IT Managed Service
One must always see the silver lining in a bad situation, and in this case, traffic jams. Today was one of those days. Fortunately, I had Ben in the car and we both killed time discussing and debating anything that came to mind. It was fun sparring with Ben – it sure as hell beats sitting alone in a traffic jam!
The topic we discussed most was how Apple (with iPods and iPhones) has managed to lock their consumers in with iTunes. We both agreed a phone can be sleeker, faster and shinier (um, the two that come to mind are Motorola DRIED and Samsung EXTINCT HD) but there is one thing which they can’t topple overnight and that is iTunes. I’m not saying everyone on the street owns an iPhone; Nokia is still the current market leader for smartphones (based on Q2 figures) …sorry my mind wanders…this wasn’t even the real issue I meant to bring up but you get the point, right? Gigantic applications and music vault available at your fingertips give reason to own the device…and keep it!
(Forget the rest, the real discussion starts here.)
From there, Ben and I started talking about how record labels (EMI, BMG, SONY etc) should have spent more time collaborating and building on ideas like iTunes when Napster and Kazaa were making headlines. Instead, record labels felt it was better off to battle piracy. Court cases, legal documents – weapons of the past which they were familiar with. It was a foregone conclusion – sure, they did win some court cases, but everyone knows the record labels were fighting a battle with catapults and arrows when the P2P applications were soaring 30,000 feet above sea level. They weren’t even fighting the same battle! Meanwhile, the P2P applications just kept growing and growing, and eventually led to torrents! Yeeehawwwww!
Although Napster and Kazaa seems like oh-so-very-long-ago, one must remember this happened during a time when broadband was just starting to take off and a large number of people were still on 56k dial-up (well, I was, at that point in time). Audio files like mp3s were ideal files to share because they weren’t too large compared to the proportion of bandwidth available. Fast forward a few years and we’ve got blazing fast bandwidth (not in Malaysia though) and people are exchanging movies. What are the major film studios (FOX, Warner Bros., Paramount etc) doing about it? Piracy crackdown all over again! Court cases, legal documents – pretty much the same old story. I would have imagined the lessons learnt from the music industry would have had all these big boys scrambling and collaborating to beef up the hottest and newest movie vault but … *shrugs* … too late. Why haven’t we, or rather THEY, learnt from previous costly mistakes?
(Here comes the part where I try to sell you something!)
Every couple of weeks, I am bound to bump into a small- to medium-sized company that is plagued with incompetent IT support services. Most of the time, the problems they face are pretty much the same. These companies have 15 to 50 employees and most of these employees have computers. A company this size does not have the means to hire a full-blown IT Department with a growth strategy and work methodology, so they engage a young technically sound guy* to maintain their IT infrastructure. It takes the technician a few months to stabilise the entire infrastructure and just as he is starting to become useful, he gets bored without a leader to push him, without colleagues who speak the same lingo, without a proper training plan for him to upgrade his skills, and soon decides to resign. The company, then, goes through a messy period of about 2 months or so before they find the next replacement, and the cycle repeats itself. This is not only disruptive to the business operations but highly costly as well. Strangely enough, while important lessons should have been learnt and new strategies applied to fix the problem, these companies are quite happy to repeat this costly and painful process.
Fortunately, Integricity Technology can fix this! Our team provides “IT Managed Service”, which basically means you let us worry about your IT infrastructure. Our team is well-trained (yes, we have the relevant certifications to back us) and we CAN end this painful cycle of rehiring and retraining technical people for your company! End your misery and read more about our “IT Managed Service” here. Let us fight your battles with the right solutions and tools!
*Note: Based on the cases mentioned, all the technical people were guys! So I’m not being sexist! Purely factual.
ikram February 9, 2010 at 10:54 am
It sounds as if you’re saying piracy is ok and the industry shouldnt be fighting it but embracing it.
the recording labels had a right to fight cause they knew if the trend continued, who would care about being music, let alone a single when people can get it for free. You can expect fans to be loyal fans anymore.
Plus back then, the digital platform wasnt like how it is now. Itunes I guess is a hit but someone told me even they are not really making money but perhaps that might change since they’re offering more than just songs now.
Same goes for Paramount, FOX, they have to battle piracy. You dont see it here, but in the states, they even had a short ad before your movie in the cinema where a lighting guy was telling how he loved working on the set of war of the worlds. it was heartwarming to understand that piracy and illegal downloads could threaten his work that he loved so much.
Its the same inconvenient truth. People don’t care if they can download it for free.