How do you retain customers when they have the freedom to switch channels each time there’s an advertisement on television? Steve Jobs, that master of innovation at Apple Computers seems to have found a way out. Just build it into the computer’s operating system! ‘Apple plans to embed ads in operating system’, October 25 provides a frightening glimpse of what the future holds.
Jobs, it appears, has applied for a patent for what he calls ‘advertisement in an operating system’. So, each time you boot your Apple Mac, you could get an advertisement — and since you have nowhere to go, you have no option but to see the ad. It would be ironical, of course, if Microsoft booked space on such ads!
Prakash Gupta, New Delhi
Readers should write to:
The Editor, Business Standard,
Nehru House,
4, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg,
New Delhi 110 002,
Fax: (011) 23720201;
letters@bsmail.in