Website Design... For Dummies!!

Caution: Before you start

Launching a website can be a challenging process and a long-term commitment that requires considerable resources to maintain. A survey conducted by InQuira in 2008 showed that 74% of consumers refer to a company’s website to learn about the products and services it offers. Although the figures sound encouraging for businesses to launch their own websites, the same figures should be discouraging for those planning to launch a website but are not confident of their ability to start and maintain the website; a poorly planned, designed or maintained website can influence a negative image about the business to nearly three quarters of its customers.

The first stage of launching a website is actually planning it. In the planning phase, businesses identify the specific objectives of the website, what messages the website should convey and ultimately, develop a clear understanding of the target audience the website should serve; eventually, traffic stats are meaningless if the website is attracting the wrong audience.

Designing Your Website

Despite the scarcity of literature on the quality assessment of website designs, Miranda and Banegil (2004) introduced one of the most used models of website assessment (Yizhang et al 2009). Their Web Assessment Index (WAI) uses 4 different elements in the assessment of the website (Miranda and Banegil 2004), the 5th element was introduced based on many scholars (e.g. Lindgaard 2007) demanding the inclusion of this element in the index:

1. Accessibility
2. Navigability
3. Speed
4. Content Quality
5. Aesthetic Appeal

In this article, we will focus on three aspects of website design, namely accessibility, navigability and aesthetic appeal.

Accessibility: Hernandez et al (2009) define accessibility as being the “quality of a website in terms of its ease of identification and access for current and potential users” (364). However, other scholars such as Loiacono et al (2009) extended the definition to include the functionality of the website and its various services. Based on the previous definition, accessibility is directly linked with the search engine position and the links directing to the website and therefore enhancing accessibility requires active SEO efforts. Moreover, while considering accessibility, website designers and developers should ensure that the website is accessible for users with various operating systems and internet browser, mainly: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Opera.

Navigability: Ortega el al (2007) identified 3 main elements of website navigability: Information organization and classification, design navigation systems and ease of finding information. To maximize navigability, web designers should consider the structure and flow of the website and its functions as well as maintaining clear labelling for various web pages and other contents within the website. In terms of ease of finding information, Boag’s (2010) rule of three can be tested throughout the website, the rule indicates that users should be able to access most of the information they are looking for with no more than three clicks from the home page.

Aesthetics: refer to the visual feel and appearance of the website, including colours, images, multimedia, layouts and typography. Aesthetic appeal is one of the heavily studied aspects of e-commerce, in fact, several experiments showed positive relation between aesthetic appeal and retention and purchase intention (Allagui, and Lemoine 2008 and Hanna 2004). Aesthetic elements may not only increase the visual appeal of the website but may also result in other positive perceptions; for instance, the use of high quality human images was reported to increase trustworthiness (Steinbruck et al 2002) and functionality (Cyr et al 2009). Colours also play a major role in influencing readability and convenience, in this context, a study by Hall and Hanna (2004) found that high contrast between background and especially positive text colouring (dark text on light background) increased users’ satisfaction and readability. The online consultancy agency, E-Consultancy provides a free comprehensive tutorial on website colouring.

With the increasing user interaction with the internet and the changing habits of viewing web content, webpage layout and the placement of the messages within the page itself should be carefully considered; a study by Nielsen Norman Group in 2006 showed that users read webpages in F-shaped pattern (two horizontal lines and one vertical line) meaning that main messages should be positioned in such F shape (Print 2010).

Budget…? Nothing

A number of free services, tutorials and applications are available for personal and business users. Starting with developing and hosting your website, Bravenet and Webs include lots of handy development tools and add-ons. To gain higher accessibility and search engine ranking, Iwebtools and SEOBook offer broad lists of most powerful SEO tools and tips.

No matter how satisfied with the design you are, it’s the user who really decides the success or the failure for the website. Therefore, we strongly recommend pre testing the design, and even this can be done for free as Loop11 offers a free usability test for your first project, you just have to recruit your respondents (can be friends, colleagues..etc) and enjoy their free service. After launching the website, Google’s Website Optimizer is a great free tool to evaluate various designs options and their influence on user’s conversions across your website.

The future?



The essence of having web presence is to improve an organisation’s bottom-line. Schafer 2008 identifies that of necessity, web designers need to aim to improve user experience by focusing more on designing for Persuasion, Emotion, and Trust (PET). This requires a whole new shift in perspective from focusing largely on achieving ease of use and satisfaction to finding ways to engage and elicit positive commitment and building user-loyalty, by appealing to the emotions of consumers.


References:

Allagui, A. and Lemoine, J. (2008) Web interface and consumers' buying intention in e-tailing: results from an online experiment. Advances in Consumer Research - European Conference Proceedings 8: 24-30

Boag, P. (2010) Website Owner’s Manual. New York: Manning

Cyr, D., Head, M., Larios, H. and Bing, P. (2009). Exploring human images in website design: A multi-method approach. MIS Quarterly, Sep2009, Vol. 33 Issue 3

Hall, R. and Hanna, P. (2004) The impact of web page text-background colour combinations on readability, retention, aesthetics and behavioural intention. Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology 23(3): 183-195

Hanna P. (2004) The impact of web page text-background colour combinations on readability, retention, aesthetics and behavioural intention; Journal of Behaviour & Information Technology 23 (3): 183-95

Hernandez, B., Jimenez, J. and Martin, M (2009) Key website factors in e-business strategy. International Journal of Information Management 29: 362–371

Lindgaard, G. (2007) Aesthetics, visual appeal, usability and user Satisfaction: what do the user's eyes tell the user's brain? Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies & Society 5(1): 1-14

Loiacono, T., Romano, N and McCoy, S. (2009) The State of Corporate Website Accessibility. Communications of the ACM 52(9): 128-132

Ortega,H. Martnez, B. and, Hoyos, M. (2007) An Analysis of Web Navigability in Spanish Internet Banking. Journal of Internet Banking & Commerce 12(3)

Print Magazine (2010) Obsessions. Print Magazine 64(2): 81-81

Schafer (2008) Usability is No Longer Enough. Available {Online} from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bminUlAu47Q (4/04/10).

Steinbruck, U., Schaumburg, H., Duda S., and Kruger, T. (2002) A Picture Says More Than a Thousand Words: Photographs as Trust Builders in E Commerce Websites. 2002 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Minneapolis: 748-749.

Yizhang, Z., Hezhang, Z. and Yicun, Z (2009) Research on the Customer-oriented Evaluation of SMEs' Websites in China, International Conference on Information Management, Innovation Management and Industrial Engineering 4: 262-265

Trust... Explained

What is trust?

The hallmark of business success stems from the extent of ‘fit’ enjoyed by two transaction parties. The shift towards relationship marketing, as opposed to one-off transactions, has seen organisations focusing on establishing and building enduring relationships (Morgan and Hunt 1994). Trust, at both an Interpersonal and organizational level, has been identified by numerous researchers as one of the key drivers of success in any relationship.

The invention and expansion of the internet has succeeded in altering business dynamics, essentially as a result of the higher level of risk involved in online relationships (e.g. financial losses and privacy intrusion). As such, trust, an element that easily conferred a competitive advantage became a basic requirement in attracting customers. Trust in online relationships has been widely discussed and studied in literature, however, the extreme majority of the scholars focused on online commerce (Buttner and Goritz 2008 and Hanai and Oguchi 2009). While very few discussed the importance of trust and trustworthiness in other forms of online relationships that may not necessarily involve a monetary risk (e.g. purchase) but might present other forms of risks, such as privacy intrusion in online social communities, for instance.

Despite the considerable effort made by researchers to understand the context of trust in interpersonal and organizational business relationships, some basic dimensions of trust are still subjects of academic debates, including the definition of trust itself and its influence on the performance of the relationship and the parties involved. In one of the most cited papers on trust, Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman identified trust as "the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party" (1995:712). Despite being considered as a masterpiece in trust literature, one argument that can be made against the definition is whether vulnerability is motivated by a willingness or a need, as a prerequisite in interpersonal relationships as suggested by Rosseau et al (1998:395) in their definition of trust being "a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based on positive expectations of the intentions or behaviour of another".

Does it matter?

To understand the importance of trust, think of the decision of whether or not to initiate a relationship (e.g. purchasing a product or registering at a social networking portal) as being a weighting of two discrete elements: perceived gains and perceived risks (Donald and Stuart 1964, Kaushik, Michelle and Louis 1999 and Salam, Rao and Pegels 2003). This simplified model of decision making is extremely useful in illustrating the importance of trust, which has a direct influence on decision making by reducing the perceived risk or/and increasing the perceived gain. Furthermore, many scholars suggested a positive impact of trust on a relationship, most notably the loyalty of both parties to the relationship (Alhabeeb 2005, Harris and Mark 2004 and Sirdeshmukh and Barry 2002). For these reasons, trust was heavily studied in marketing, not only to understand the benefit of building trust with consumers and business partners, but also on how to build such trust through positioning a business as being trustworthy.

How to gain trust?

Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman 1995, describe trustworthiness as the building block of trust. According to them, it results in the development of a positive perception about an organisation’s capability and message, this view was further reinforced by Benbasat, Gefen and Pavlou (2008). Early literatures on Trustworthiness identify such elements as consistency, responsibility, benevolence, honesty, fairness, problem solving, competence and being helpful as important positive perception builders about an organisation (Altman and Taylor 1973, Dwyer and LaGace 1986, Rotter 1971 and Morgan and Hunt 1994). These elements were subsumed in the three elements of ability, integrity and benevolence, identified by Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman 1995.

Bolton, Loebbecke, and Ockenfels 2008:4 identify ‘reputation’ as a key fundamental in conveying reliability and building trustworthiness, one that tasks the capacity of an organisation to deliver to stakeholders in accordance with their expectation. This view is buttressed by Ennew and Sekhon 2007 who posit that good reputation is the conscious outcome of habitual ‘internal policy’ and ‘external communications’; a view that is consistent with that put forward by Alhabeeb 2008; Doney and Cannon 1997, who opined that for trustworthiness to be effectual, it must be integrated into the core value of an organisation and translate into the day-to-day operations with consumers. Organisations can achieve this by exploring the experiences of users of their product through product reviews and using this as a basis to convey trustworthiness. Bolton, Loebecke, and Ockenfels 2008 show that buyers place more value on reputation over price.

Typically, in online environment, consumers consciously investigate the trustworthiness of an organisation before making a transactional commitment, especially with transactions that involve high risk. However, focusing on positive physical attributes of trustworthiness are not enough. The presence of the elements of ability, integrity, and benevolence does not insulate the consumer from manipulative behaviour. Each of the attributes can be feigned, argues Kramer 2009. In the offline business environment, regulatory authorities are able to institute checks that ensure that companies comply with acceptable practice. However, in the online environment, this is more challenging, and so the risk level for the consumer is higher. One such critical risk element is consumer data security. For instance, DoubleClick, an online advertising agency that keeps track of ‘people’s revealed preferences’ (Zadek 2007: 54) , in pretext, turned around to market this information to other companies, by ‘correlating people’s records of visit to websites with their names and addresses’ (Zadek 2007:54).

Although Buttner and Goritz 2008 argue that Trustworthiness can sometimes play a mediating role between perceived risk and actual purchase, the literature on how consumers can validate the claims of companies focus on third party product reviews, which are based on past experience and are insufficient in their usage to forecast future performance (Kramer 2009). Furthermore, the work of Bolton, Loebecke, and Ockenfels 2008 identify the tendency for organisations to pursue trustworthiness for profit gains alone. The effect is that, consumers, wary of this, usually respond to any change by discontinuing transaction with such organisation. The suggestion however, is that consumers would have to ignore previous losses, a notion which impacts on the consumers future dealing with other organisations by heightening his perception of risk.

Apparently, trust is a critical element in bolstering business relationships as it can result in the creation of loyal customers, highly conscious of the costs of switching from one brand to another. Organisations are the major beneficiaries from such a commitment and so need to work hard in ensuring that they do not leave the customer in doubt of their trustworthiness.

References:

Alhabeeb, M. (2005). Consumer trust and product loyalty. Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Studies 10(1)

Altman, I. and Taylor, D. (1973) ‘Social Penetration’, New York: Holst, Rinehart, Winston

Benbasat, I., Gefen, D. and Pavlou, P. (2008) A Research Agenda for Trust in Online Environments. Journal of Management Information Systems 24(4), 275-286.

Bolton, G., Loebbecke, C. and Ockenfels, A. (2008) Does competition promote trust and trustworthiness in online trading? An experimental study. Journal of Management Information Systems 25(2), 145-169

Buttner, O. and Goritz, A. (2008). Perceived trustworthiness of online shops, Journal of Consumer Behaviour 7: 35-50

Donald, C. and Stuart, R. (1964) Perceived Risk and Consumer Decision-Making: The Case of Telephone Shopping. Journal of Marketing Research (1), 2-39

Doney, P. and Cannon, J. (1997). An Examination of the Nature of Trust in Buyer-Seller Relationships. Journal of Marketing 61, 35-51

Dwyer, F. and LaGace, R.(1986) On the Nature and Role of Buyer-Seller Trust. AMA Educators Conference Proceedings 52, 40-45

Ennew, C. and Sekhon, A.(2007) Measuring trust in financial services: the Trust Index. Consumer Policy Review 17(2), 62-68

Hanai, T. and Oguchi, T. (2009). How do consumers perceive the reliability of online shops?. Cyber-psychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 3(2)

Harris, L. and Mark, G. (2004), “The Four Stages of Loyalty and the Pivotal Role of Trust: A Study of Online Service Dynamics,” Journal of Retailing 80 (2), 139–58

Kaushik M., Michelle, R. and Louis, R. (1999). An examination of perceived risk, information search and behavioural intentions in search, experience and credence services. Journal of Services Marketing 13(3), 208-228

Kramer, R. (2009) Rethinking Trust. Harvard Business Review 87(6), 68-77

Mayer, R., Davis, J. and Schoorman, F. (1995) An integration model of organizational trust. The Academy of Management Review 20(3). 709-734

Morgan, R. and Hunt, S. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing 58, 20-38

Rotter, J. (1971) Generalized expectancies for interpersonal trust. American Psychologist 26, 443-452

Rousseau, D., Sitkin, M., Burt, R., & Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different after all: A cross-discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review, 23(3), 393-404

Salam, A., Rao, H. and Pegels, C. (2003) Consumer-Perceived Risk in E-Commerce Transactions. Communications of the ACM 46(12)

Sirdeshmukh, D. and Barry, S. (2002). Consumer Trust, Value, and Loyalty in Relational Exchange. Journal of Marketing 66 (1), 15–37

Zadek, S. (2007) The Civil Corporation: The New Economy of Corporate Citizenship. London: Earthscan

Best Student Life Slide Show Awards

Interestingly, our best student life slide show poll ended with exactly 100 votes, making it much easier for us to calculate the percentages and the counts of the votes, since would basically be the same. As you can see, the winners are:

1. Cinergi Marketing

2. Emarketing Forensics

3. International Blogger

As much as we would like to believe that we won the competition, we understand that some people might argue the validity of the results and the context of the poll, mainly being hosted on our own blog. In fact, this was one of the reasons why we decided to run the poll at the first place, besides of course increasing traffic to our blog. It is extremely important for us - as marketers and researchers - to understand what attributes can influence our research results. What we did in our is widely used by businesses in their communication campaigns; we often come across ads claiming that 9 out of 10 women would recommend Dove shampoo, for example.

Virtual Revolution: Re-evaluation

The Web projectile that was shot into our orbit 20 years ago has drastically changed human activity on so many levels, opening up a sea of opportunities for trade, communications, networking, entertainment, etc. Perhaps it is the closest we will ever get to a unified world, looped together in a quest for greater independence. This platform has succeeded in shrinking the world into a tiny space where people can move in and out effortlessly. This in it self means the user seemly has control. It is this control, mirrored in the shuffling between sites; that is the underlying motivation for its success. The resultant global culture has altered perspectives, beliefs, values and behaviour. This new culture is fast confining old beliefs to the trashcan of antiquity, raising awareness to new levels and initiating leaps in educational and psychological development, which is indeed gratifying.

However, the independence and control the Web offers, is not the only driving force. Ramachandran 2004 identifies that we are intensely social creatures. So the challenges of social life in reality compel the expansion of the primate brain. For instance the presence of rules, actions and consequences, incites a feeling of repressiveness especially in young people; boredom evokes restlessness, forcing people to identify with anything that offer a form of escapism. The Web became a ready answer, and the extent of reach and the ability to navigate so effortlessly makes it ‘the perfect place to be’. Facebook as a service, if nothing, is curbing people of boredom. The addiction that has resulted from such services perhaps mirrors their value, and no doubt presents an opportunity for businessmen. Therefore, the ‘information bombardment’ on the Web is akin to the marketplace-madness that is competition. It is the era of the free-markets. And the Web offers one advantage that companies in free-markets pine for – the absence of rules and regulations. The web is nothing more than a remodelling of the real world, and holds a perpetual enticement as long as the barriers to entry remain low.

Businesses are major benefactors of the Web fad. It is not a secret that commercial interest – mainly represented by a large stream of advertising dollars – was a core element responsible for funding and sustaining the growth of online applications, communities and services. As a result, online advertising is often criticized for supplying the vast development of online applications, most notably social networks which became the engine of behavioural targeting. The idea was simple; get as many users as you can, encourage them to share their lifestyle, habits, behaviours and attitudes and use these to precisely target various segments with relevant advertising messages. Despite the ethical controversy surrounding the topic and the criticisms of privacy violation, there is another reason why businesses should rethink online behavioural targeting: efficiency.

According to one of the major online advertising agencies, Adteck, the average click through rate declined from 0.34% by 2004 to 0.19% in 2008, a trend that was based on more than 10 billion web inquiries (Adteck 2009). Similarly, Business Week (2006) reported a drop of 70% in the Click through Rates for Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL during 2006. According to many scholars (e.g. Yan et al 2009 and Goldsmith and Lafferty 2002), highly targeted ads may generate a click through rate of 0.7%, which is still low compared. Thanks to pay per click mechanisms, advertisers do not need to worry about the Click through Rate, but the essential question here is what would be the future of online advertising? With the increasing decline in click through rate, are we training users to simply ignore advertising messages online? A study conducted by Goldsmith and Lafferty (2002) found a very low recall rate for online advertising compared to other media tools such as TV, Magazines, Newspapers and Radio. Considering the previously mentioned trends, one scenario that is likely to happen is a further drop of click through rates to zero levels and the failure of online campaigns in meeting the advertiser’s targets. Such scenario basically means the end of online advertising and probably the stoppage of funding for most online service and social networks such as Google, Facebook among others and probably the end of the internet as we know. Some people actually think that the decline in online advertising efficiency may lead to a new era of paid internet access.

A sordid future is presented in the study given the spate of addiction that services like Facebook has sparked. The question of whether Facebook makes friendships meaningless is misplaced. Facebook and services like it do not make choices for people; they simply offer them a platform. True. we are inundated daily by more information than we can deal with; however, they all add up to one thing –‘more choice’.

REFERENCES

Ramachandran, V. (2004) Neuroscience - the New Philosophy, BBC Lectures [Online] Available from

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecture5.shtml (3/03/10)

Goldsmith, R. and Lafferty, B. (2002) Consumer response to websites and their influence on advertising effectiveness, Journal of Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, 12(4), 318-328

Adtech 2009, Adtech 8^th Newsletter [Online] Available from [http://www.adtech.com/edition_no8_int/newsletter_Feb09_CTR.htm] (02/03/10)

Business Week 2006, So Many Ads – So Few Clicks [online] Available from: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_46/b4058053.htm (03/03/10)

Yan, J., Liu, N., Wang, G., Zhang, W., Jiang, Y. and Chen, Z. (2009), How Much Can Behavioural Targeting Help Online Advertising, Madrid: WWW 2009

E-Marketing for SMEs: Untapped Opportunity

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises are facing increasing challenges and aggressive competition larger corporations, which enjoys higher resources, advanced know-how and scale economies. A recent report by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills illustrates this frightening reality; while SMEs accounted for 99.9% of the total enterprises in the UK, they were only responsible 50.1% of the private sector turnover, meaning that the remaining 0.1% which are large enterprises are controlling a massive 49.9% of the sector’s turnover.

The chart below highlights one of the main advantages for large enterprises compared to small and medium ones: efficiency. With only 41% of the private sector’s employment, large enterprises managed to generate around 50% of the sector’s turnover, compared to 37% of the turnover generated by 48% of the employment at small enterprises.

Adoption of E-marketing techniques can benefit SMEs in various aspects, mainly:

Cost Efficiency: Despite the difficulty of quantifying the impact of advertising on share of mind and sales, it is expected that online advertising is 50% more efficient in generating sales than offline advertising and 34% more efficient in acquiring share of mind (Evans 2008 and Hollis 2005), in addition, online advertising employs sophisticated techniques such as pay per click and pay per action. However, cost efficiency advantage of online marketing is not limited to advertising, cost efficiency is one of the main drivers for e-commerce; through establishing virtual sales channels, SMEs can dramatically reduce the overhead costs of rents, wages and so forth.

Targeted Reach: One of the unique characteristics of e-marketing is the high level of targeting it facilitates. SMEs can now optimize their budgets towards very specific targets, for example SMEs can now target specific geographic locations, or defined interest groups, even more, SMEs can utilize behavioural targeting to approach consumer targets based on their internet surfing habits or interests (Poole 2009). Instead of mass targeting, e-marketing enable SMEs to target only those who are more likely to become consumers or who have the intention of utilizing a specific product or service. In addition, the fact that internet has no geographic location allows SMEs to develop new markets

Market Development: E-marketing platforms offer Small and Medium Enterprises the advantage of global reach. It simply means that with a tool like the website, an SME can reach anyone in the world who has internet access, 24-hours of the day. This enables the organisation to find new markets and compete worldwide with limited investment, and enables customers find out about your products even if physical accessibility to the store or the office is not possible.

Economies of Scale: Economies of scale is one of the main advantages large enterprises have over smaller ones, however, many platforms on the internet enables SME to become an affective part of a larger virtual market place or distribution channel. Similar to the physical markets, the modern internet space is d ominated by several companies such as Google, Amazon and Ebay (see video below for more details), such platforms enable SME to capitalize on the scale of these companies through – for example – selling its products on Amazon or link its website with Google.

Interactivity: Although traditional marketing is mainly focused on communicating brand value to customers, E-marketing initiates conversations between companies and its audience. With a two-way communication channel, companies can respond speedily to the needs of consumers, and constantly adapt to their changing expectations. By closing the gap between making information available and eliciting a reaction from consumers, consumer purchase turn-around-time is speeded up and promotion spend can go much further in creating instant leads.

Measurability: Online marketing can provide a substantial knowledge to SMEs on the impact of its e-marketing activities; through using advanced web analytics software, SMEs can understand the impact of each activity on share of voice, interest and information gathering and – most importantly – purchase (Learmonth and Klaassen 2009). Such knowledge enables SMEs to optimize their marketing expenditures and generate higher responses.

References:

Poon, S. and Huang, X. (2004) ‘E-Commerce and SMEs: A Reflection and the Way Ahead. In Electronic commerce in small to medium-sized enterprises. Ed by Qirimi, N. New York: Idea Publishing, 17-28

Gilmore, A., Gallagher, D. and Henry, S. (2008) E-marketing and SMEs: operational lessons for the future. London: Emerald Publishing

Evans, D. (2008) The Economics of Online Advertising, Review of Network Economics 7(3)

Hollis, N. (2005) Ten Years of Learning: How Online Advertising Builds Brands, Journal of Advertising Research 45(2)

Poole, K. (2009) Online Behavioural Targeting, EContent 32(7)

Learmonth, M. and Klaassen, A. (2009) Taking online-ad measurement beyond the click, Advertising Age 80(18)

Chaffey et'al (2003) Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation & Practice. London: Prentice Hall

Mobile vs Mobile

The Laptop – being the mobile PC solution, and the Smartphone, both portable devices are indispensable tools of general business productivity. According to a recent consumer survey, 81% of executives globally, rely on these tools (Friedman and Hoffman 2008). However, a research on the rate of usability by country shows that preference for PCs as a means of surfing the internet in developed markets like the U.S. and Canada, is growing stronger compared to the cell phones (Ipsos 2006). Although, the research did raise the possibility of the cell phone overtaking the PC market in the future, the

technological gap between these two devices implies the contrary. Proponents of the cell phone’s potential to succeed the laptop, argue in favour of its offering of the basic functionalities sought by consumers such as internet browsing, watching videos and basic connectivity tools like e-mail or chat. In addition, they criticize Laptops as being deficient in meeting consumers’ expectations of mobility, mainly due to its size and short battery life while praising smartphones on the other hand, for addressing these needs.

It is true that smartphones capabilities have been rapidly developed, making some of the smartphones in the market a power match for some laptops in terms of processing and internet capabilities. However, the processing ability and storage capacity of cell phones makes it an inadequate replacement to the Laptop. The TC HD2 is the phone with the fastest processor with 1GHZ speed and 448MB RAM (www.phonegg.com). Therefore, smartphones can be impractical in handling large files and advanced applications, as these processes require large memory space, which the PCs possess. Another limitation for using smartphones as a replacement for PC lies in the connectivity of these devices, as full scale GPRS, WAP and 3G connections requires substantial investments in networking and security infrastructures.

The pace of innovations in mobile technologies carries a promising future for the smartphones, however, laptops are also undergoing substantial innovations that software developers utilize in driving higher market demand for latest technologies. This is clearly highlighted by the development of external storage from floppy disks to CD ROM, DVD and BLURAY and the major software upgrades accompanying such storage mediums.

More innovations are taking place. Although, it is a fact that companies like Google, Dell and Apple are making extensive foray into the smartphone market; Google with its Android platform, Dell with the Mini 3, and Apple investing continuously in augmenting its iPhone. However, this is not enough to conclude that the days of Laptops are soon to be over.

For instance, Apple’s latest revelation, the iPad, a small powerful handheld computer that offers the benefit of flexibility and portability among other things, is a reflection of the company’s belief in the longevity of the Laptop market, a notion that sees Buyya et’al (2008) ranking computing as the 5^th utility after such essentials as gas, water, electricity, and telephony. The demand for PCs in developing markets such as India rose by 5.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2009 (Business Standard Feb 17, 2010). In Brazil, the market is anticipated to grow by 12% over the 2009-2013 periods.

Another threat to smartphones would be user privacy; the reliance on wireless netwroks makes smartphones more vulnerable to connection interceptions, unlike the more reliable cable connections used by most business and household users. In addition, global positioning service that allows usage even in the remotest parts of the earth, which is one of the main advantages for smartphones, can be easily abused by individuals and organizations to track users. In fact, a move has already been initiated by the US government to this end, claiming that such records would be utilized in fighting terrorism (Pearson & Milford 2010).

The vision of the Smartphone replacing the PC might only be possible through the merging of the technological advancement and user practicality of PCs with the mobility of smartphones, resulting in a hybrid device similar to Apple’s iPad.

It is difficult to separate between the laptop and the smartphone; after all, the smartphone is one variety of PC, just like desktop and laptop, yet with GSM capabilities a feature which many laptops nowadays have.

Useful Links

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/indian-pc-market-grows-52-in-q2/71920/on

http://www.ipsosna.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?&id=3049

A Day in Our Life