...Supply and Demand Microsoft must be able examine the consumers’ actions and behaviors because without the consumers, Microsoft’s business will not run efficiently. Microsoft must be able to face the day to day challenges of participating in a competitive market, and must be able to lead and guide the market toward equilibrium of supply and demand forces. Microsoft wants to be as efficient as possible so that there is neither a surplus nor a shortage in the market. Microsoft is a corporation in a competitive market where buyers can buy particular goods and sellers can sell particular goods. The seller can be either directly Microsoft or another company such as Wal-Mart, who sells goods produced by Microsoft. When looking at the forces of supply and demand in a particular market, we want to look at the behaviors of the buyers and sellers of that market. (Mankiw, 2012) (Microsoft) Looking at supply involves looking at the actions of the buyers in a particular market for goods. In this case, we look at goods produced by the Microsoft Corporation. When a particular good is demanded buy buyers such as, software or electronics, there is a quantity demanded by the buyers. The quantity demanded is known as how much of a specific good a buyer can purchase. For example, there are three students in the market for Microsoft office 2010 software. Each buyer would like to purchase two packages of the Microsoft software each. If each buyer purchases two packages of software the total software...
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...Due to the key determinants of the demand; demographics, technology, geography and government regulation; cell phones today are now a necessity rather than a luxury item. Demographics What once was a commodity for the elite, older and urban residents is now being used by people of low income, young children and residents in rural areas. Mobile phones have become such a necessity that people on welfare are eligible to receive a free phone with a limited amount of call minutes. Nowadays, it has become the social norm for young elementary school aged children to own a cell phone too. Parents want to be able to always reach their children in case of an emergency and vice versa. Also, due to the increased amount of cell phone network towers being built, even the rural areas are able to receive signal for service. Technology With technology evolving so rapidly, manufacturers are packing as much as they can into phones until they are identical to computers. Phones are now equipped with 5-8 megapixel cameras with a flash, secondary cameras on the front for videoconferencing, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, touch-screen LCDs, and faster processors with more advanced web browsers. (Shideed, 2010) The proliferation of smartphone applications and the overwhelming demand for increasingly efficient and convenient wireless communications has created business opportunities far and wide for phone manufacturers and wireless network operators, but it also has created some setbacks. Most notably is the...
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...potential customers, or potential buyers. The cell phone market is a massive market. Some studies conclude that more than half the world has cell phone accounts. One attribute that defines the cell phone market is the idea of consumers giving up their land line use. Many individuals are now giving up their land line use in favor of using only a cell phone. This causes a large influx of customers into the market for cell phones. As technology continues to advance new types of cell phones are developed and marketed to different segments of the population. Now cell phones are available for business purposes and social purposes such as social networking, text messaging, or gaming. Apple Inc., like any other corporation, has supply and demand that is affected by a variety of factors. In fact businesses create products and offer services based on their customers’ demands and the demands of the customers, or the lack thereof, affects the available supply. One of the main issues that drive demand of a product is customer preference. The preference of the customer and the desire of the product that a company sells can affect the demand curve. As more customers want a product like the iPhone, the demand curve shifts to the right. Families, friends and colleagues strongly contribute to a person’s choice of cell phone. When all of an individual’s friends and family members have an iPhone, the consumer is more likely to purchase the phone because everyone else is getting it...
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...Current Market Conditions Competitive Analysis Microeconomics 365 December 8, 2014 Introduction/ History of Apple, Inc. When participating in an increasingly competitive industry like the cell phone industry one must be prepared for any thing their competitors come out with. In order to stay ahead or at least in the game is to know your competitor and their product. Apple is one of the biggest cell phone competitors there is and knowing about them will always help out. Apple Inc. is a multinational corporation with 284 retail locations spanning 10 different countries. Apple has developed a unique reputation and is currently the largest technology firm in the world; with its stock market value reaching $500 billion in sales for 2011, (History of Apple, 2012). With headquarters located in Cupertino, California, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak successfully invented, and launched the first personal computer kit on April fool’s Day in 1976; known as the Apple I. The following year, the Apple computer, or Apple I, led to the incorporation of Apple Computer, Inc. As technology grew through the 80’s and 90’s, Steve and Steve continued to manufacture personal computers, or PC’s, including product lines such as Apple II, Macintosh, and Power Mac. Advancement of Apple Computer Inc. Steve and Steve continued to grow Apple Computer Inc., becoming the multinational leader in the consumer electronics industry and in 2001, dropped ‘computer’ from its name; after the successful...
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...Answers to the Problems and Applications 1. William Gregg owned a mill in South Carolina. In December 1862, he placed a notice in the Edgehill Advertiser announcing his willingness to exchange cloth for food and other items. Here is an extract: 1 yard of cloth for 1 pound of bacon 2 yards of cloth for 1 pound of butter 4 yards of cloth for 1 pound of wool 8 yards of cloth for 1 bushel of salt a. What is the relative price of butter in terms of wool? 1 pound of butter exchanged for 2 yards of cloth and 4 yards of cloth exchanged for 1 pound of wool. Hence 1 pound of butter exchanged for 2 yards of cloth and 2 yards of cloth exchanged for 1/2 pound of wool. So the relative price of butter in terms of wool was 1/2 pound of wool per pound of butter. b. If the money price of bacon was 20¢ a pound, what do you predict was the money price of butter? 1 pound of bacon exchanged for 1 yard of cloth and 2 yards of cloth exchanged for 1 pound of butter. Hence it took 2 pounds of bacon to exchange for 1 pound of butter. As a result, if the money price of a pound of bacon was 20¢ the money price of 1 pound of butter was 40¢. c. If the money price of bacon was 20¢ a pound and the money price of salt was $2.00 a bushel, do you think anyone would accept Mr. Gregg’s offer of cloth for salt? If the money price of bacon is 20¢ a pound, Mr. Gregg’s offer to exchange 1 pound of bacon for 1 yard of cloth means that anyone could obtain 1 yard of cloth for a money price of 20¢. Mr. Gregg’s...
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...Economics 101 Summer 2012 Answers to Homework #2 Due 6/5/12 Directions: The homework will be collected in a box before the lecture. Please place your name, TA name and section number on top of the homework (legibly). Make sure you write your name as it appears on your ID so that you can receive the correct grade. Late homework will not be accepted so make plans ahead of time. Please show your work. Good luck! Please realize that you are essentially creating “your brand” when you submit this homework. Do you want your homework to convey that you are competent, careful, professional? Or, do you want to convey the image that you are careless, sloppy, and less than professional. For the rest of your life you will be creating your brand: please think about what you are saying about yourself when you do any work for someone else! 1. George and Martha both make meatloaf and bake bread. It takes George three hours to bake six loaves of bread and two hours to make three meatloaves. It takes Martha three hours to bake eight loaves of bread and two hours to make three meatloaves. Currently George and Martha do not trade with one another. For this problem assume that George and Martha have linear production possibility frontiers and that they do not trade with anyone else. a. Suppose George and Martha each have 60 hours this week that they can devote to bread baking and meatloaf cooking. Construct graphs depicting the production possibility frontiers for George and Martha....
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...ECON 150 Assignment #1 October 11th 2010 1. A) i. If the price of cells phones decreases there will be an increase in the demand. ii. If the price of a cell phone is expected to fall next month, the short term demand will decrease until the lower price emerges and then demand will increase at that time. iii. If the price of a call from a cellphone decreases, the demand for cell phones will increase. iv. If the price of a call increases from a landline the demand for cell phones will increase. v. The introduction of a camera phone will increase demand of cell phones. B) (See Attached Appendix 1) C) Event “i” illustrates the law of demand because everything is equal apart from the price. 2. A) The offering of online movie viewing will make the demand for in-store movie rentals more elastic. B) The cross elasticity of demand for online movie rentals would be positive because it is a substitute for in-store movie rentals C) The cross elasticity of demand would be negative with respect to high speed internet and online movie rentals because the service is complementary. 3. A) Based on the news clip wedding events are a normal good because as the income decreases, demand increases. B) Based on the news clip, weddings are more of a luxury because the demand is related to price and income. C) Given my answer to B, the income elasticity of demand would be greater than 1 because income is elastic in this...
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...Cell Phone Retailer Business Plan Executive Summary The cell phone retailer business plan is about sell the cell phone product and refill cards to the customers. Cellular telephones have revolutionized the communications arena, redefining how we perceive voice communications. Traditionally, cellular phones remained out of the hands of most consumers due to their high cost. Now cell phone is the important to the people. Cell phone carriers have invested time and resources into finding ways to give the system higher capacity and thus lower cost. It’s the best investment for the business in future increase in the large scale. Today, cellular phones are truly consumer electronics devices with over 59 million subscribers. Cell phones are the executive status to the consumers now days. My business plans an opportunity to become a highly distinguished and recognized leader in the cellular communications industry. In order to achieve this goal, critical success factors will be to identify emerging trends and integrate them into our company operations, respond quickly to technology changes/be there early, provide high-quality services, invest time and money in marketing and advertising, expand into specialty markets, and stay ahead of the "technology curve." It’s the important things in my business. Key to success Our company keys to success are; 1. Provide excellent customer service 2. Grow and maintain a referral network of customers 3. Focus expertise in GSM cellular...
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...purchased a Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry Curve 8900. RIM has a commanding 56% share of the $12 billion U.S. smart phone market, and its sales are still accelerating. In fact, according to industry tracker IDC, the bestselling smart phone in the U.S. so far this year by units is not the iPhone but the BlackBerry Curve. The Curve’s competitors include the Apple iPhone and the Motorola Android smart phone. Most people think of Apple as RIM's biggest threat. While that may be true, there is probably no single event that has done more for RIM's business than the iPhone launch. It was Apple that convinced consumers that they could enjoy the ease and power of a desktop in a handheld device, thus opening a vast new market. Overnight the smart phone became, by popular demand, a consumer device. Since the iPhone's introduction in June 2007, BlackBerry quarterly sales have more than tripled, from $1.1 billion to $3.4 billion. Three of the five top-selling mobile phones in the U.S. are now BlackBerrys. Blackberry uses a demographic segmentation approach. Traditionally, Blackberry phones have been targeted to business professionals only. They were not priced or developed for the every day cellular user. The Blackberry Curve 8900 is still primarily targeted to the business professional. The phone comes preloaded with the mobile version of Microsoft Office and now gives the ability to edit documents and power points directly on your cell phone. Blackberry also targets the business professional...
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...Phase 1 IP – Intro to Economic Thinking Frank K. Chadmon Colorado Technical University Online Professor Olanrewaju November 25, 2013 The mixing of supply and consumer demand is very important to consumers because the combination of these two typically sets the price of a good or service. The final market price is dependent upon both of these components of a market. When buyers and sellers agree on a price, that’s called the equilibrium price. For consumers and sellers, the law of supply and demand is a rule of thumb that holds true in the market. With other things being equal, price and the quantity demanded are inversely related; this means the greater the demand for a product or service, the higher the price and lower the demand for a product or service, the lower the price. Other things being equal, refers to factors that can affect demand, such as the availability of substitute goods or changes in consumer tastes. This analysis will provide a discussion of how supply and demand affects consumers, especially with respect to price, availability of goods or services. In the law of supply and demand, the quantity demanded is distinct from demand, which refers to the entire relationship between price and quantity demanded. There are a number of factors that affect both supply and demand and, as a result, consumers. When demand or supply for a good or service changes, the equilibrium price for the good or service changes also, so changes in demand or supply always...
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...Herrin ECO/561 October 8, 2013 Emmanuel Welbeck Market Equilibration Process Having equilibrium in the market is the same as having equilibrium in our daily activities. Economic equilibrium is “a condition or state in which economic forces are balanced. It can also be defined “as the point where supply equals demand for a product – the equilibrium price is where the hypothetical supply and demand curves intersect” (Investopedia, 2013). It is important to understand supply and demand of a product in order to find equilibrium. In today’s market, consumers are usually weary about purchases of large items due to the fact there are many competitors competing for the same potential customers. Could you live without the internet, cell phone, microwave, television, or any other electric technologies? Law of Demand and Supply The world today have grown to rely heavily on technology, especially the cellular phones, in their daily activities. “The average U.S. household today owns at least 23 consumer electronic products” (Get Energy Active, 2011). As the technology in cell phones changes, consumers are eager to purchase the latest styles whether for practical uses or to be consider part of the “in crowd”. Suppliers uses this information in researching and to appropriately distribute the products and services by applying the laws of demand and supply. The law of demand is when “supply is held constant, an increase in demand leads to an increased market prices, while a decrease...
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...provide the conduit for transmitting data wirelessly – as such, regulators can shape the nature of competition. Competition for market share in the late 1990s was cut-throat in Japan. Deregulation continued apace in Japan and by 1998 a flood of large foreign carriers and equipment manufacturers had entered the fast-growing market as the government lifted the last remaining limitations on foreign investment . Thus the telecom industry was at its peak with a large pool of players wanting to enter the market as can be seen from Exhibit 4. By January 1999, the wireless market in Japan had experienced seven years of rapid expansion (Exhibit 1), with every third person owning a mobile phone. Although the size of the market was still small compared to that of fixed lines, its annual average growth rate of 68% was astounding compared to the an emic growth (1.5%) of the fixed line market. In Japan, the lack of global uptake of the Japanese Personal Digital Cellular (PDC) network standard had important repercussions for both the intensity of competition among operators, and set limits on the expansion of handset makers. In summary, Japan has a very healthy competitive environment in terms of numbers and quality of players. The level of market competition will increase with the elimination of line-of-business and foreign ownership restrictions We analyse the telecom industry using Porter’s five force...
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...mobile station by updating its software. This concept was instrumental for the implementation of SMS in every mobile station ever produced and in every network from early days. Hence, a large base of SMS capable terminals and networks existed when the users began to utilize the SMS. A new network element required was a specialized short message service centre, and enhancements were required to the radio capacity and network transport infrastructure to accommodate growing SMS traffic. SMS Encryption for Mobile Communication: Mobile phones are part of our daily life. Nowadays, mobile phones provide not only communication services, but also many multimedia and other functions. Mobile phones contain private or personal data. This data is saved in a form of phone contacts, SMS, notices in a calendar, photos etc. Protection of the information depends also on a concrete user. The user should prevent against alienation of her/his mobile phone. If the mobile phone is in wrong hands, most of the information is available without a great effort (received SMS). User registers the theft of the mobile...
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...competitors. Any new innovation could be copied easily. For example, when i-mode was introduced after an extensive expenditure on R&D, the competitors, DDI Cellular and IDO, announced their own mobile data communication services, called EZ Web and EZ Access respectively. Hence, it can be seen that the competitive rivalry was very high. 2) Power of suppliers Being in the services sector, DoCoMo’s i-mode’s suppliers were not raw material providers but the content providers whom DoCoMo wished to make its partners. It offered a win-win deal for its partners. DoCoMo proposed that it would not purchase content from the providers or equipment from manufacturers but it would allow its users to access these as its official websites and mobile phones. DoCoMo would act as the gateway. NTT DoCoMo’s insight into the needs of its content providers was an important contributor to its early success. By taking care of the customer billing, iMode made business easy for content providers, who were hesitant to sell online because handling the billing was a large and expensive burden. By paying NTT DoCoMo to do the billing, the content providers were able to concentrate on what they did best – providing content – and still generate earnings. In return for this, iMode charged its content providers 9 per cent of revenue....
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...Tadiwa Njagu Google Glasses Our generation has given the age of technology an adrenaline shot, everyday it seems like some better, faster version of everyday items is being created to make our lives even more convenient .Just years ago touch screen technology was released and was considered monumental now this technology is standard with most cellular phones , mp3 players, laptops and even televisions now. The biggest advances that always seem to hold the attention of people in this day and age are cell phones. These devices once used just for communicating now have the same technology as most computers and even are superior to them in many ways. The biggest feature that contributes to the cell phones popularity are little programs called applications also known as "apps". Applications are essentially pieces of software that directly benefit the user and broaden the functionality of your mobile phone, in essence they are exactly the same as the computer programs that you use on a PC. For example, if you have a PC, you probably have programs such as Microsoft Word, Paint, and Notepad; mobile phone apps work in the same way these do. Apps can help with business, your social life, travel, communication and much more. There are apps to monitor your expenses, identify flowers and give you first aid advice, as well as full documentation suites that let you view and edit spreadsheets and Word documents. As I'm sure you inferred apps in short can make completing everyday tasks...
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