MINGGU HALUAN SISWA DEGREE INTAKE 2012/2013

DATE: 1-8 SEPTEMBER 2012, UTEM MAIN HALL

FPTT MEGA RAYA CELEBRATION

DATE: 14 NOVEMBER 2012, VENUE: FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOPRENEURSHIP

MAJLIS PERWAKILAN PELAJAR ELECTION DAY

DATE: 20 SEPTEMBER 2012, VENUE: LOBBY OF ALL FACULTY

MAJLIS KONVOKESYEN KE-8 UNIVERSITI TEKNIKAL MALAYASIA MELAKA

DATE: 20-21 OCTOBER 2012, VENUE: UTEM MAIN HALL

Tuesday 2 October 2012

STUDY CASE 2 - INTERACTIVE SESSION : TECHNOLOGY


IS THE IPAD A DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY?

Tablet computers have come and gone several times before, but the iPad looks like it will be different. It has a gorgeous 10-inch color display, a persistent WiFi Internet connection, potential use of high-speed cellular network, functionality from over 250,000 applications available on Apple’s App Store, and the ability to deliver video, music , text, social networking applications, and video games. Its entry-level price is just $499. The challenge for Apple is to convince potential users that they need a new , expensive gadget with the functionality that the iPad provides. This is the same challenge faced by the iPhone was a smashing success that decimated the sales of traditional cell phones throughout the world. Will the iPad do likewise as a disruptive technology for the media and content industries? It looks like it is on its way.
The iPad has some appeal to mobile business users, but most experts believe it will not supplant laptops or netbooks. It is in the publishing and media industries where its disruptive impact will first be felt.
The iPad and silmilar devices( including the Kindle Reader) will force many existing media business to change their business models significantly. These companies may need to stop investing in their traditional delivery platform (like newsprint) and increase their investment in the new digital platform. The iPad will spur people to watch TV on the go, rather than their television set at home, and to read their books, newspapers, and magazines online rather than in print.
Publishers are increasing interested in e-book as a way to revitalize stagnant sales and attract new readers. The success of Amazon’s Kindle has spurred growth in e-book sales to over $91 million wholesale in the first quarter of 2010. Eventaully, e-books could account for 25 to 50 percent of all books sold. Amazon, the technology platform provider and the largest distributor of books in the world, has exercised its new power by forcing publisher to sell e-books at $9.95, a price too low for publisher  to profit. Publisher are now refusing to supply new books to Amazon unless it raises prices,  and Amazon is starting to comply.
The iPad entered this marketplace ready to compete with Amazon over e-book pricing and distribution. Amazon has committed itself to offering the lowest possible prices, but Apple has appealed to publisher by announcing its intention to offer tiered pricing system, giving publisher the opportunity to participate more actively in the pricing of their books. Apple has agreed with publisher charge $12 to $14 for e-book, and to act as an agent selling books (with 30% fee on all e-book sales) rather than a book distributor. Publisher s like this arrangement, but worry about long term-pricing expectations. Hoping to avoid a scenario where readers come to expect $9.99 e-books as the standard.
                Textbook publisher are also eager to establish themselves on the iPad. Many of the largest textbook publishers have struck deals with software firms like Scrollmotion, Inc. to adapt their books for e-book readers. In fact, Apple CEO Steve Jobs designed the iPad with the use in schools in mind, and interest on the part of schools in the technology like the iPad has been strong. ScrollMotion already has experience using the Apple application platform for the iPhone, so the company is uniquely qualified to convert existing files provided by publishers into a format readable  by the iPad  and to add additional features , like a dictionary, glossary, quizzes, page numbers, a search function, and high-quality images.
                Newspapers are also excited about the iPad, which represents a way for them to continue charging for all of the content that they have been forced to make available online. It the iPad becomes as popular as other hit products from Apple, consumers are more likely to pay for content using that device. The successes of the App Store on the iPhone and the iTunes music store attest to this. But the experience of the music industry with iTunes also gives all print media reason to worry. The iTunes music store changed the consumer perceptions of albums and music bundles. Music labels used to make more money selling 12 songs on a album than they did selling popular singles. Now consumers have drastically reduced their consumption of albums, preferring to purchase and download one song at a time. A similar fate may await print newspapers, which are bundles of news articles, many of which are unread.
                Apple has also approached TV networks and movie studios about offering access to some of their top shows and movies for monthly fee, but as of yet the bigger media companies have not responded to Apple’s overture. Of course, if the iPad becomes sufficiently popular, that will change, but currently media networks would prefer not to endanger their strong and lucrative partnerships with cable and satellite TV providers.
                And what about Apple’s own business model? Apple previously believed content was less important than popularity of its devices.  Now, Apple understands that it needs high-quality content from all the types of media it offers on its devices to be truly successful. The company’s new goal is to make deals with each media industry to contribute the content that users want to watch at a price agreed to by the content owners and the platform owners (Apple). The old attitudes of Apple (“Rip, burn, distribute”), which were designed to sell devices are a thing of the past. In this case of disruption technology, even the disruptors have been forced to change their behaviors.


1.       Evaluate the impact of the iPad using Porter’s competitive forces model.
a.       Traditional competitor in
Mobile industry : competitor such as Samsung which is well known for their strong financial      and R&D, and LG

Computer electronic industry :  Acer which is well known for their low price computer hardware.

Operating system industry :  Android, operating system for mobile devices that produced by Google

b.      New market entrants : there is no new entrant beside Apple itself, Apple inc. have to compete with traditional competitors.

c.       Substitute products and services : Electronic products such as Samsung Galaxy tab and Amazon Kindle which is have certain same function with the Apple iPad.  For common substitute products for the iPad are television, newspaper, book, music store, and magazine. Sales for the media printed product will decline due to the iPad impact.

d.      Customers : Customer will prefer product with lowest price, easiest to acquire and has more customer’s benefits.

e.      Supplier : numbers of suppliers is important as the company gain more control in their products especially in pricing and component selection. Apple has many suppliers and this makes their product has more values.

2.       What makes the iPad a disruptive technology? Who are likely to be the winners    and losers if the iPad becomes a hit? Why?

a.        The iPad is a disruptive technology because its tendency to replace or obsolete previous technology which as the similar function with the Apple’s iPad.

b.             Winners will be the one who support or joint venture with the Apple. These winners are  e-book publisher who agreed to make Apple as an agent selling their books, the textbook publisher who eager to establish themselves on the iPad, printed media who have convert their product into electronic products such as electronic  newspaper and electronic magazines, and  electronic music store such as itunes.
                 Loser will be the product with same function as iPad such as kindle and Amazon and also e-book publisher who sell their e-books through Amazon. The printed media  products will also be  the loser.

3.       Describe the effects that the iPad is likely to have on the business models of Apple, content creators, and distributors?

a.       Apple’s business model : Apple will start selling e-books, e-newspapers and e-magazines. Its entire product will be centered on the iPad.

b.      Content creator : they have to created more creative content in order to compete with others because thousand electronic content will be on the iPad as predicted.

c.       Distributors : distributors will have to compete more as the Apple will be a large distributor of electronic products through their iPad.


Monday 1 October 2012

STUDY CASE 1 - INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS

ROCKETTHEME : THRIVING ON THE WEB

 

              When it comes to doing global digital business, RocketTheme is a prime example. RocketTheme sells digital products in the form of templates, and extensions that are used with the open source content management system (CMS) Joomla. The Joomla CMS allows anyone with at least a limited knowledge  of Web site construction or internet technologies to start a Web site. Joomla essentially puts advanced web technology at the fingertips of "newbies." Current estimates suggest that Joomla is being used on 1.5 to 2 million Web sites globally.
         Andy Miller, a former member tthe core  developer group of the award-winning Joomla CMS,  started  the RocketTheme templates club with goal of making professional-looking Web sites  available  to the average internet user. Competition in the industry is fierce. However, RocketTheme Attempts to differentiate itself from other templates clubs through originality, a user-oriented focus, and flexibility of design. Currently, it is branching out into other different CMS markets, providing templates for other open source CMS solutions, such as Drupal, WordPress, and phpBB3.
        RocketTheme sells its products directly to its customers through a membership system.Growth of the club is mainly organic. For each type of membership, RocktTheme  charges a different fee. Members are defferentiated by the whether  they are light or heavy users (e.g., regular members vs developer members), which is visible through the pricing schedule. Marketing efforts ate targeted at the online community. to attract new customers, RocketTheme uses an affiliate system and makes use of Google ads.
        The RocketTheme templates club was launched in 2006 and has experienced exponential growth. According to Miller, " I started the rocketTheme Template club  with a whopping three templates in the inventory. Membership has a steadily grown since the time probably due to the increase in number of available templates. It's been a relatively consistent ride and i think a huge part of that is just due to how great Joomla is and how it's popularity has risen.Sure, some templates are more popular than others that is just the way these things work. I try to ensure that we provide a very well-rounded selection of designs, not just the same old "business" templates every month.
          How did the club get its start? Miller syas, " I have been involved in Web deveopment since my days in university, back in the early 90s, when hypertext was a new concept and gopher was the most common method of sharing information across networks. I was a computer enginerring major and quickly got caught up in the excitement around the internet. Anyway, long story short, I've been doing web development ever since ."
          RocketTheme is privately owned ; Miller is the sole partner of the RocketTheme Limited Liability Corporation (LCL). As such, he is also the day-to-day operational manager. Miller focuses on energizing his staff and creating a common goal for his employees- success of the RocketTheme template club. The organization can be  characterized as flat and non-bureaucratic. It has a full-time staff of 12 and has 14 support staff. The support staff consists mainly of subcontractors and several volunteers. New staff are attracted straight from the RocketTheme community or from online advertisement. Thus, the organization retain specialist from different parts of the world, highly skilled in their respective fields.
         RocketTheme Presently has a user base of well over 40,000 regiistered members, It stand out because of its international orientation  and collaboration. The team responsible for support and development of new templates and extensions is an international team, consisting of members from around the globe- the United States, England, Italy, Holland, Germany, India, Canada, Poland, Greece, and Japan - from different  background and different age groups. All communication and information exchange between the employess of RocketTheme and between RocketTheme and its customers is preformed using the electronic superhighway. RocketTheme attractsits customers from all over the globe; like its team, its customers come from different backgrounds, different age groups, and different countries. The target group of customers is, in essence, anyone who wishes to run a  web site using Joomla CMS.
        RocketTheme focuses mainly on development of templates for the different content management systems ti which it caters. Other services provided are mainly in the area of support. Customer support is provided through an online forum in which RocketTheme club members can post their template and extension-related questions and general problems with Joomla. The online community at RocketTheme.com and its collaborative atmosphere is representative of open source ideals. It is one of the pillars of RocketTheme's success.


CASE STUDY QUESTIONS :

1. What are RocketTheme's business processes, and what information systems can be used to support these processes ?

      RocketTheme provides digital products in the form of templates and extension that are used with the open source contain management system (CMS) Joomla. The CMS let anyone with at least a limited knowledge of Web Site construction or internet technologies to start a website. Competition in the digital products industry is fierce. However RocketTheme attempts to differentiate itself from other template clubs through originality, a user oriented focus, flexibility of design. In addition, they try to branching out to other CMS markets by providing templates for other open source CMS solutions such as Drupal, Wordpress, and phpBB3. These business processes can be support through Enterprise system, which are systems that expand functional area, focus on the executing business process across the business firm, and involve all levels of management.

2. How can these systems improve RocketTheme's business performance ?
     The enterprise system integrate  business  process in manufacturing and production, finance and accounting, sales and marketing, and human resources into single software system. The defragment information been stored in a single comprehensive data repository where  it can  be used  by many different part of the business.

3. What is RocketTheme's business-critical information system ?


     Communication and information exchange between the employees of RocketTheme, between RocketTheme and its customers which is by using electronic superhighway, and also the customer support area.

4. What information system could possibly improve rocketTheme's business performance ?

      Information system that could improve RocketTheme’s business performance is the intranet and extranets information system. Since there are using electronic superhighway to communicate and as information exchange, the intranet and extranet information becomes the suitable information system to boost their business performance. It is as the alternative tools for increasing and expediting the flow of information within the firms (intranets) and with customers and suppliers (extranets). Through extranets information system, customers support system  will be more systematic, fast and informative. The company can broadcast information related to their company, about their products, and as well about events that their organized. They also can post about video tutorial on how to use their product, latest product and customers can give their feedbacks and responses, which is crucial as the I.T. illiteracy becomes their major threat.