighted the importance of technology either as a source of competitive advantage, or as a crucial strategy.
Through the intensive use of Information Technology in the business currently, namely, acquisition, communication, and identification technologies, the information flows are, efficiently, used by firms, in order to reinforce the existent competitive advantages, or alternatively, to create new competitive advantages. I’m totally agreed that IT delivers competitive advantage from various sides because by using information technology we can do our job smoothly and properly. As simple example for hypermarket, everyday lot of customer comes to take their necessitates items, as the moment of payment they have to stand on a queue, If that shopping mall doesn’t have any technology to make bill then it would be very difficult to disburse one customer bill because it will take long time. At the same time it also takes long time to see the daily or monthly report if they do it manually. But with the help of information technology they can handle everything properly and faster. In the computer industry, DELL also doing their business totally depends on the online systems but got success by using information technology and still now getting more competitive advantage rather than others. IT is also like a commodity as like Electricity, Gas, and Phone etc. Without it also we can run our business but we all are using all this utilities to take advantage. Definitely IT can give competitive advantage but we have to use IT in that way that it would be sustainable for long time. If we totally depend on technology then it would become a commodity as like others utility but if we select right person to use that technology then we can gain more competitive advantage and besides that with keep changing of technology, we also have to update the system accordingly to get competitive advantage then it would not become a strategic necessity after few years.
In this sense, taking into consideration the conceptual model now proposed, future studies may be developed in order to identify the dominant factors that determine the competitive advantages obtained through the Information Technology in the usage for increasing sales adoption, according to each stage of firms’ life cycle.

morales stories

The Shepherd and the Wolf

A Shepherd once found the whelp of a Wolf and brought it up, and after a while taught it to steal lambs from the neighboring flocks. The Wolf, having shown himself an apt pupil, said to the Shepherd, "Since you have taught me to steal, you must keep a sharp lookout, or you will lose some of your own flock."

The Father and His Two Daughters

A Man had two daughters, the one married to a gardener, and the other to a tile-maker. After a time he went to the daughter who had married the gardener, and inquired how she was and how all things went with her. She said, "All things are prospering with me, and I have only one wish, that there may be a heavy fall of rain, in order that the plants may be well watered." Not long after, he went to the daughter who had married the tile maker, and likewise inquired of her how she fared; she replied, "I want for nothing, and have only one wish, that the dry weather may continue, and the sun shine hot and bright, so that the bricks might be dried." He said to her, "If your sister wishes for rain, and you for dry weather, with which of the two am I to join my wishes?'

The Farmer and His Sons

A father, being on the point of death, wished to be sure that his sons would give the same attention to his farm as he himself had given it. He called them to his bedside and said, "My sons, there is a great treasure hid in one of my vineyards." The sons, after his death, took their spades and mattocks and carefully dug over every portion of their land. They found no treasure, but the vines repaid their labor by an extraordinary and superabundant crop.

The Crab and Its Mother

A Crab said to her son, "Why do you walk so one-sided, my child? It is far more becoming to go straight forward." The young Crab replied: "Quite true, dear Mother; and if you will show me the straight way, I will promise to walk in it." The Mother tried in vain, and submitted without remonstrance to the reproof of her child. Example is more powerful than precept.

The Heifer and the Ox

A Heifer saw an Ox hard at work harnessed to a plow, and tormented him with reflections on his unhappy fate in being compelled to labor. Shortly afterwards, at the harvest festival, the owner released the Ox from his yoke, but bound the Heifer with cords and led him away to the altar to be slain in honor of the occasion. The Ox saw what was being done, and said with a smile to the Heifer: "For this you were allowed to live in idleness, because you were presently to be sacrificed."

The Swallow, the Serpent, and the Court of Justice

A Swallow, returning from abroad and especially fond of dwelling with men, built herself a nest in the wall of a Court of Justice and there hatched seven young birds. A Serpent gliding past the nest from its hole in the wall ate up the young unfledged nestling's. The Swallow, finding her nest empty, lamented greatly and exclaimed: "Woe to me a stranger! that in this place where all others' rights are protected, I alone should suffer wrong."

The Thief and His Mother

A Boy stole a lesson-book from one of his schoolfellows and took it home to his Mother. She not only abstained from beating him, but encouraged him. He next time stole a cloak and brought it to her, and she again commended him. The Youth, advanced to adulthood, proceeded to steal things of still greater value. At last he was caught in the very act, and having his hands bound behind him, was led away to the place of public execution. His Mother followed in the crowd and violently beat her breast in sorrow, whereupon the young man said, "I wish to say something to my Mother in her ear." She came close to him, and he quickly seized her ear with his teeth and bit it off. The Mother upbraided him as an unnatural child, whereon he replied, "Ah! if you had beaten me when I first stole and brought to you that lesson-book, I should not have come to this, nor have been thus led to a disgraceful death."

The Old Man and Death

An Old Man was employed in cutting wood in the forest, and, in carrying the faggots to the city for sale one day, became very wearied with his long journey. He sat down by the wayside, and throwing down his load, besought "Death" to come. "Death" immediately appeared in answer to his summons and asked for what reason he had called him. The Old Man hurriedly replied, "That, lifting up the load, you may place it again upon my shoulders."

The Fir-Tree and the Bramble

A Fir-Tree said boastingly to the Bramble, "You are useful for nothing at all; while I am everywhere used for roofs and houses." The Bramble answered: 'You poor creature, if you would only call to mind the axes and saws which are about to hew you down, you would have reason to wish that you had grown up a Bramble, not a Fir-Tree.
Better poverty without care, than riches with.

The Mouse, the Frog, and the Hawk

A Mouse who always lived on the land, by an unlucky chance formed an intimate acquaintance with a Frog, who lived for the most part in the water. The Frog, one day intent on mischief, bound the foot of the Mouse tightly to his own. Thus joined together, the Frog first of all led his friend the Mouse to the meadow where they were accustomed to find their food. After this, he gradually led him towards the pool in which he lived, until reaching the very brink, he suddenly jumped in, dragging the Mouse with him. The Frog enjoyed the water amazingly, and swam croaking about, as if he had done a good deed. The unhappy Mouse was soon suffocated by the water, and his dead body floated about on the surface, tied to the foot of the Frog. A Hawk observed it, and, pouncing upon it with his talons, carried it aloft. The Frog, being still fastened to the leg of the Mouse, was also carried off a prisoner, and was eaten by the Hawk. Harm hatch, harm catch.

The Man Bitten By a Dog

A Man who had been bitten by a Dog went about in quest of someone who might heal him. A friend, meeting him and learning what he wanted, said, "If you would be cured, take a piece of bread, and dip it in the blood from your wound, and go and give it to the Dog that bit you." The Man who had been bitten laughed at this advice and said, "Why? If I should do so, it would be as if I should beg every Dog in the town to bite me." Benefits bestowed upon the evil-disposed increase their means of injuring you.

The Two Pots

A river carried down in its stream two Pots, one made of earthenware and the other of brass. The Earthen Pot said to the Brass Pot, "Pray keep at a distance and do not come near me, for if you touch me ever so slightly, I shall be broken in pieces, and besides, I by no means wish to come near you." Equals make the best friends.

The Wolf and the Sheep

A Wolf, sorely wounded and bitten by dogs, lay sick and maimed in his lair. Being in want of food, he called to a Sheep who was passing, and asked him to fetch some water from a stream flowing close beside him. "For," he said, "if you will bring me drink, I will find means to provide myself with meat." "Yes," said the Sheep, "if I should bring you the draught, you would doubtless make me provide the meat also." Hypocritical speeches are easily seen through.

The Aethiop

The purchaser of a black servant was persuaded that the color of his skin arose from dirt contracted through the neglect of his former masters. On bringing him home he resorted to every means of cleaning, and subjected the man to incessant scrubbings. The servant caught a severe cold, but he never changed his color or complexion. What's bred in the bone will stick to the flesh.

The Fisherman and His Nets

A Fisherman, engaged in his calling, made a very successful cast and captured a great haul of fish. He managed by a skillful handling of his net to retain all the large fish and to draw them to the shore; but he could not prevent the smaller fish from falling back through the meshes of the net into the sea.

The Huntsman and the Fisherman

A Huntsman, returning with his dogs from the field, fell in by chance with a Fisherman who was bringing home a basket well laden with fish. The Huntsman wished to have the fish, and their owner experienced an equal longing for the contents of the game-bag. They quickly agreed to exchange the produce of their day's sport. Each was so well pleased with his bargain that they made for some time the same exchange day after day. Finally a neighbor said to them, "If you go on in this way, you will soon destroy by frequent use the pleasure of your exchange, and each will again wish to retain the fruits of his own sport." Abstain and enjoy.

The Old Woman and the Wine-Jar

An Old Woman found an empty jar which had lately been full of prime old wine and which still retained the fragrant smell of its former contents. She greedily placed it several times to her nose, and drawing it backwards and forwards said, "O most delicious! How nice must the Wine itself have been, when it leaves behind in the very vessel which contained it so sweet a perfume!" The memory of a good deed lives.

The Fox and the Crow

A Crow having stolen a bit of meat, perched in a tree and held it in her beak. A Fox, seeing this, longed to possess the meat himself, and by a wily stratagem succeeded. "How handsome is the Crow," he exclaimed, in the beauty of her shape and in the fairness of her complexion! Oh, if her voice were only equal to her beauty, she would deservedly be considered the Queen of Birds!" This he said deceitfully; but the Crow, anxious to refute the reflection cast upon her voice, set up a loud caw and dropped the flesh. The Fox quickly picked it up, and thus addressed the Crow: "My good Crow, your voice is right enough, but your wit is wanting."

The Two Dogs

A Man had two dogs: a Hound, trained to assist him in his sports, and a Housedog, taught to watch the house. When he returned home after a good day's sport, he always gave the House dog a large share of his spoil. The Hound, feeling much aggrieved at this, reproached his companion, saying, "It is very hard to have all this labor, while you, who do not assist in the chase, luxuriate on the fruits of my exertions." The House dog replied, "Do not blame me, my friend, but find fault with the master, who has not taught me to labor, but to depend for subsistence on the labor of others." Children are not to be blamed for the faults of their parents.

The Stag in the Ox-Stall

A Stag, roundly chased by the hounds and blinded by fear to the danger he was running into, took shelter in a farmyard and hid himself in a shed among the oxen. An Ox gave him this kindly warning: "O unhappy creature! why should you thus, of your own accord, incur destruction and trust yourself in the house of your enemy?' The Stag replied: "Only allow me, friend, to stay where I am, and I will undertake to find some favorable opportunity of effecting my escape." At the approach of the evening the herdsman came to feed his cattle, but did not see the Stag; and even the farm-bailiff with several laborers passed through the shed and failed to notice him. The Stag, congratulating himself on his safety, began to express his sincere thanks to the Oxen who had kindly helped him in the hour of need. One of them again answered him: "We indeed wish you well, but the danger is not over. There is one other yet to pass through the shed, who has as it were a hundred eyes, and until he has come and gone, your life is still in peril." At that moment the master himself entered, and having had to complain that his oxen had not been properly fed, he went up to their racks and cried out: "Why is there such a scarcity of fodder? There is not half enough straw for them to lie on. Those lazy fellows have not even swept the cobwebs away." While he thus examined everything in turn, he spied the tips of the antlers of the Stag peeping out of the straw. Then summoning his laborers, he ordered that the Stag should be seized and killed.

The Hawk, the Kite, and the Pigeons

The Pigeons, terrified by the appearance of a Kite, called upon the Hawk to defend them. He at once consented. When they had admitted him into the cote, they found that he made more havoc and slew a larger number of them in one day than the Kite could pounce upon in a whole year. Avoid a remedy that is worse than the disease.

The Widow and the Sheep

A certain poor widow had one solitary Sheep. At shearing time, wishing to take his fleece and to avoid expense, she sheared him herself, but used the shears so unskillfully that with the fleece she sheared the flesh. The Sheep, writhing with pain, said, "Why do you hurt me so, Mistress? What weight can my blood add to the wool? If you want my flesh, there is the butcher, who will kill me in an instant; but if you want my fleece and wool, there is the shearer, who will shear and not hurt me." The least outlay is not always the greatest gain.

The Wild Ass and the Lion

A Wild Ass and a Lion entered into an alliance so that they might capture the beasts of the forest with greater ease. The Lion agreed to assist the Wild Ass with his strength, while the Wild Ass gave the Lion the benefit of his greater speed. When they had taken as many beasts as their necessities required, the Lion undertook to distribute the prey, and for this purpose divided it into three shares. "I will take the first share," he said, "because I am King: and the second share, as a partner with you in the chase: and the third share (believe me) will be a source of great evil to you, unless you willingly resign it to me, and set off as fast as you can." Might makes right.

The Eagle and the Arrow

An Eagle sat on a lofty rock, watching the movements of a Hare whom he sought to make his prey. An archer, who saw the Eagle from a place of concealment, took an accurate aim and wounded him mortally. The Eagle gave one look at the arrow that had entered his heart and saw in that single glance that its feathers had been furnished by himself. "It is a double grief to me," he exclaimed, "that I should perish by an arrow feathered from my own wings."

The Sick Kite

A Kite, sick unto death, said to his mother: "O Mother! do not mourn, but at once invoke the gods that my life may be prolonged." She replied, "Alas! my son, which of the gods do you think will pity you? Is there one whom you have not outraged by filching from their very altars a part of the sacrifice offered up to them?' We must make friends in prosperity if we would have their help in adversity.

The Lion and the Dolphin

A Lion roaming by the seashore saw a Dolphin lift up its head out of the waves, and suggested that they contract an alliance, saying that of all the animals they ought to be the best friends, since the one was the king of beasts on the earth, and the other was the sovereign ruler of all the inhabitants of the ocean. The Dolphin gladly consented to this request. Not long afterwards the Lion had a combat with a wild bull, and called on the Dolphin to help him. The Dolphin, though quite willing to give him assistance, was unable to do so, as he could not by any means reach the land. The Lion abused him as a traitor. The Dolphin replied, "Nay, my friend, blame not me, but Nature, which, while giving me the sovereignty of the sea, has quite denied me the power of living upon the land."

The Lion and the Boar

On a summer day, when the great heat induced a general thirst among the beasts, a Lion and a Boar came at the same moment to a small well to drink. They fiercely disputed which of them should drink first, and were soon engaged in the agonies of a mortal combat. When they stopped suddenly to catch their breath for a fiercer renewal of the fight, they saw some Vultures waiting in the distance to feast on the one that should fall first. They at once made up their quarrel, saying, "It is better for us to make friends, than to become the food of Crows or Vultures."

The One-Eyed Doe

A Doe blind in one eye was accustomed to graze as near to the edge of the cliff as she possibly could, in the hope of securing her greater safety. She turned her sound eye towards the land that she might get the earliest tidings of the approach of hunter or hound, and her injured eye towards the sea, from whence she entertained no anticipation of danger. Some boatmen sailing by saw her, and taking a successful aim, mortally wounded her. Yielding up her last breath, she gasped forth this lament: "O wretched creature that I am! to take such precaution against the land, and after all to find this seashore, to which I had come for safety, so much more perilous."

The Shepherd and the Sea

A Shepherd, keeping watch over his sheep near the shore, saw the Sea very calm and smooth, and longed to make a voyage with a view to commerce. He sold all his flock, invested it in a cargo of dates, and set sail. But a very great tempest came on, and the ship being in danger of sinking, he threw all his merchandise overboard, and barely escaped with his life in the empty ship. Not long afterwards when someone passed by and observed the unruffled calm of the Sea, he interrupted him and said, "It is again in want of dates, and therefore looks quiet."

The Ass, the Cock, and the Lion

An Ass and a Cock were in a straw-yard together when a Lion, desperate from hunger, approached the spot. He was about to spring upon the Ass, when the Cock (to the sound of whose voice the Lion, it is said, has a singular aversion) crowed loudly, and the Lion fled away as fast as he could. The Ass, observing his trepidation at the mere crowing of a Cock summoned courage to attack him, and galloped after him for that purpose. He had run no long distance, when the Lion, turning about, seized him and tore him to pieces. False confidence often leads into danger.

The Mice and the Weasels

The Weasels and the Mice waged a perpetual war with each other, in which much blood was shed. The Weasels were always the victors. The Mice thought that the cause of their frequent defeats was that they had no leaders set apart from the general army to command them, and that they were exposed to dangers from lack of discipline. They therefore chose as leaders Mice that were most renowned for their family descent, strength, and counsel, as well as those most noted for their courage in the fight, so that they might be better marshaled in battle array and formed into troops, regiments, and battalions. When all this was done, and the army disciplined, and the herald Mouse had duly proclaimed war by challenging the Weasels, the newly chosen generals bound their heads with straws, that they might be more conspicuous to all their troops. Scarcely had the battle begun, when a great rout overwhelmed the Mice, who scampered off as fast as they could to their holes. The generals, not being able to get in on account of the ornaments on their heads, were all captured and eaten by the Weasels. The more honor the more danger.

The Mice in Council

The Mice summoned a council to decide how they might best devise means of warning themselves of the approach of their great enemy the Cat. Among the many plans suggested, the one that found most favor was the proposal to tie a bell to the neck of the Cat, so that the Mice, being warned by the sound of the tinkling, might run away and hide themselves in their holes at his approach. But when the Mice further debated who among them should thus "bell the Cat," there was no one found to do it.

The Wolf and the Housedog

A Wolf, meeting a big well-fed Mastiff with a wooden collar about his neck asked him who it was that fed him so well and yet compelled him to drag that heavy log about wherever he went. "The master," he replied. Then said the Wolf: "May no friend of mine ever be in such a plight; for the weight of this chain is enough to spoil the appetite."

The Rivers and the Sea

The Rivers joined together to complain to the Sea, saying, "Why is it that when we flow into your tides so potable and sweet, you work in us such a change, and make us salty and unfit to drink?" The Sea, perceiving that they intended to throw the blame on him, said, "Pray cease to flow into me, and then you will not be made briny."

The Playful Ass

An Ass climbed up to the roof of a building, and frisking about there, broke in the tiling. The owner went up after him and quickly drove him down, beating him severely with a thick wooden cudgel. The Ass said, "Why, I saw the Monkey do this very thing yesterday, and you all laughed heartily, as if it afforded you very great amusement."

The Three Tradesmen

A great city was besieged, and its inhabitants were called together to consider the best means of protecting it from the enemy. A Bricklayer earnestly recommended bricks as affording the best material for an effective resistance. A Carpenter, with equal enthusiasm, proposed timber as a preferable method of defense. Upon which a Currier stood up and said, "Sirs, I differ from you altogether: there is no material for resistance equal to a covering of hides; and nothing so good as leather." Every man for himself.

The Master and His Dogs

A certain man, detained by a storm in his country house, first of all killed his sheep, and then his goats, for the maintenance of his household. The storm still continuing, he was obliged to slaughter his yoke oxen for food. On seeing this, his Dogs took counsel together, and said, "It is time for us to be off, for if the master spare not his oxen, who work for his gain, how can we expect him to spare us?' He is not to be trusted as a friend who mistreats his own family.

The Wolf and the Shepherds

A Wolf, passing by, saw some Shepherds in a hut eating a haunch of mutton for their dinner. Approaching them, he said, "What a clamor you would raise if I were to do as you are doing!"

The Dolphins, the Whales, and the Sprat

The Dolphins and Whales waged a fierce war with each other. When the battle was at its height, a Sprat lifted its head out of the waves and said that he would reconcile their differences if they would accept him as an umpire. One of the Dolphins replied, "We would far rather be destroyed in our battle with each other than admit any interference from you in our affairs."

The Ass Carrying the Image

An Ass once carried through the streets of a city a famous wooden Image, to be placed in one of its Temples. As he passed along, the crowd made lowly prostration before the Image. The Ass, thinking that they bowed their heads in token of respect for himself, bristled up with pride, gave himself airs, and refused to move another step. The driver, seeing him thus stop, laid his whip lustily about his shoulders and said, "O you perverse dull-head! it is not yet come to this, that men pay worship to an Ass." They are not wise who give to themselves the credit due to others.

The Two Travelers and the Axe

Two men were journeying together. One of them picked up an axe that lay upon the path, and said, "I have found an axe." "Nay, my friend," replied the other, "do not say 'I,' but 'We' have found an axe." They had not gone far before they saw the owner of the axe pursuing them, and he who had picked up the axe said, "We are undone." "Nay," replied the other, "keep to your first mode of speech, my friend; what you thought right then, think right now. Say 'I,' not 'We' are undone." He who shares the danger ought to share the prize.