How New Technology Will Affect the Company, Business, and Industry Essay (Article)

Apple launched its new iPad, which has become the latest buzz in the technology-driven business platform (Arends). This new toy from Apple is a touch-screen tablet computer, half-inch thick, and appears like a giant iPhone (Waters and Menn). The new technology is expected to change the future for print media as it is believed that in a year when even the late adopters will accept the new technology, the technology will bring back paid subscriptions (Kunz). Therefore, it is believed that the iPad will be priced heftily high in the beginning, and by the end of the year, the price of the product will come down. However, will this technology really change the user experience and multimedia, as many believe?

The new technology has the potential to change the way multimedia will be used in the future. Initially, the company will price the product very high as analysts believe. The company announced that the lowest version would cost $499 (Arends). However, the handheld will become costlier for higher memory versions. So it is belied that “If someone buys the basic 16-gigabyte model with 3G, they will pay $629 up front—plus $30 a month from AT&T for unlimited data. Cost for a year: $360. Add that to your initial $629 and your cost is… $989, plus tax” (Arends). Therefore, it is believed that for the early adopters the overall cost will come to $1000. Further, a rise in the bandwidth prices by the network operators is anticipated due to tupfrontdy clogged networks due to over usage of iPhone in the 3G network (Arends). Therefore, even though the initial cost of purchase will not be very high for early adopters but usage costs will be.

The shareholders of the company are also happy as the stock prices of Apple rose in anticipation of the new technology announcement (Arends). The company, however, has not announced any dividend for the stockholders, even though it has a share price of $43.

Amazon is a major competitor of iPad with its Kindle eBook reader (Ali). The main selling point of the new technology is its multipurpose nature while Kindle sells on its unique reading experience for readers. However, many believe that Amazon Kindle will be “dead” due to the multifunction device of Apple (Ali). However, traditionalist readers believe that many readers do not want a multipurpose device distracting the reader. The main problem that Amazon will face is due to their high share prices, which are presently trading at 40 times higher than their earnings per share (Arends).

The new technology can accommodate around 140000 applications and the application makers like video game companies, or media firms believe that it will be an easy task to make applications for the smaller screen size of the iPad (Kane). However, the technology has certain drawbacks, which do not allow the applications to run in the background as is done on a laptop. Further, the application makers feel other features like the camera, are missing, which will make Skype redundant due to the unavailability of the videoconferencing facility. Even though adopting the small screen mode will not be difficult for the application makers, however, some may refrain to make an application for the new Apple technology due to the unavailability of features in the device. Multimedia providers, especially newspapers and TV channels are expected to reap from the subscription-based model of business using the new technology platform.

iPad is supposed to be a boom for network companies (Arends). In either case, it will increase the demand for bandwidth from network providers like At&T. even networks that do not provide 3G and those who missed on the iPhone and iPad will also benefit, as increased traffic will make users switch to other networks. Therefore, overall the network companies will benefit from the new technology and will be able to increase their prices in the end.

The new technology from Apple is a boon for some and a bane for others. However, mostly the industry has a mixed feeling towards it, as is seen in the case of most new technologies. Nevertheless, the technology is definitely a new turn towards mobile computers, which will evolve greatly in near future.

Works Cited

Ali, Sarmad. “IPad vs. Kindle. Who Wins?” 2010. The Wall Street Journal. Web.

Arends, Brett. “What Apple’s iPad Means for Your Wallet.” 2010. The Wall Street Journal. Web.

Kane, Yukari Iwatani. “Apple’s iPad Changes the Landscape for App Makers.” 2010. The Wall Street Journal. Web.

Kunz, Ben. “Five Ways the ‘iPad’ May Change the World.” 2010. BusinessWeek [Retreived from EBSCO]. Web.

Waters, Richard and Joseph Menn. “Jobs unveils ‘revolutionary’ Apple iPad.” 2010. Financial Times. Web.