Nikkei (or Nikkei Index or Nikkei 225) is weighted average price of 225 stocks (225 companies) in Tokyo Stock Exchange. So, when Nikkei goes down, it means that MORE share price of the companies which are the components of the index go down, not ALL shares. Thus, the shares that currently you hold may not change or go in the same direction with Nikkei.
9 March 2011 is Kim Taeyeon's 22nd Birthday. She is a member and the leader of So Nyuh Shi Dae (SNSD) or Girls' Generation. Several hours before her birthday, both "Kim Taeyeon" and "SNSD Sooyoung" were trending in Twitter and on her birthday, she was on top of Global Trends in Twitter. There was a rumor that Sooyoung bought a mushroom cake for her. That's why both of them were trending. Beside that, in her birthday, SONE (the name for SNSD fans) did things more than my expectation (and may be a lot more people's expectation). They did:
On 8 March, a fan wrote, sang, and recorded a song titled "Taengday Tribute Song", then uploaded it to various internet sites.
On March 9th, "Sisters" (SNSD’s Naver fan cafe), "HwaSuEunHwa" (Daum fan cafe), and "HwaiTaeng" (Taeyeon’s Naver fan cafe) put and advertisement in a sport newspaper to congratulate her 23rd.
Fans volunteered and donated 1,000,000 won (in total) to the Chungbok Headquarters and the Junbok Headquarters of the Green Umbrella Children’s Foundation under her name.
That made me think about Indonesian Artists and how far would their fans go for them and furthermore about the Indonesian Music Industry. Indonesian Music Industry is growing, some of the indicators are:
Music Industry could innovate and make profit from "Ring Back Tone" service (collaborated with Telecommunication Industry).
Every year there are new artists and artists that has debuted still produce new albums. People listening local music more than international music. Thus, local music industry is strong. The music is even exported to countries surrounding Indonesia like Malaysia and Singapore.
Concerts were held in various locations supported by sponsors. Thus, most concerts for local artist are free. However, even though concerts for international artists mostly were not free, but those could sell out long before the concerts were held. Hence, the hype is still exist.
However, it still lack of development in some activities along the supply chain such as:
Lots of new artist come from themselves, not developed by a company. They form themselves, they made their own music, and they show their works in competitions, shows, and elses. It's a good thing, but they may fit to a market that's already tight and they may not have a well-planned concept and furthermore integration with how they should perform, what kind of merchandise will be available, and elses.
Digital music download is popular in developed countries, but not here. People are still buying pirated CD, downloading illegal music file (from peer-to-peer network, torrent, etc.), or buying illegal music file through retailers. The digital music has been available for example in Ovi Store and some other local sites, but it failed to gain popularity because it still lack of easiness-to-use and trusted-payment-method (lots of Indonesian are still afraid to use credit card for online payment due to lack of both promotion and law protection).
Music store is dominated by a certain group (although there are some local competitors, but it's difficult to compete with the market leader).
Paid concerts for local artists (for certain purpose like new album tour) are rare. Thus, amount of paid concerts are low while in developed countries artist can make a profit from it.
Ticket distribution network hasn't been well established. Jakarta Concert and Raja Karcis do it, it's not nation-wide enough since they are lacking of counters to sell the ticket and the online site is also not improving significantly.
Hopefully things will change and Indonesian music industry can be more lively.
There are three main GSM operators in Indonesia, that are XL, Telkomsel, and Indosat. All of them offer VOIP service as follow:
1. XL
01000 + Country Code + Phone Number
2. Telkomsel
01017 + Country Code + Phone Number
3. Indosat
01016 + Country Code + Phone Number
The Tariff of the three operators is as follow:
Embedded File 1 Tariff Comparison
Note: The tariff used to be shown above is no longer relevant.
I think you may agree with me that it's not true, however I notice that:
- Overseas graduates tend to be more preferable by employers
- Overseas graduates tend to get higher salary
Is it fair? it may be since overseas graduates pay more than local graduates (they invested more fund for their education).
Before I share my thought about overseas graduates who are better than local graduates, I would like to discuss about lifestyle of Indonesian households and some local business:
1. The household of families that can self-fund their children to tertiary education usually consist of parents, children, and helpers. The helper will help the family members to do things that need to be done in a household, such as washing dirty clothes, going out to buy things as instructed by the family members, cooking dishes, and so on.
2. There are local business to help people do things, for example:
- In Airport, when the passenger is claiming his baggage, there is a porter that comes to the passenger and offers help to take the baggage from baggage claim area to parking area or taxi area.
- As an alternate to renew or make a driving license in the police station or motor registry, an administration bureau can take care of it (it will save time to queue, do tests, and so on).
It's different with living overseas, in Indonesia people can get help in doing even simple tasks. The effects of this are:
1. People tend to depend on others.
2. People have less achievements since they did less, thus there are a lot that they can't do (because of the intermediaries).
Further effect of those is that people have less confidence that they can do even those small things by themselves. If they don't have confidence over the small things, how can they have confidence over the bigger matters.
Thus, I think that overseas graduates, who usually do things on their own and depend on their own abilities, will be able to do better than local graduates who depend on others a lot and not confidence with their own abilities.
In this early 2011 Intel has done interesting things for its marketing campaign.
- 18 January: Intel Korea unveiled a collaboration song with Korean Music Group: Girls' Generation (a.k.a. SNSD or So Nyuh Shi Dae). The title is Visual Dream. Here is a preview of the new Girls' Generation video which will kick off Intel's Korean marketing campaign for 2011. Girls' Generation will be featured in Intel's marketing materials in Korea, Japan and other selective Asian countries.
Picture 1 Girls' Generation - Intel Display
- 25 January: Intel hired Will.i.am to fill 'Director of Creative Innovation' position. Will.i.am is a famous music artist, producer and member of a music group: The Black Eyed Peas.
Here is the video:
Video 1 Girls' Generation - Visual Dream
Intel is the market leader in semiconductor chipset business. Intel supplies parts to IT Manufacturers, like HP and Samsung. Hence, Intel is mainly focused in B2B (business-to-business) marketing scheme. Considering those and the theme songs for its commercial in the previous years, those looks like a really awkward move.
List of known songs used in Intel commercials:
2006: Carlos Jean - Mr. Dabada
2007: New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
2011: Girls' Generation - Visual Dream (Intel Asia)
Do Intel want to look cool?
May be. Intel is often related to Technology and for some people, technology is for Nerds. Intel may want to change that.
Intel's current mission is This decade we will create and extend computing technology to connect and enrich the lives of every person on earth.
Deborah Conrad, Intel vice president and chief marketing officer, testified "Intel is in the midst of transforming the way we communicate with people, Our partnership with will.i.am is a prime example of how we want to convey and deliver the Intel experience. It’s imperative that Intel and our innovations are kept in front of the global youth culture that embraces new devices and new forms of communication and entertainment."
Let's have a look on recent popular news about Intel:
- Intel launched 2nd Generation Intel Core processors (on 18th January, along with the first time Girls' Generation - Visual Dream was showed to public)
- Intel found design flaw in it's Sandy Bridge chipset (on 31st January)
- Intel will launched a new connectivity technology, called: Light Peak (expected on February 2011)
- Additionally, AMD as Intel's direct competitor had a competitive product lines since last year, even though AMD hasn't been able to keep up with Intel, but AMD started to give competition since more and more IT manufacturing companies started to implement AMD products in their product lines.
There are at least two considered innovative things came out from Intel, the 2nd generation processors and the Light Peak connectivity technology. Choosing popular icons to endorse Intel will be beneficial since customers is usually unwilling to change and those new campaigns may help the company to impress all the potential customers which are also expected to accelerate brand image in customers perspective.
Here is the commercial:
Video 2 Intel SNSD Commercial
Note:
Remix version of Girls' Generation - Visual Dream can be found in Aeria Remix
Indonesian government is planning to implement new tax policies. It will tax imported movies and MPA (Motion Picture Association), which represents most hollywood studios, was against it, followed by IKAPIFI (Ikatan Perusahaan Film Impor Indonesia) which imports Bollywood and Chinese Movies. Thus, if nothing changes, no more Hollywood, Bollywood and Chinese movies will be screened in theaters.
This is a move to protect local movies, however this will also have significant impacts because Hollywood is the market leader for theatrical movies and a benchmark in the industry. Some of the notable impacts are:
- Theatres have less options since there are no more Hollywood, Bollywood and Chinese movies
- Less people will go to theatres
Thus,
- Ticket price may increase - business will be bad for
- Movie rental and pirated DVD seller will be more advantageous
- Private studios will be more advantageous
- There is a possibility of increasing demand for cable TV and TV channels through satellite
- Local movies will have more variation (not dominated with only horror and soap opera movies like now)
There is an impact on new policies. it may be negative, but there is still positive impacts as well. Keep positive thinking and make use of this opportunity.
Update(s): 17 June 2011 (3). Minister of Finance has signed a new tariff regulation for imported movies. It will be around IDR 21,000 - 22,000 (about USD 3) per minute per copy. One movie usually has 20 - 40 copies. Two problems still exist:
1. The new regulation still need to be signed by Minister of Justice and Human Right.
2. Two importers/distributors of Hollywood Movies, Camilla and Satrya, have their licenses still suspended.
13 July 2011 (4). PT. Omega was reported to have earned NIK (Nomor Induk Kepabeanan), license number to do export import activities since June 2011, but it hadn't started to import any movies.
24 July 2011 (5). PT. Omega imported 99 copies of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2. It will be the first Hollywood Movies from MPAA imported to Indonesia after the incident. The movie was expected to be available in Indonesian cinemas by the end of July 2011.
29 July 2011. Three days before Ramadhan (fasting period for Moslems), Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (the only Hollywood movie title imported so far) was available in Indonesian cinemas, both in 21 group and Blitzmegaplex group.
While lots of MNCs open more and more branches in Asia, especially Singapore, China, and India, lots of universities become MNC as well. It used to be like this: prospective students go overseas to receive foreign education. Now, foreign education comes to local area and gives education locally blended with foreign taste. Here are list of some foreign universities that set up branches in Asia:
2. India
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) (from US)
- Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) (from US)
- Boston University (from US)
- Middlesex University (from US)
- Duke University (from US)
- York University: Schulich School of Business (from Canada)
Different with Singapore and India where lots of the citizens can speak English, in china most of the citizens speak chinese with local dialect. Thus, some foreign universities choose to do a joint program with local universities. Related articles:
- China's B-School Boom
- China's B-School
Note: Cornell University and Columbia University (both of them are from US) also set up a branch in Shanghai
Why do you think it's happening?
Some of the issues to open branches in Asia are:
1. Some universities in developed countries like England and United States faced decreasing number of enrollment every year and increasing acceptance percentage (those universities became less selective, thus the quality of their graduates might decrease).
2. Universities in developing countries have developed significantly, thus they have enough offerings to attract potential students to choose local education rather than foreign education.
3. Some other universities have done it, so the rests should follow or would be left behind the competition.
Some of the issues for not studying overseas are:
1. For postgraduate study, a lot of prospective students have already had a family and it's difficult for them to go abroad for studying or it's ridiculous to leave work for studying overseas.
2. Exchange rate makes overseas education becomes expensive, not only the tuition fee, but also the living cost.
3. Culture barrier, for example it is uncommon for some Taiwanese families to send their daughters to study overseas.
4. The quality of local education is considered acceptable, so there is no need to study overseas.
I wrote this when I realised that a crisis might occur in our country, it’s a crisis of character and icon. I don’t know whether it’s real or it’s just my imagination (hopefully, it’s just my imagination).
I asked this questions to my friends:
“If you are asked to choose an Indonesian icon that you idolise, who are you going to choose and why?”
Some of the positive answers were:
“Ari Wibowo because he is handsome, nice, and seems smart”
“Gus Dur because he made the Chinese New Year as a national holiday”
Some of the negative answers were:
“Nobody because I am nobody”
“Who will you choose? I have no idea”
or similar answers. More people give me a “No” than a name.
I asked myself, who do I mean by an Idol? For me, an idol is someone that I look up to, someone whose life I want to follow, someone that becomes an example for my life (a role model).
In that case:
1. If I think about fictional characters, there are characters like Leigh Ann Tuohy in The Blind Side (a Hollywood movie) or Go Eun Sung in Shining Inheritance (a Korean drama). Both of them has strong characteristics, which make them really inspiring and admirable. In Indonesia, who do we have? Can you see Fitri Rahayu from Cinta Fitri (an Indonesian drama/sinetron) as a role model?
2. If I think about public figures, there are figures like Oprah Winfrey which are really inspirational in her talk shows. If I think who are the most popular these days, two names come up, Jupe (Julia Perez) and DP (Dewi Persik). With all their affairs, could I idolise them? I don't think so. We used to have Aa Gym (Abdullah Gymnastiar), but not anymore. Right now, I couldn't think of anyone else.
Based on thoses cases, we might be in crisis. An Idol crisis.
If you also agree that this is happening and by any chance you know someone from the media/publication, please help our country by sharing this to them, so they will be aware about this as we do, then we may be able to start doing something about it.
It was reported that inflation in Indonesia has reached 21 months high. Last year, the inflation was 6.96, quite high compared to 2.78 in 2009, but still lower than 11.06 in 2008.
Picture 1 Inflation in Indonesia
Inflation means prices for goods and services in general is increasing, in other words, most things become more valuable, except MONEY. Thus, if inflation rate is still increasing or as high, it's better to acquire assets than keep cash in hand and sell the assets when inflation rate has been stabilized to around 2-3% per year.
Now the inflation has been increased to 7.01 (accumulated from 2010). Purchasing power definitely keeps decreasing, thus general consumption is also decreasing. Weak consumption condition and the possibility of increasing borrowing cost due to increasing BI rate make me think that now may not be the right time to establish a new business venture.
Most of TV programs are still locally produced. Number of religious films have decreased compare to about 1 year ago, in exchange there are new variety shows appeared, like "Hitam Putih", "Mama Udah Bobo", etc. Some variety shows are influenced by foreign variety shows, like the use of comments in bubbles (I saw similar characteristic in Korean variety shows). TV Drama is still favored by big-budget TV channel to fill prime time everyday. However, the quality of the dramas have been deteriorating (the stars, directing, video quality), so it seems that the producers allocate less budget than before.
In general, variety shows requires less budget than TV drama. Thus, in general, it seems that TV channels seem to reduce cost by decreasing cost of the programs. In Indonesia, TV is the most influential channel for marketing, thus main income of the TV channels come from advertising. During difficult times, in common, firstly companies will cut budget for advertising. Thus, if the TV channels tried to reduce cost, it may mean that they got less income, companies spent less in advertising and our country might not in a good economic condition even though it was reported that our country has managed to survive from GFC and booked positive GDP growth.
2011 is an exciting year for most people because most country start showing positive GDP (Gross Domestic Product) after some bad years because of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis). I returned back to Indonesia after 1.5 years studying in Australia with high expectation. Then, yes, my home country has successfully surprised me.
Indonesian music industry is still as strong as before. Less foreign music played in local TV channels and even MTV is no longer airing in any local TV Stations. However, I still see some local musicians is influenced by foreign musicians, such as Korean musicians.
There are some local bands that are considered using Korean Music Concept, some of them are SM*SH and 5 Bidadari.
Video 1 SM*SH - I Heart You
Video 2 5 Bidadari - Aku atau Dia
As a comparison, these are some popular Korean Music Video.
Video 3 2AM - Can't Let You Go Even If I Die
Video 4 Wonder Girls - Nobody
(Note: I used to put SNSD - Oh! for video comparison, but I think this one is more appropriate)
I actually think that this is actually not a bad thing since it may diversify or even protect local music industry, since then there are Indonesian music with similar concept with Korean music. However, when I saw those two Indonesian Music Video, I kept asking myself, why couldn't we made a music video as good as the Korean?
Social network is always about me and my network, but if "me" is changed into "the business", then it will also be "the business's network". Nowadays, Facebook seems to be the most popular one, however that may not be the case in the other part of the world and Facebook may not provide other facilities that are offered by another social networking site.
The more social networking site appears, the broader the function of social network since each site will tend to appear different to the others. I will anayse how social network can be used in supporting both primary and secondary activities of new business venture.
Based on Alexa Global Page Rank, there are 4 social network site in top 25 that are:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- MySpace
- LinkedIn
Where possibly each social networking site has a role in?
Picture 1 Social Network Sites in Value Chain Model
The model above shows that social networking sites can be used in both a secondary activitie (human resource management) or a primary activity (marketing & sales). Both activities have a similar characteristic, that is a need to interact with external entities such as labor market and customer market.
1. Human Resource Management
LinkedIn can be used to find either a partner or an executive. In LinkedIn, people can endorse others, so through LinkedIn, HR can make a better judgement from that.
2. Marketing and Sales
Facebook and MySpace have people's information. Thus they can put ads based on target market of the product that is advertised. While Twitter can help to push information to anyone and FourSquare can mark your product and service based on your location.
It may be difficult to organise all the social networking sites, but now there are some softwares that you may can use like TweetDeck or Windows Mobile 7 to manage all your social network accounts.
During my study in Australia, I met lots of people studying business. Some of them are from developed countries like Germany and Japan, but some others are from developing countries like myself (Indonesia). The developed countries like Germany and Japan have more multi-national company that have branches in Australia, while developing countries don't. Thus, there are more multi-national companies from developed countries that are operating in Australian more than developing countries.
In terms of looking for a job, either internship, part-time job or full-time job. Students from developed countries will have more opportunities to get a job since they can apply to multi-national companies originated from their own countries. Those students also have another advantage such as in language since they could speak fluently languages that are used by the executives in those companies like Japanese, Germany and French. Hence, students from developing countries have to compete with those students. Hence, just like a company, a student also needs to build his own core competency. Some ways to do it is by:
1. Becoming Top-of-The-Class Student
2. Having wide network that is ready to give references and recommendations
3. Joining Professional Clubs, especially exclusive clubs
4. Doing internship
It will be a challenge, even after doing those, to communicate all that I have done in a limited Curriculum Vitae/Resume. I almost finished my study, now it is also a challenge for myself to make it come true.
Apple just received 18 patents, one of those is Pinching-to-Zoom. Apple applied for the patent in 2006, while it just got it approved in 2010. Thus it took about 4 years.
The flow chart above shows "Opposition Period", thus after the patent application accepted, the patent isn't immediately active. It needs to be opposed, then if it's successful, then it will become active.
Graduate Student Association (GSA) of Australian School of Business (ASB) presents The End of Semester Ball for Semester 2, 2010. This will be the ball to mark the end of this academic year.
A. Specification:
Theme: Oscar Red Carpet
Venue: IMAX Star Room
Date: 24 October 2010
Time: 7 - 12 PM
Capacity: 200 people
Sales Desk:
In front of Postgraduate Common Room,
Ground floor, West Wing, Australian School of Business, UNSW
Last Sales: Wednesday, 20 October 2010 or when the tickets sold out
B. Marketing Materials that is presented to postgraduate business students:
Video 1 Chloe's version
Video 2. Abby's version
Picture 1. Poster (by Alex Tang)
C. Pricing Strategy
Individual
Group of Ten
General
$89pp
$84pp
UNSW Student
$74pp
$70pp
ARC Member
$66pp
N/A
Include:
1. 3 course-meal
2. Free-flow drink (wines, beers, and non-alcoholics)
3. Prizes to win worth up to $600
Payment through Bank Transfer to
Bank: Commonwealth Bank
Account Name: Commerce and Economics Postgraduate Student Society
BSB No.: 062-303
Account No.: 10349850
It was still almost a week before iPhone 4G was launched for the first time, but some people really wanted to be the first to get it, so they built tents near the store.
Video 1 The First Person in The Queueing Line
I think it's impressive. Even more impressively, in Q3 2010, Apple has managed to sell more smartphone than BlackBerry globally. Apple must has done it right. How about Android?
First of all, lets count the variants:
- iOS Phones (3): iPhone 4G 32GB, iPhone 4G 16 GB, iPhone 3Gs 8G
- Android Phones (a lot): Google Nexus One, Motorola phones, Sony Ericsson phones, Samsung phones, LG phones, HTC phones, and a lot more local-brand phones
There are more variants of Android phones compared to iOS phones and each variant has different features (including different customized Android OS installed in the phone). Different set of features will attract different market segment. See the example below:
Picture 1 Q4 Roadmap (Verizon)
The picture above shows that each product has its target customers or market segment. The market is divided into several segments. If each product is targeted to a certain segment, then Android will have an advantage over iOS phones since it has more variety offerings that will fill more segments in the market.
I wear an ic! berlin glasses. A couple hours ago, due to my carelessness, I let it fell and it teared apart. I was ... quite upset and also afraid that I would need to buy a new one. Fortunately it seemed repairable, but I did not know how to repair it. Thankfully I found the manual in YouTube. Thus, I put it here in case I need it again later.
Here is the video about ic! berlin's hinge:
I like ic! berlin glasses. It's fancy, light, no screws and it's easily fixed. LOL.
Avatar (2009) is a movie from producer, director and writer James Cameron.
Here is the trailers:
0. Early trailer (this trailer just give some early idea about what to expect from the movie)
1. First trailer
2. Second trailer (this trailer really resembles the whole story from the beginning until the climax)
From 2nd Trailer, you can tell roughly how the story will go and end. James Cameron did not direct any movie since he finished his last movie (Titanic) about 12 years ago (1997), so some people doubted his touch. The storyline is criticized because of its similarity with other movies such as Braveheart (1995), Dances with Wolves (1990), or a disney's story, Pocahontas. The actors and actresses, as you can see, are mostly not from my A-list (at least I could not tell mostly who they were, for example Sam Worthington?, even though I have watched many hollywood movies). The movie is in 3D which means the viewers are supposed to wear the stupid-looking glasses which make people has to pay more (for 3D presentation) and the movie looks less bright. Those are some reasons to not watch Avatar.
After screening in theaters for weeks:
Avatar is rated 8.6/10 by more than 170 thousands IMDB users, it gets 82% by Tomatometer, it become the trending topic for days in Twitter.
Avatar won 2 Golden Globes (2010), including The award for Best Motion Picture - Drama.
Avatar broke box office records in many countries (7 consecutive weeks in North America Box Office with more than 600 million dollars gross) and become the highest grossing movie all the time (more than 2 billion dollars worldwide).
How could that possibly be?
About timing. Global economics downturn started in 2008. That triggered many studios to postpone or cancel some movie productions in 2008 and early 2009. The impact was there are fewer considerable good movies in 2009. Avatar, that was labelled as big-budget movie, came near the end of the year when most studios had already run out of big movies. It was a holiday season and in this period people go to the theatre. There people didn't have many choices, so they watched Avatar. That went until early 2010.
About the movie (product) for most people, including myself. Avatar is offering a new experience that many other movies did not. It's the 3D experience. Before Avatar there were not many 3D movies and there was no movie with full 3D that looks realistic. It is also the first time big-budget movie was made in 3D. Combined with the director's previous portfolios, huge special effect, proven-to-success story, long duration and other technical aspects, there are so many reasons to watch Avatar. The early trailer gave people expectations and the movie could fulfill the expectations. It leads to the viewers' satisfaction (proven by IMDB user rating, Tomatometer result, reviews, et cetera).
About marketing. Distributor for this movie is The Twentieth Century Fox which is a subsidiary of News Corp which business is in media. It continuously pushed stories about Avatar before the movie was launched and continuously did that. It gave people stories to tell or, for the company, it's a free advertisement.
About the viewer (consumer). PG-13 rating makes the movie accessible by a broad range of age consumers. After experiencing the movie, satisfy consumers would possibly generate word-of-mouth, for example telling others about their experience and suggesting the movie both directly (by speaking) or indirectly (by posting in social site like blog, forum, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Furthermore, if they are blown away by the 3D effect and want to watch a 3D movie again, there were no other choice at that time, so most likely they will re-watch Avatar.
Watch James Cameron's Avatar in theatre and be part of record breaking history (later you can tell your children about these too)! LOL.
Apple Inc. presented its new device: The iPad. It is basically just a screen. Technically, it's an giant iPhone/iPod Touch with 9.7 inch touch screen.
This is a fan-made video about Hitler response to iPad (don't mind the speech, just read the text):
Note: This is a scene from a movie, Der Untergang/Downfall (2004)
This video is quite good to mention iPad negative points that are:
No support for multitasking (one application at one time)
No camera (No video conferencing then)
No support for phone call
No support for Flash (from Adobe)
Not running Mac OS (instead, it's running iPhone OS)
Some positive points of iPad mentioned above are:
Support for split screen
Compatible with iPhone Apps
integrated eBook reader
Support for WiFi or 3G network
This is a trailer about iPad:
First of all, who don't want an iPad? Hitler? Even if he wants it, he can not have one since he is already out of this world. After watching the trailer, you should have some idea about how awesome the iPad is.
Physically, iPad is a bit smaller than A4-size paper. It's even thinner than a deck of playing cards (52 cards). If you get used to carry a folder or a bunch of paper, then you should not have any problems to carry around an iPad. Carrying an iPad is even more convenience than carrying a notebook, a netbook or a tablet (thanks to its advance user interface, a physical keyboard is not necessary). It's thickness is just fit with the space between joints on your finger and it's weight is less than 1 kg (2 pounds). iPad looks very Apple-ish, so it's fancy enough to carry around and you can carry it conveniently. That's great, right.
Here is Steve Jobs (The CEO of Apple Inc.) keynote about the iPad:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
In those video, you can see Steve Jobs holding the device. It looks great, doesn't it.
Apple's move to eBook business is predictable. Apple's device are there to support iTunes store. Mac line up (Mac OS, MacBook, Mac Mini, iMac) is available, so developers can create applications/apps (including games). The apps are mainly sold through iTunes for other devices like iPod, iPhone and now iPad. Mostly iTunes Store sells digital files. Besides the apps, iTunes Store also provides other contents like audio (music, audiobook), video (film, movie) and now eBook. Apple creates the devices to sell those products (through iTunes Store).
A MacBook is convenient to be carried around (portable device), but not to be used around. iPod or iPhone is convenient to be used around (mobile device), but it's not convenient to read documents because of its screen limitation. Then, iPad came to fill the gap between the MacBook and the iPod. It is convenient to be used around and it has a bigger screen (considered as book size) than both iPod and iPhone. It's better for reading, browsing, watching movie anytime and anywhere. The availability of iWork application for iPad makes it more productive. Although iPad does not support multitasking, but because it is using iPhone OS, I guess it will be still possible to listen to musics while doing other things (like browsing, reading, editing documents). Last but not least, The WiFi or 3G will be used not only for browsing, but also to enable people buying contents from iTunes Store.
iPad is not a bad product, but we just need to know its awesomeness.
(adjusted)-A4.jpg)
