Term Paper on "Social Determinants"

Term Paper 3 pages (1285 words) Sources: 5 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Social Determinants Driving Success of Windows Vista

When considering the consumer choice of Microsoft Windows Vista over other operating systems, especially since in April, 2007, the new system was responsible for a profit surge through upgrades (Birmingham Post, 2007, p. 21); the question becomes one of consumer mind. What are the social determinants that drive consumers' choice of Windows Vista? The answer is one that has long been studied by marketing analysts and manufacturers, and Microsoft seems to have a good understanding of those social determinants since Windows Vista has operated the company into profits amounting to billions of dollars (Birmingham Post, 2007, p. 21).

The Social Determinants

The first social determinant is ethnicity, and the increased purchasing power of the Black community (Chin, 2001, p. 1). The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s served as the slingshot for Black consumerism in areas other than technology and computers. However, as entertainment has become increasingly technological in nature, so has the need to understand and become proficient in technology.

Simultaneous with the increased income of the Black community is technological advancement in computers.

The purchasing power the Black community in the past two decades has been significant amongst young Black adolescents and teenagers and college students.

While there are few significant studies as regards the Black community and Microsoft Vista specifically, the measurable increase in Black family incomes and the advancement in technology that has seen computers become a product found in most homes in America. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the purchasing power of the Black community has contributed to the success of Microsoft Vista operating system.

A second social determinant is that the computer has become an important symbol of contemporary culture (Lally, 2002, p. 2). For this reason, "They are brought into the domestic space as mass produced objects, but they also provide a point of articulation into the outside world, through the channel that they establish into the home for mass media and other messages (p. 2)."

Computer technology is taught in most schools today, beginning as early as kindergarten. Microsoft technology is the main operating system of most state and federal government agencies, including schools. So, when children are learning computer technology, they are learning the Microsoft technology. Researchers Betty a. Collis, Gerald a. Knezek, Kwok-Wing Lai, Keiko T. Miya*****a, Willem J. Pelgrum Tjeerd, and Takashi Sakamoto (1996) say:

As typical examples, within a few months in 1994, in popular newspapers in countries as geographically dispersed as the United States, Canada, Brazil, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, China, and Hong Kong, we have seen on an almost daily basis articles referring to the Internet, to working and learning at home via a multimedia "information highway," to new computer products such as CD-ROMs and new operating systems and new types of computer software to support group work and distributed computing. We have come to expect that we can communicate with people around the world, at our convenience, in a variety of ways. These of course include ordinary postal service, but increasingly just as likely, are the telephone, facsimile transmission (fax), electronic mail (e-mail), and now, just emerging, new forms of "telepresence" such as desktop conferencing (p. 1)."

Through the educational system, teaching children as young as kindergarten computer technology, and technology that depends, in most instances, on Microsoft operating systems and upgrades (Vista); young children have become, like the Black community, a new market segment of purchasing power in the sales of computers that are pre-installed with the Vista operating system.

Finally, and perhaps the most significant social determinant is that Windows Vista is an operating that is convenient to consumers by virtue of its familiarity to them. That the Microsoft product comes installed on most new computers is no doubt the single biggest driving factor behind consumer use and choice. On products that… READ MORE

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