MANIPAL IT EDUCATION

CENTRE CODE No: 109

“A STUDY ON SERVICE PERCEPTION BY CONSUMER

RELATING TO BRANDED/ASSEMBLED PC VENDORS
IN CHENNAI CITY.”

By
RASIAH THANANCHEYAN
Roll no: 520217690

A project report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

Master of Business Administration
Of Sikkim Manipal University, INDIA.

Sikkim-Manipal University of Health, Medical and Technological

sciences
Distance Education wing
Syndicate House
Manipal-576119
 DECLARATION

I here by declare that the project report entitled

“A STUDY ON SERVICE PERCEPTION BY CONSUMER

RELATING TO BRANDED/ASSEMBLED PC VENDORS
IN CHENNAI CITY.”

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

of

Masters of Business Administration

To Sikkim-Manipal University, India, is my original work and not

submitted for the award of any other degree, diploma, fellowship,
or any other similar title or prizes.

Place: RASIAH THANANCHEYAN

Date: Roll no: 520217690
 Examiner’s Certificate

The project report of

RASIAH THANANCHEYAN
Roll no: 520217690

“A STUDY ON SERVICE PERCEPTION BY CONSUMER

RELATING TO BRANDED/ASSEMBLED PC VENDORS
IN CHENNAI CITY.”

Is approved and is acceptable in quality and form

Internal Examiner External Examiners

S. MAHENDRA PRABU,
M.A.,P.G.D.P.M (MBA),P.G.D.P.I.R
HEAD
DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES
JJ COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE
PUDUKOTTAI,
TAMIL NADU.
 This is to certify that the project report entitled

“A STUDY ON SERVICE PERCEPTION BY CONSUMER

RELATING TO BRANDED/ASSEMBLED PC VENDORS
IN CHENNAI CITY.”

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Masters of Business Administration of
Sikkim-Manipal University of Health, Medical and Technological Sciences

RASIAH THANANCHEYAN
Has worked under my supervision and guidance and that no part of this
report has been submitted for the award of any other Degree, Diploma,
Fellowship or other similar titles or prizes and that the work has not been
published in any Journal or Magazine.

Roll no: 520217690

Certified
S. MAHENDRA PRABU,
M.A.,P.G.D.P.M (MBA),P.G.D.P.I.R
HEAD
DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES
JJ COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE
PUDUKOTTAI, TAMIL NADU.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I express my sincere thanks to the Manipal University authorities and

the Trichy Study Center for having accorded me an opportunity to do
this project work

I extend my whole-hearted thanks to my guide

Prof. S. Mahendra Prabu Head, Department of Management Studies,
JJ College of Arts and Science Pudukottai, Tamil Nadu for his
proactive approach kind gestures and valuable guidance.

I sincerely thank Ms. Manju, for her incomparable helps all through the
task

I am very grateful to my parents, my friends and other family members

for the moral support extended to me

I am extremely thankful to all the respondents for their kind

cooperation and sincerity.
 Table of contents

Page No.

Executive Summary
01
Part I

History of Computer 04

Part II

Project overview 31
Introduction
Aims and Objectives 33
Methodology 35
Limitation of the Study 38
Analysis and Interpretation 40
Findings 100
Suggestions and Conclusions 105

Part III

Appendix 107
Bibliography 113
References 115
1
 Executive Summary

The science and technology has advanced nowadays and conquered man’s
day-to-day life. They have made significant impact on every human
endeavour.

Of late the computer has become a part of every human activity. It simplifies
the human activity and helps man in dynamic field like education, business,
information technology and so on. In many areas computers replace manual
operations.

After the arrival of the computer, the manual work, probable human errors,
maintaining number of records and files, deskwork etc. are completely made
easier. Once if we start using computers in our life in business, education or
personal it stores it in its memory. We can retrieve any data or part of
information in a minute any time we require and by this, time and labour are
minimized, strain incurred is reduced, accuracy and clarity maintained

2
In this regard many MNCs are producing the computers and many
companies are producing various components of the computer and get
assembled by a company and sold by them with brand name. Likewise many
local unregistered companies purchase the components of the computer and
assemble them and sell to the company with out brand name.

The people are buying computers from the local companies also though they
are unregistered, these facts intuited me to analyse the reason why the people
are going with these unregistered companies? What is the real insight of
consumers while selecting the company in terms of their after sales services?

The research design adopted for this study is exploratory in nature. The
nature of data used for this study is primary data. The source of data is from
the general public depending on whether they own computers or not.
Samples of 62 were personally interviewed with the help of Questionnaire in
order to elicit the required information. The type of a sampling used is
convenience sampling. The responses have been analyzed and suggestions
have been made on the basis of the finding of the study.

3
4
 The History Of Computers
The First General Purpose Microprocessor - The Intel 4004

By the time I was born (1972), Intel had already released the
world's first generally available DRAM chip (the Intel 1103),
and the world's first EPROM (the Intel 1702).

In 1971, responding to a request for a chip for a new

calculator, and with incredible overkill, Intel built the world's
first single chip general purpose microprocessor. Then it bought back the
rights for $60,000. The 4-bit Intel 4004 ran at a clock speed of 108 kHz and
contained 2300 transistors. It processed data in 4 bits, but its instructions
were 8 bits long. The 4004 addressed up to 1 Kb of program memory and up
to 4 Kb of data memory (as separate entities). It had sixteen 4-bit (or eight 8-
bit) general purpose registers, and an instruction set containing 46
instructions.

UNIX and the C Programming Language

Meanwhile, at the other end of the industry, two talented programmers at

AT&T Bell Laboratories (Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie) invented the
C programming language. C was far from being the first high level
language, but its pointer arithmetic and low-level approach made it the first
language which could completely replace assembly language programming,
even for most of the internals of an operating system. C was the first systems
programming language - no longer did an operating system need to be tied to
a particular piece of hardware.
Simultaneously, other programmers at Bell Labs were busy building
MULTICS - the ultimate operating system. In a rebellion against the size
and complexity of MULTICS, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie began
building the UNIX operating system. Thanks to the C language, less than
two man years were spent on the main system software. Several of the key
features of UNIX - multitasking (which they called time-sharing), virtual
memory, multi-user design and security - did not reach the personal
computer market for another ten years, and didn't reach the mainstream IBM
PC for almost twenty.

UNIX began life in 1970 on Digital's PDP-7, but it soon migrated to the
larger PDP-11. By the time UNIX began to become popular (1974), a well
configured PDP-11 had 768 Kb of core memory, two 200 Mb moving head
disks (hard disks), a reel to reel tape drive for backup purposes, a dot-matrix
line printer and a bunch of [dumb] terminals. This was a high end machine,
and even a minimally configured PDP-11 cost about $40,000. Despite the
cost, 600 such installations had been put into service by the end of 1974,
mostly at universities.

The C language went on to become the dominant language used for both
systems and application development in the 1980's. UNIX and the C
language were intimately tied from the very beginning - the standard C
library was essentially the original UNIX operating system API.

The Winchester Hard Disk Drive

In 1973, IBM developed what is considered to be the first true sealed hard
disk drive. The drive was called the "Winchester" after the rifle of the same
name. It used two 30 Mb platters. Over the following decade, sealed hard
disks (often called Winchester disks) took their place as the primary data
storage medium, initially in mainframes, then in minicomputers, and finally
in personal computers starting with the IBM PC/XT in 1983. By the late
1980's hard disk capacity had improved by almost a thousand fold, with
single hard disks able to store Gigabytes of data.

CP/M

Developed by Gary Kildall in 1974, CP/M stood for Control Program for
Microcomputers. It was the first operating system to run on machines from
different vendors. It also became the preferred operating system for software
development on small systems. In the mid 1970's, CP/M looked like it would
rule forever, but unfortunately the early personal computers chose not to use
CP/M, electing instead to provide a BASIC interpreter as their primary
"operating system".

The First Personal Computer - MITS Altair

Although the Altair wasn't actually the first personal computer, it was the
first to grab attention. MITS sold 2000 of them in 1975 - more than any
computer before it. Costing only $439, the Altair was a kit which you had to
build yourself. It was based on Intel's 8-bit 8080 processor and included
256 bytes of memory (expandable to a few Kb), a set of toggle switches and
an LED panel. If you wanted a keyboard, screen or storage device you had
to buy expansion cards! For 4 and 8 Kb Altairs, MITS offered a BASIC
interpreter. This interpreter was the first product developed by Bill Gates'
and Paul Allen's new company, Microsoft.
Vector Supercomputers Arrive - The Cray-1

In 1976, Seymour Cray founded Cray Research and introduced the Cray-1,
the fastest computer in the world at that time. The Cray-1 had the
historically unique distinction of being simultaneously the fastest in the
world, the most expensive, and the computer with the best
price/performance.

The Cray-1 wasn't the first vector computer, but it was the first to have fast
normal (scalar) performance as well as fast vector performance. Its efficient,
pipelined design meant that the Cray-1 did everything fast. This was
probably the most significant reason for its success - some customers bought
it even though their problems were not vectorizable, purely for its fast
general performance. Whatever the reason, the Cray-1 was the first
successful vector supercomputer, and created a whole new market for high
end vector machines and vectorizing compilers.

The Apple II

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak's Apple II was really the beginning of the
personal computer boom. It debuted at the first West Coast Computer Faire
in San Francisco in 1977. With a built-in
keyboard, graphics display, and BASIC built into
ROM, the Apple II was actually useful.
The Apple II was based on a MOS 6502 processor, had color graphics (a
huge innovation), and used an audio cassette drive for storage. In its original
configuration with just 4 Kb of RAM it cost $1298. A year later this was
increased to 48 Kb of RAM with the introduction of the Apple II+. The
cassette drive didn't work very well so in the end most Apple II owners
bought the floppy disk drive when it was released in 1978.

MOS Technology's 6502 processor was chosen for the first Apple
computers not because it was powerful, but because it was cheap. Introduced
in 1975 at under $100 (compared with $375 for the similar Motorola 6800),
the 6502 was a real bargain. The 6502 only had three 8-bit registers
(accumulator, X and Y) plus an 8-bit stack pointer, but this made sense
because at that time RAM was actually faster than processors, so it was
better to optimize for RAM access rather than increase the number of
registers on the chip. The instruction set contained 56 instructions which
used 9 addressing modes. For a whole generation of programmers (myself
included), 6502 assembly language was the second programming language
they learned (BASIC was the first). Fifteen years later, the 6502 was still
being used (in the Nintendo Entertainment System).
The Commodore PET

The PET was the beginning of a line of low cost

Commodore computers which brought computing to
the masses. Like the Apple II, the PET ran on the MOS
6502, but the PET cost only $795, which made it
almost half the price of the Apple II. It included 4 Kb of RAM, monochrome
graphics, and used an audio cassette drive for data storage. It also included a
version of BASIC in ROM. The keyboard, cassette drive and small
monochrome display all fit within the same trapezoidal one piece unit.

The Radio Shack TRS-80

Still in 1977, the TRS-80 (lovingly called the Trash-80) was the third of the
first three consumer ready personal computers. The base unit was essentially
a thick keyboard with 4 Kb of RAM and 4 Kb of ROM (which included
BASIC). An optional expansion box enabled memory expansion. Software
was distributed on audio cassettes played in from Radio Shack cassette
recorders. Although it had some following, the TRS-80 was soundly
defeated in the marketplace by the Apple II, and later by the Commodore 64.

Digital's VAX - The Minicomputer Revolution

Although UNIX started life in 1970 on Digital's PDP-11, Digital's VAX

(introduced in 1977) became the dominant processor used to power the
UNIX and VMS minicomputers which started the demise of the mainframe.
VAX stood for Virtual Address eXtension to the PDP-11, and was a large
and complex 32-bit CISC architecture. Processors which implemented the
VAX architecture went through many revisions during its 20 year lifetime,
and used a wide range of single and multi chip technologies. VAX
processors scaled up to huge departmental super-minicomputers, and down
to small desktop workstations. Despite this, the VAX architecture remained
relatively stable throughout its lifetime, a testimony to its design.

Many people consider the VAX to be the ultimate CISC architecture - it had
a huge number of instructions (over 300), including instructions for string
manipulation, polynomial evaluation, and BCD. Most instructions could
specify their arguments using any of the 13 addressing modes, allowing for
memory-to-memory-to-memory operations! However, the complex
instructions were not always the fastest way of doing things. For example,
the INDEX instruction was 45% to 60% faster when by replaced by simpler
VAX instructions. This was one inspiration for the RISC philosophy.
Writing a compiler which did good instruction selection for the VAX was
non-trivial.

The VAX-11/780 was introduced in 1977 at an entry price of about

$200,000. The 11/780 had the distinction of being labeled as the speed
benchmark for 1 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second), even though its
actual execution speed was only about 0.5 MIPS. Some people justified this
by saying that 500,000 VAX instructions were equivalent to a million
instructions for most other architectures (although I don't think it was quite
that bad). Actually, the 1 MIPS label came from the fact that the VAX-
11/780 was about the same speed as the IBM 370/158, which IBM marketed
as a 1 MIPS machine. The VAX-11/780 became far more popular than the
370/158, so it ended up being the base machine for the relative MIPS
measure and later the SPEC89 and SPEC92 benchmark suites.

VisiCalc

VisiCalc (released in 1979 running on an Apple II) was what really made
people look at personal computers as business tools, not just toys. It was a
very simple spreadsheet, but it did useful things and made life easier.
VisiCalc was a godsend for Wall Street users. If the Apple II was the father
of all personal computers, VisiCalc was the father of all personal
productivity software.

The IBM RS/6000

In the early 1980's IBM had been right at the forefront

of RISC research with the IBM 801 project led by
John Cocke, but it took IBM a long time to produce a
successful RISC product. IBM's first commercial
RISC, the RT PC, was a flop, but IBM kept trying. Its
second commercial RISC product, the RISC System
6000 introduced in 1990, was a good one. The RS/6000 workstation's multi
chip POWER1 processor was the first super scalar RISC processor, and
racked up speed records in many areas. With over 100 instructions, the
POWER architecture barely qualified as a RISC (it even included string
operations), but its price was very competitive. IBM used its influence to
push for third party software support, and as a result many CAD and
scientific applications were ported to RS/6000 workstations running AIX,
IBM's version of UNIX.
Microsoft Windows 3

As its name implies, Windows 3 was not the first release of Microsoft's
Windows graphical user interface for PC's. Windows had originally been
released in 1985. However, in the past Windows had looked ugly, run
slowly and had very little support from third party software developers.

Windows 3 was different. It was still

16-bit, but the user interface was
completely revamped to mimic the
look and feel of IBM's as-yet
unreleased OS/2 with its 3D sculpted
buttons. The 640 Kb memory limit was
broken (sort of), resulting in better
performance and finally giving PC's the chance to run large graphical
applications. Multiple programs could be run simultaneously, and although
this wasn't true preemptive multitasking it was a big step forward.
Virtual memory was also provided.

Most important of all, however, was that at its big launch in May 1990,
Microsoft was able to parade an impressive lineup of major software
vendors with applications which ran under Windows 3. Among these were
versions of the Microsoft Word word processor and Microsoft Excel
spreadsheet, which went on to dominate the personal word processing and
spreadsheet markets on both Microsoft Windows and the Apple Macintosh.
The bottom line was that a PC running Windows 3 was now almost as easy
to use as an Apple Macintosh. Because of this, Windows swept through the
PC world like wildfire, and within a year nearly everyone was running it on
their PC's. In 1992, version 3.1 was released, which added TrueType fonts
and provided better stability, further narrowing the gap between Windows
and the Mac. This was followed by Windows 3.1.1 (marketed as Windows
for Workgroups), which added networking support and closed the gap even
more.

Apple Sues Microsoft

Apple actually began court proceedings against Microsoft in 1988, when

Microsoft released Windows 2. However it wasn't until Windows 3 was
released, and Apple immediately expanded its claim to include Windows 3,
that the media began to pay major attention to this case. In essence, Apple
was arguing that Microsoft Windows breached copyright by being too
similar to the Macintosh user interface.

The case ended up taking many years and going through several appeals.
The final decision, announced on ???? (early 95?), was that copyright had
not been breached. Some people saw this as a good decision because it
promoted competition, while others saw it as a terrible decision because it
reduced the incentive to develop new innovative technology. This
fundamental question is still under debate today, and probably will be
forever.
The AMD 386DX

The AMD 386 was the first successful x86 processor that wasn't built by
Intel, and as such it started an x86 processor price war. When Intel's original
16 MHz 386 was introduced in 1985, it cost $299. Five years later, it was
still commanding the relatively high price of $171, and the 33 MHz version
fetched $214. AMD's 40 MHz 386DX was released in March 1991 at $281,
but within a year its price had plunged 50% to $140. The prices of PCs
followed the chip prices down, and fell by as much as $1000. As a result, the
market for PC's running Windows expanded by over 33%.

Apple Macintosh System 7

Although not as much of a leap as users has hoped for, the System 7 release
of Apple's Macintosh operating system in May
1991 introduced a few new features. Cooperative
multitasking had been available through the
optional MultiFinder of System 6, but it was
made a standard feature of System 7. Virtual
memory was also introduced, as was the
innovative balloon help system. But the biggest
improvement was the TrueType scalable outline fonts. Even though they
didn't reach Microsoft Windows until version 3.1 (1992), TrueType fonts
almost single handedly created the low cost inkjet printer market. Suddenly
PostScript was no longer necessary for high quality printing, ending the.
domination of laser printers
Virtual Reality

In the early 1990's, the availability of high powered 3D graphics

workstations from vendors such as Silicon Graphics allowed all sorts of
interesting uses for interactive 3D graphics to be developed. Computer aided
design (CAD) and 3D animation for special effects were two relatively
obvious uses, but a more interesting and exciting use was the concept of
virtual reality (VR).

Virtual reality allowed a user to be placed within a virtual world which he or

she could explore from an arbitrary point of view. Early uses of VR included
walkthroughs of buildings which had not yet been constructed, simulations
of environments which were too expensive
or too dangerous to perform normal training
within (eg: outer space), and multi player
virtual reality games. Other more
sophisticated uses were found within
existing scientific visualization fields such
as chemical engineering. In a sense, virtual
reality had actually been around for ages in
the form of flight simulation.

To make the virtual world convincing to the user, a number of special

devices were invented. The most important of these was the stereoscopic
head mounted display, which tracked the position and orientation of the
user's head and displayed a different image to each eye to trick the user's
binocular vision into perceiving depth in the 3D scene. The head mounted
display also fed separate audio signals to each ear to produce stereo sound.
When driven by appropriate software running on a computer with fast
enough 3D graphics, the user could become totally immersed in a realistic
virtual environment.

To interact with the virtual environment, the user wore a dataglove on one,
or sometimes both, hand(s). This allowed the position of the user's hand(s) to
be tracked and drawn within the virtual environment, complete with shape
and gesture information. Different gestures were used to perform actions and
interact with objects in the virtual world. Some lower cost VR systems used
a hand held device with buttons, rather than a glove. Other high end VR
systems added simple voice command recognition. One extremely expensive
glove device even provided a degree of tactile feedback (touch).

The cost of a head mounted display and a dataglove was very high, so low
cost systems gave up on the idea of true immersive virtual reality and
concentrated on giving the perception of depth to 3D scenes, usually by
synchronizing the display of a normal monitor with a pair of shutter glasses
which blanked out each eye in succession.
The Alpha Architecture - 64-bit Arrives

Digital's Alpha architecture, announced in 1992,

was the first true 64-bit architecture. It was
designed for a 15 to 25 year lifespan, and aimed to
be the major replacement for Digital's VAX
architecture, which had dominated the
minicomputer and server markets during the
1980's. Alpha was a clean, pure RISC architecture
designed to accommodate a 1000 fold increase in
performance over its lifetime (10 fold by clock
rate, 10 fold by superscalar execution, and 10 fold by multiprocessing).
Learning from experience, DEC engineers and architects led by Richard
Sites and Richard Witek carefully analyzed and avoided any obvious limits
to future performance when they designed the Alpha. And since it was 64-bit
from the beginning, kludgy 64-bit extensions were unnecessary (unlike
MIPS, SPARC and the PowerPC).

At the launch of the Alpha architecture DEC also announced the first Alpha
implementation, the 21064. It immediately jumped to the top of the
performance table, clocking in at almost twice the performance of its
competitors (for the 200 MHz version). It was a dual issue superscalar
processor that contained just 1.68 million transistors, which wasn't many
compared to 3.1 million for Sun's SuperSPARC, 2.8 million for the
PowerPC 601, and 23 million for the POWER2. In many ways the Alpha
21064 was the antithesis of IBM's POWER designs, which achieved high
performance through instruction level parallelism at the expense of a large
transistor count and a slower clock. The Alpha 21064 concentrated on the
original RISC idea of simplicity and a higher clock rate, but that also had its
drawback - very high power consumption.

One of Alpha's major goals was to replace the VAX architecture. To make
the VAX to Alpha transition easier for existing VAX customers, DEC
provided a translator which converted binary VAX programs into binary
Alpha programs. The resulting Alpha programs ran more slowly than if they
had been recompiled for an Alpha from source code, but much faster than if
they were emulated at runtime using standard interpretation. The Alpha was
so much faster than the VAX that there was no performance loss, and
usually a substantial performance gain, for translated programs. The same
approach was also available for users of the MIPS based DECstations. Three
years later, a SPARC to Alpha version of the translator was built in an
attempt to encourage the large installed base of SPARCstation users to move

to the Alpha platform.

Linux - A Free UNIX

In 1992, a talented programmer named

Linus Torvalds took a small educational version of UNIX called Minix and
rewrote and extended it. By mid 1993, Linux had completely dropped its
Minix roots and was becoming quite a usable version of UNIX. It was
adopted with great enthusiasm by other programmers on the Internet, and
began to spread like wildfire. It soon became the fastest growing version of
UNIX, mainly because it was free. Linux ran primarily on x86 based PC's,
and it actually ran pretty well even on a slow 386 with 4 Mb of RAM and a
40 Mb hard disk.
Linus and his followers proudly described Linux as a "hacker's system" (ie:
a programmer's system) because it relied heavily on freely available
software which had been written by other programmers. Its graphics system
was the X Window System, which was freely available from MIT. For its
GUI it used a collection of freely available window managers and other GUI
components, as well as the Athena and OpenLook styles, which were also
freely available. Because of its popularity, some companies even began to
sell versions of Motif for Linux.

Most of the other programs which people actually used (the shells, the
compilers, the utility commands etc) came from the GNU Project - a free
software project started by Richard Stallman in the 1980's. Stallman was a
talented programmer, but he was also a little unusual. He passionately
believed that all software should be free and should come with source code
so that other programmers could extend it, and that computing professionals
should only make money through consulting. The ultimate goal of the GNU
Project was to create a completely free UNIX-like operating system called
GNU (which stood for GNU's Not Unix - a recursive definition!).

The PowerPC Architecture

1993 saw the introduction of the PowerPC RISC architecture, a modified

version of IBM's successful POWER architecture used in its RS/6000
workstations. PowerPC was the result of an alliance between Apple (who
recognized the need to drop the aging 68000 architecture in favor of a
RISC), IBM (who were dissatisfied with the PC market after loosing control
of it to Microsoft and clone vendors), and Motorola (who had manufactured
the 68000 series and wanted to keep making chips for Apple's machines).
The AIM (Apple, IBM, Motorola) alliance, which started in 1991, was
something that the computing industry couldn't believe was going to work.
After all, IBM and Apple had been bitter enemies just a few years earlier.

Unlike the expensive multi chip POWER processors, the PowerPC

architecture was aimed at low cost single chip microprocessor
implementations. As a result, some of the excess baggage of POWER was
eliminated or replaced. At the same time, to better accommodate the future,
optional 64-bit extensions were added. Unfortunately, this meant that the
PowerPC architecture was not totally forward or backward compatible with
POWER, causing headaches for compiler writers.

The first PowerPC processor, the PowerPC 601, was released in 1993, two
years after the announcement of the PowerPC architecture. It was a three
issue superscalar processor which offered high performance at a low cost. It
soon made its way into the lower half of IBM's RS/6000 workstation line. A
year later it also appeared in Apple's first Power Macintosh computers.

Late 1993 also saw IBM's POWER2 processor succeed the POWER1 as the
processor in the high end RS/6000 machines. POWER2 was an expensive
and very aggressively superscalar processor. This resulted in very high
complexity and an impressive 23 million transistors spread over eight chips!
The complexity was well targeted and was quite effective, but it also limited
the clock rate - an interesting tradeoff considering that the highly parallel
71.5 MHz POWER2 was faster than the 200 MHz DEC Alpha 21064 (but
the POWER2 was also much more expensive).
The Apple Newton
The Apple Newton, released in August 1993, was the first popular hand held
personal digital assistant (PDA). The Newton's primary input device was a stylus
pen, and it relied heavily on printed handwriting recognition and pen based
navigation for its user interface. It was aimed
squarely at mobile business professionals, and had a
built-in notepad, calculator, to-do list, calendar and
address book for organizing personal and business
affairs. Using an optional wired or wireless modem, it
could send faxes or hook up to the Internet to send
and receive email. It even had a version of the
popular Quicken financial software to help organize
personal and business expenses.

Although it weighed less than 1 lb and was only the size of a small notepad, the
Newton had roughly the processing power of an Intel 80486. It used a 20 MHz
Acorn ARM RISC processor because its low cost, high speed and low power
consumption made it ideal for the Newton's relatively demanding handwriting
recognition based user interface. The Newton also had a 366x240 pixel reflective
LCD display, 640 Kb of RAM, 1 Mb of non-volatile RAM, and 4 Mb of ROM
containing its pen based operating system and built-in applications. The Newton
communicated with other Newtons and normal desktop computers through an
infra-red signaling system, and used credit card sized plug-in cards for expansion
devices.

The Newton cost $699, and 50,000 units were sold in the first 10 weeks.
Unfortunately, the first generation of Newtons had very poor handwriting
recognition, and were received very poorly.
A Standard UNIX - COSE & CDE

Since the great divide of the early eighties, UNIX had suffered from a severe
lack of standardization between platforms.
The great divide had split UNIX into two
distinct families - BSD from Berkeley and
System V from AT&T. Although they had
basically the same functionality, there were
sufficient differences between BSD and
System V that virtually every application of
any substance needed to be modified to work on "the other" system. On top
of this, the X Window System had even bigger problems stemming from the
different GUI's available - Athena, OpenLook, Motif, DECwindows etc.

Product differentiation forces within the UNIX market had meant that
practically no two systems were alike. Sun used BSD and OpenLook, HP
used System V and Motif, Digital used BSD and DECwindows, and so on.
All up, the UNIX market was a mess and end users were frustrated by the
differences between "UNIX" systems. However, in 1993 the looming threat
of Microsoft's Windows NT forced the UNIX vendors to finally see the
light. Convinced that a divided UNIX market would never fight off
Windows NT, but a united one might, they quickly agreed to standardize.

A consortium consisting of Sun, HP, IBM, Digital, AT&T Bell Labs, Novell
and SCO all agreed on a single Common Operating Software Environment
(COSE) and a Common Desktop Environment (CDE). The basis of COSE
was Spec-1170, a UNIX API specification based on AT&T's UNIX System
V Release 4 (SVR4), which combined most of the BSD and System V
functionality into a single version of UNIX. CDE sat on top of this, and
consisted of the X Window System with the Motif user interface and a
desktop manager based on HP's Visual User Environment (VUE). Finally,
Sun's desktop utilities were converted to Motif and became the utilities
supplied with CDE.

Over the next couple of years Sun moved to Solaris (SVR4) and gradually
dropped OpenLook. Similarly, DEC moved to OSF/1 and gradually dropped
DECwindows. Other vendors acted likewise, and by the end of 1995 all the
major UNIX variants were COSE/CDE systems, with the exception of
Silicon Graphics and Linux. Silicon Graphics adopted SVR4 and Motif, but
used its own desktop manager rather than CDE's VUE based one. Linux, of
course, couldn't adopt Motif because Motif was not free. But even Linux
was basically SVR4, and users could buy Motif if they wanted it.

The Intel Pentium

The Intel Pentium processor began shipping in late 1993, and swept through
the PC industry faster than any of Intel's
previous processors. Although Intel's 80486
(1989) included a built-in FPU and was much
faster than the 80386, it was the Pentium that
introduced the next leap forward in the x86
microarchitecture: superscalar pipelines.
Skeptics said a CISC architecture couldn't do
it, but the Pentium proved otherwise. The
Pentium contained 3.1 million transistors and
initially ran at 60 MHz. It was called the Pentium rather than the 80586 to
avoid confusion with the copycat names of x86 processors from AMD and
NexGen (such as the AMD386 and Nx586).

Although it dominated the PC world, the Pentium had a checkered career. In

November 1994, a researcher at an educational institution found a serious
error in the precision of the floating point divide operation of the Pentium.
This meant that all previous floating point calculations involving division
were now suspect if they had been performed on a Pentium. Even worse, it
emerged that Intel had known about the flaw for over a year, but had decided
to say nothing. In the end, a month of intense market pressure forced Intel to
replace a lot of the installed base of Pentiums with a free upgrade to a re-
implementation of the processor, which didn't have the flaw.

In 1994 and 1995 a typical Pentium based PC had a Pentium processor

running at between 60 and 120 MHz, 4 to 16 Mb of RAM, a couple of
hundred Mb of disk space, 8-bit 640x480 "SuperVGA" graphics, a 14" color
monitor, a CD-ROM drive, and ran Windows 3.1. It typically cost around
$1800 to $2500, depending on the specific configuration.
Apple's Power Macintosh

Apple's Power Macintosh computers, introduced in March 1994, marked the

successful transition of RISC into the mainstream personal computer market.

Unlike the painful CISC to RISC transitions

which had occurred in the UNIX market,
Apple handled the transition from its
existing base of 68000 based Macintoshes to
the new PowerPC based ones beautifully.
To provide complete backward
compatibility with existing 68000 software,
the Macintosh operating system was augmented to emulate the 68040
processor. This emulation required no user intervention, and worked even
for many device drivers. And because the new PowerPC processors were so
fast, the emulation overhead was tolerable. Naturally, native PowerPC
applications ran faster than emulated 68000 ones, but there was only a slight
loss of performance for 68000 based software when running on a
PowerMac, compared to a 68040 based Macintosh. The concept worked so
well that within the first year over a million PowerMac's had been sold,
rocketing the PowerPC up to the top of the RISC architectures in terms of
importance.

The initial PowerMac 6100 had a 60 MHz PowerPC 601 processor, 8 Mb of

RAM, 16-bit 640x480 graphics, 16-bit stereo sound, a 250 Mb hard disk, a
CD-ROM drive and built-in ethernet. Its 14" color monitor was a unique
design with the speakers mounted in an angled panel below the display. In
this configuration, the PowerMac 6100 cost $2289. The more expensive
7100 and 8100 models had faster processors (66 and 80 MHz) and were
more expandable.

Efficient emulation of the 68040 was absolutely critical to the success of the
PowerMac, since even some parts of the Macintosh operating system were
still 68000 code when the PowerMac was first released (much of the code
had been written in assembly language back in the mid 1980's). About a year
after the introduction of the PowerMac, a start-up company called Connectix
announced SpeedDoubler - a much faster 68040 emulator for the PowerMac
based on dynamic compilation. Users were quick to adopt it. Recognizing
the importance of emulation performance, Apple soon changed their 68040
emulator to use dynamic compilation.

The World Wide Web

Although the Internet had been around for many

years, it was the introduction of the World Wide
Web which made the Internet popular. The Web
offered a simple, friendly, graphical way of
browsing for information or entertainment.
Millions of electronic storefronts suddenly sprung
up for the tens of millions of Web "surfers" to look
at. Suddenly the Internet boomed, and just about
everyone who owned a computer wanted to connect. Modem sales
skyrocketed.
The World Wide Web was based on the hypertext idea. Information was
stored as formatted hypertext in the HTML format, which browser tools
such as Mosaic and Netscape could fetch from across the Internet and
display to the user. HTML was soon augmented to allow pictures, then video
and audio, and even 3D graphics and virtual reality. Eventually, the Web
was even able to achieve intelligent interactive content via Sun's Java
language.

End users loved the Web because the user interface was a simple point and
click style (just click on the hypertext links). As such, it was much easier
than ftp and telnet. The user base grew very rapidly, doubling every few
weeks. Internet Cafe's appeared in shopping malls so that even people
without a computer could surf the web. Then the media got on board. Once
that happened there was no stopping it.

The current opinion is that the Web has started the next big boom in the
computer industry - the wide spread use of networking for both .
entertainment and commerce

IBM's OS/2 Warp

After the first two largely failed

launches of IBM's OS/2 operating
system for PC's, the third attempt,
released in October 1994 and marketed
as OS/2 Warp, finally put OS/2 on the
map. IBM started a big new marketing push (small planet), which
concentrated on OS/2's networking support and

Internet access tools, plus its technical advantages of multitasking, true 32-
bit, and backward compatibility with applications written for Microsoft
Windows 3.x. In the first five months IBM sold 1.7 million copies of OS/2
Warp, firmly establishing it as the second most popular PC operating system
behind
Microsoft Windows.

Macintosh Clones, Finally

In April 1995, six months after Apple agreed to license its Macintosh
operating system for cloning purposes, the first
Macintosh clones appeared. Onlookers from the PC
world could have been forgiven for thinking that the
new clone makers didn't understand what cloning was
all about - price. Radius's VideoVision workstation
was a souped up PowerMac 8100 aimed at the high
end video editing market, and had a price tag of almost $30,000. At the other
extreme, Cutting Edge's Quotro 850 was based on the out of date Motorola
68040 processor. Only Power Computing's offerings fit the traditional image
of clones: cheaper machines using off the shelf components, with flexible
configurations and quick delivery.

Power Computing's first two models, the Power80 and Power100, were
roughly equivalent to the PowerMac 7100 and 8100, but they used low cost
PC components and enclosures wherever possible to keep the cost down,
including using a standard PC monitor. As a result, they looked like IBM
PC's from the outside. The Power 100 model was priced at $3,349, about
$1000 cheaper than a similarly equipped PowerMac 8100.

Microsoft Windows '95

After at least eighteen months of pre-release hype, Microsoft finally released

Windows '95 on August 24th 1995. The
associated marketing campaign was nothing
short of amazing. It was a massive global
multimedia marketing hype-fest including TV,
radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards and
just about everything else. Adds for Windows '95
were everywhere! Such a barrage had hardly
ever been seen in the history of marketing.

Technically, Windows '95 added several important pieces of functionality to

the Windows environment. The filesystem could now support filenames
longer than 8 characters, because Windows '95 was a free standing operating
system which didn't sit on top of DOS (unlike Windows 3.x). Nested folders
were also supported (finally!). Windows '95 also had full networking
support, including tools for accessing the Internet and Microsoft's own
proprietary network (MSN, the Microsoft Network). The native Windows
'95 API and most of the operating system was 32-bit, which resulted in
improved performance. True preemptive multitasking was provided for
native 32-bit Windows '95 applications (but not for 16-bit Windows 3.x
applications). And finally, the look of the user interface components was
altered to make them look more stylish.

All up, Windows '95 was probably closer to Windows NT than to Windows
3.1, marking Microsoft's clear intention for NT to be the successor operating
system once the x86 architecture began to fade from the scene.

.
 31

Introduction

Nowadays computer has become a part and parcel of the human

life its helps as well as works with the people in every part of the

life. Of late, all the category of people has realized the need of the

computer and they have started to buy it also. So, now the

computer sale is growing.

The people are buying computers not only from the reputed

companies but also from the local unregistered companies. This

intuited me to analyse the reason why the people are going with

these unregistered companies? What is the real insight of the

consumer while selecting the company in terms of their after sales

services?
32
 33

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

• To analyze the consumer preference while purchasing a

computer with regard to sales.

• To analyze the consumers’ view towards the branded

products supplied by the famous companies with regards to

after sales service.

• To analyze the consumers’ opinion towards after sales

service of non-branded products supplied by the local

companies.

• To find out the expectations fulfilled by the companies to the

consumers regarding their after sales services.

34
 35

Research Methodology

Research Design:

The research design adopted for this study is Descriptive in

nature.

Data source:

The primary data were collected from the respondents in Chennai

City.

Data collection method:

Data is collected by means of administering a questionnaire

(research instrument). The questionnaire has been so designed to
elicit the required responses from the consumers in order to
achieve the objectives of the study.

36
Sampling procedure:

Sampling type is convenience sample where researcher has

chosen the respondents at his convenience. Total Sample size is 62.

Tools used for analysis:

Factor analysis, Principal component method was used to find out

the consumers’ preferences and opinion about after sales services.
These results are plotted into the 2D perceptual diagram to
understand clearly about the consumer’s insight.
37
 38

Limitations of the study

The area of the study is Chennai City only; hence this result may
not be true for other geographical areas.

Validity and reliability of the data obtained depends on true

responses from the consumers

Due to inadequate time the sample size was only 62.

39
 40

Table no: 1

AGE OF THE RESPONDENTS

Age No.of Percentage

Respondents
Below 20 5 8.1

21-30 33 53.2

31-40 16 25.8

Above 40 8 12.9

Total 62 100

Among 62 respondents, 53.2% are belonging to the age group

of 21 to 30, 25.8% of the respondents are belonging to the age
group of 31 to 40, 12.9% of the respondents belong to the age
group of above 40 and 8.1% of the respondents belong to the
age group below 20.
 41

AGE OF THE RESPONDENTS

Below 20
21-30
31-40
Above 40
 42

Table no: 2
OCCUPATION OF THE RESPONDENTS

Occupation No.of Percentage

Respondents
Government 10 16.1

Private 13 21.0

Business 19 30.6

Professional 8 12.9

Student 12 19.4

Total 62 100

Among 62 respondents, 30.6% of the respondents are doing

business, 21% of respondents are working in private
organizations,, 19.4% are students and 16.1% are government
employee.

43
OCCUPATION OF THE
RESPONDENTS Government
Private
Business
Professional
Student
total

44
 Table no: 3
INCOME STATUS OF THE RESPONDENTS

Income No.of Percentage

Respondents
Below 5000 20 32.3

5000-10000 9 14.5

10000-15000 15 24.2

Above 15000 18 29

Total 62 100

The above table shows that 32.3% of respondents’ monthly

income is below Rs 5000/-, 29% of the respondents’ income
level is above Rs 15,000/-, 24.2% of respondents’ income
level is between Rs 10,000/- to Rs 15,000/- , 14.5% of the
respondents monthly income falls between Rs 5,000/- to
Rs10,000/-.

From the above table we can interpret that more than 40% of
the respondents belong to the middle-income family.
45
 INCOME STATUS OF THE RESPONDENTS

Below 5000
5000-10000
10000-15000
Above 15000
20

15

10 Above 15000
10000-15000
5 5000-10000
0 Below 5000
1

46
 Table no. 4
EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION

Educational No.of Percentage

Qualification Respondents

Computer science 26 41.9

Biological science 2 3.2

Mathematics 12 19.4

Professional 15 24.2
courses
Arts 7 11.3

Total 62 100

The above table shows that 41.9% of the respondents are

having computer based educational qualification, 24.2% of the
respondents have professionally qualified, 19.4% of the
respondents have mathematics based educational qualification,
11.3% of the respondents are having educational qualification
in Arts, 3.2% of the respondents are qualified in Biological
science.

47
EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION
Computer science

Biological science

Mathematics

Professional courses

Arts

48
 Table no. 5
OWNING THE COMPUTER

Owning the No.of Percentage

computer Respondents

Yes 30 48.4

No 32 51.6

Total 62 100

From the above table we can understand that only 48.4% of the
respondents are having PCs.

49
 OWNING THE COMPUTER

32
31.5
31
30.5 No
30
29.5 Yes
29
No.of respondent Yes
No

50
 Table no. 6

TIME OF PURCHASE

Purchased No.of Percentage

period Respondents

Recently 15 50.0

2 years before 10 33.3

3 years before 5 16.7

Total 30 100

Among 30 respondents, 50% have recently purchased PCs,

33.3% of the respondents purchased their PC 2 years before
and 16.7% of the respondents purchased before 3 years.

51
TIME OF PURCHASE

Recently
2 years before
3 years before

52
 Table no. 7

PURPOSE OF USING

Purpose No.of Percentage

Respondents
Official 10 33.3

Personal 4 13.3

Business 6 20.0

Education 10 33.3

Total 30 100

The above table shows that computer is being used (33.3%)

equally by both for office and educational purposes, where as
remaining 20% use for business and 13.3% of them use
computer for their personal purposes..

53
PURPOSE OF USING

Official
Personal
Business
Education

54
 Table no. 8

DEGREE OF UTILIZATION

Working hours No.of Percentage

Respondents

Less than 10 hrs 2 6.7

10-20hrs 17 56.7

More than 20 hrs 11 36.7

Total 30 100

All most all the respondents are using their computer at an

average of more than a hour per day, 36.7 respondents are
using more than 3 hours per day.

55
DEGREE OF UTILIZATION

Less than 10 hrs

10-20hrs
More than 20 hrs

56

Table no. 9
 SERVICES HIGHLY EXPECTED BY THE
CONSUMER BEFORE PURCHASING THE PC

Services No.of Responses Percentage

Monthly visit/ 5 10.6

check up

Software support 12 25.5

Service reliability 10 21.2

Immediate attempt 8 17.0

Annual service 7 14.8

club
Relationship 5 10.6
Total 47 100

The above table shows that25.5%of the people expected

software support.21.2% of them expected service
reliability.17%of them expected immediate attempt.14.8%of
the people expected annual service clubs.10.6% of them
expected monthly service and smoother relationship with the
seller.

57
 SERVICES HIGHLY EXPECTED BY THE
CONSUMER BEFORE PURCHASING THE PC

Monthly visit/
check up
Software support

Service reliability

Immediate
attempt
Annual service
club
Relationship

58

Table no. 10
 TYPE OF PRODUCT OWNED

Type of product No.of Percentage

Respondents

Branded 9 30

Assembled 21 70

Total 30 100

Out of 30 respondents who possess computer 70% of them

have assembled set and 30% of them have branded set.

59
 TYPE OF PRODUCT OWNED

Assembled
Branded

60

Table no. 11
 FACTORS MOTIVATING TO GO FOR THE PRODUCT

Factors No.of Percentage

Responses
Price 5 10.2
Reliability 9 18.3
Relationship 10 20.4
Name 2 4.1
Services 3 6.1
Combination of 7 14.3
various companies
parts
Product guarantee 0 0
Service guarantee 13 26.5
Total 49 100

From the above table that we can understand that consumers

are highly expecting service guarantee from the company
which will be supported by the factors of reliability and
relationship.

61
FACTORS MOTIVATING TO GO FOR THE
PRODUCT

62
 Table no. 12

CONSUMER’S OPINION ABOUT ADVANTAGE OF

BRANDED OR ASSEMBLED

Type of product No.of Percentage

Respondents

Branded 12 43.3

Assembled 18 56.7

Total 30 100

The above table shows that more than50% of the consumers

believe that assembled PCs are better than the branded one.

63
CONSUMER’S OPINION ABOUT ADVANTAGE OF
BRANDED OR ASSEMBLED

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Branded Assembled
Series1 12 18

64

Table no. 13
 INTERNET CONNECTION

Internet No.of Percentage

connection Respondents

Yes 20 66.7

No 10 33.3

Total 30 100

Out of the 30 respondents interviewed 66.7%of them posses

internet connection and 33.3%of them do not posses internet
connection.

65
 INTERNET CONNECTION

No

Yes

66
 Table no. 14

WHETHER THE PC SATISFIES THE CONSUMER’S

EXPECTATION?
Consumer No.of Percentage
opinion Respondents

Yes 29 96.7

No 1 3.3

Total 30 100

The above table shows that 96.7% of them are satisfied with
their PC and 3.3% of them are not satisfied.

67
product satisfaction

Yes
No

68
 Table no. 15

SATISFACTION TOWARDS COMPANY'S SERVICE

Consumer No.of Percentage

opinion Respondents
Extremely satisfied 4 10

Highly satisfied 0 0

satisfied 23 76.7

Somewhat 3 13.3
satisfied
Not at all satisfied 0 0

Total 30 100

The above table indicates that 76.7% of the respondents are

satisfied with the company services.13.3% of them are
somewhat satisfied.10% of them are highly satisfied.
Dissatisfaction level is nil.

69
Satisfaction towards
company's service
Extremely
satisfied
Highly
satisfied
satisfied

Somewhat
satisfied
Not at all
satisfied

70
 Table no. 16
LEVEL OF CONSUMER’S SATISFACTION WITH
VARIOUS SERVICE FACTORS

Factors Highly Satisfi Moderate Somewh Not

satisfi ed ly at satisfi
ed satisfied satisfied ed
Monthly 6.7% 63.3% 16.7% 10% 3.3 %
visit/ check
up
Immediate 10% 70% 16.7% - 3.3%
attempt
Software 3.3% 76.7% 16.7% - 3.3%
support
Annual 10% 70% 20% - -
service
club
Service 16.7% 70% 13.3% - -
reliability
Relationshi 13.3% 73.3% 13.3% - -
p
Service 13.3% 70% 13.3% 3.3%
guarantee
Product 53.3% 46.7% - - -
guarantee

71
It can be interpreted from the data as shown in the table;
highest, unanimous satisfaction is for product guarantee
irrespective of the consumers.

72
 Table no. 17

WILLINGNESS TO RECOMMEND BRAND OR COMPANY

OF CHOICE TO OTHERS

Consumer’s No.of Percentage

opinion Respondents
Yes 30 100

No 0 0

Total 30 100

Out of 30 respondents, 100% of them agree to recommend

their brand to others. This shows the level of satisfaction with
the brand they possess.

73
 Willingness To Recommend

No

No.of responses

Yes

0 10 20 30

74
Those who are not having PCs

Table no. 18

WILLINGNESS TO PURCHASE OF COMPUTER

Consumer’s No.of Percentage

opinion Respondents
Yes 30 100

No 0 0

Total 30 100

The above table shows us that those who do not possess

computers are willing to get one (100%). This table shows the
awareness and importance of computer in day today life of the
people

75
 Willingness to Purchase

30

25

20

15

10

0
Yes No
No.of responses 30 0

76
 Table no. 19

CONSUMERS’ PLAN TO PURCHASE THE PC

Consumer’s No.of Percentage

opinion Respondents
With in 2 months 10 31.3

2-6 months 10 31.3

After one year 6 18.8

Not yet decided 6 18.8

Total 32 100

Out of 32 respondents 31.3%of them have a plan of purchasing

computer in a span of within 2-6 months.18.8% have planned
to get after one year and another 18.8%of them are yet to
decide about the purchase.

77
Consumers Plan To Purchase The PC

Not yet
decided
19% With in 2
months
31%

After one
year
19%

2-6 months
31%

78
 Table no. 20

TYPE OF PC THE CONSUMER WANTS TO BUY

Type No.of Percentage
Respondents

Branded 15 46.9

Assembled 17 53.1

Total 32 100

The above table shows that 53.1% of the respondents are

planning to go for assembled set and 46.9% of them have a
plan of getting branded set.

79
Type of PC The Consumer Wants To
Buy

Branded
Assembled 47%
53%

80
 Table no. 21

FACTORS INFLUENCING THE CONSUMER ON

SELECTION OF PC TYPE

Factors No.of Responses Percentage on

32 Respondents
Monthly visit/ check 26 81.3
up
Software support 13 40.6
Service reliability 21 33.9
Reliability 14 22.6
Name 12 19.4
Immediate attempt 10 16.1
Annual service club 1 1.6
Relationship 15 24.2
Combination of 12 19.4
various companies
parts
Product guarantee 13 21
Price 8 12.9
Service 14 22.6
Service guarantee 0 0

81

From the above table we can infer that most of the consumers
expect service back up from the company people.
 0
5
10
15
20
25

Software support

Service reliability

Reliability

Name

Immediate attempt

Annual service club

Relationship
Combination of various companies
parts
Product guarantee

Price
Type Of PC

Table no. 22
Service

Service guarantee

BRANDED OR ASSEMBLED
Factors Influencing The Consumer On Selection Of

No.of responses

CONSUMER’S OPINION ABOUT ADVANTAGE OF

82
Type of product No.of Percentage
Respondents

Branded 17 53.1

Assembled 15 46.9

Total 30 100

The above table illustrates that there is marginal degree of the

choice between branded and assembled among the new
customer.

83
 Consumer's Prefence Of PC

Assembled

15

Branded

17

14 15 16 17 18
No. of responces

Series1

84

Table no. 23

PURPOSE OF BUYING COMPUTER

 Purpose No.of Percentage
Respondents

Official 14 43.8

Personal 4 12.5

Business 10 31.3

Education 4 12.5

Total 30 100

It is shown clearly from the table that 43.8%of the respondents

are willing to get one for the purpose of office use.31.3% for
business purpose and 12.5 % for personal and educational
purposes

85
 Purpose Of Buying PC

Education

Official
Business

Personal

86

FACTOR ANALYSIS FOR THE CUSTOMER’S

SATISFACTION LEVEL
Factor analysis has been made to find the consumers
satisfaction level (variables) regarding both branded and
assembled PCs.

9 attributes have been taken for factor analysis and divided into
two categories as confident of after sales service guarantee and
service attempt.

Out of 9 attributes, highly correlated 7 attributes have been

taken for further analysis.

87
 Rotated Component Matrixa

Component
1 2
satisfied with
-.187 .616
copmany service
ser-satis- monthly .864 -4.19E-02
ser-satis -immediate
.917 -.105
attempt
ser-satis -software
.783 .448
support
ser-satis -service
reliabilit 9.153E-02 .763
y
ser-satis -relationship -9.45E-02 -.461
ser-satis -service
5.151E-02 .844
guarantee
Extraction Method: Principal Component
Analysis.
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser
Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 3 iterations.

The above table shows that the consumer’s satisfaction level in

monthly service, immediate attempt, software support are
highly correlated in component I. Company service, service
reliability and service guarantee are correlated in component II.
So the computer suppliers have created confidence about after
sales service guarantee and reliability among their customer,
likewise they are giving the service at the maximum level of
customer’s satisfaction. But the relationship attains a unique
stage, most of the companies have not maintained the
relationship with their customers on par with the customer’s
expectation.

88
 Com ponent Plot in Rotated Space
1.0
ser-satis-service gu
ser-satis-service re
satisfied with copma

.5 ser-satis-software s

0.0 ser-satis- monthly

ser-satis-immediate

ser-satis-relationsh
Component 2

-.5

-1.0
-1.0 -.5 0.0 .5 1.0

C om ponent 1

89
However, the above rotated graph exposes that the customers
not having high confident with company’s after sales service,
the earlier table clearly expressed that the company
relationship with customer need to develop, at the same time
regarding service so far they have done at the satisfactory level
but insight of the customer might be perceived about
uncertainty, because satisfaction of the customer towards the
company service is considerably away from the high
correlation region, the service guarantee and reliability are in
the positive direction but it should be moved slightly towards
the center point,. The monthly check up and immediate attempt
somewhat satisfy the customer but not in the high level.
 90

SERVICE POSITIONING MAP FOR BRANDED

CUSTOMER

Rotated Component Matrix a,b

Component
1 2
ser-satis-immediate
-.297 .878
attempt
ser-satis-software
.291 .790
support
ser-satis-annual
.291 .790
service club
ser-satis-service
.783 -.322
reliability
ser-satis-relationship -.914 -.336
ser-satis-service
.914 .336
guarantee
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 3 iterations.
b. Only cases for which type of product = 1 are
used in the analysis phase.
 91

Com ponent Plot in Rotated Space

1.0 ser-satis-immediate
ser-satis-software
ser-satis-annual ser
s

.5
ser-satis-service gu

0.0

ser-satis-relationsh ser-satis-service re

-.5
Component 2

-1.0
-1.0 -.5 0.0 .5 1.0

C om ponent 1
 92

The above positioning map shows the service positioning of

the branded product by the companies. Here consumers are
having high hope against companies in the area of software
support, annual service maintenance club, and service
guarantee. Though these factors are plotted in the high
correlation region it’s little bit away from the consumer’s true
expectation and annual service club is not correlated with the
service confident factors. The immediate attempt and
reliability is far away from the consumer’s expectation, but we
cannot say it is completely in the negative side. At the same
time the company’s relationship with the customer is totally
plotted in the negative side, so, every customer highly expects
every company to maintain the personal touch with the
consumer but in real, personal attention given by the company
has not satisfied the customer those who have purchased the
branded product.
 93

SERVICE POSITIONING MAP FOR ASSEMBLED

CUSTOMER

a,b
Rotated Component Matrix

Component
1 2 3
ser-satis-immediate
-.182 .941 .120
attempt
ser-satis-software
.333 .862 -.243
support
ser-satis-annual
8.893E-02 9.269E-02 .794
service club
ser-satis-service
.898 5.656E-02 .126
reliability
ser-satis-relationship -9.86E-02 -.146 .713
ser-satis-service
.900 3.240E-03 -.139
guarantee
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 4 iterations.
b. Only cases for which type of product = 2 are used in
the analysis phase.
 94

Com ponent Plot in Rotated Space

1.0

ser-satis-software s
ser-satis-immediate
.5

C om ponent 2 s er-satis-s ervice re

ser-s atis-service gu
0.0 ser-satis -annual ser

ser-s atis-relationsh
-.5

1.0
.5
0.0
-.5 1.0
C om ponent 1 -.5 0.0 .5

C om ponent 3
 95

Here the factors have properly blended and formed a

dimensions. See the Rotated component matrix table, in the
first component service reliability and service guarantee are
formed a group which express that the assembling companies
are giving high confidence to their customer. In the next
dimension the immediate attempt and the software support are
highly correlated in the component 2, however, these
companies taking little bit time to attempt the consumer. In the
3rd dimension the service relationship and annual service club
are correlating highly, we can understand that the annual
service club may not run actually or not properly followed by
the firms but these limitation is suppressed buy the relationship
that having by the companies with the customers. Perhaps
these may be only difference between the branded and
assemble PC suppliers.
 96

CONSUMER’S OPINION ABOUT THE SERVICES

OF THE COMPANY THOSE PURCHASED THE
COMPUTER TWO YEARS BEFORE.

Rotated Component Matrix a,b

Component
1 2 3
ser-satis- monthly .811 .231 .109
ser-satis-immediate
.640 -8.94E-02 .671
attempt
ser-satis-software
.627 .462 .470
support
ser-satis-annual
1.801E-02 .886 .153
service club
ser-satis-service
.964 .139 -2.42E-02
reliability
ser-satis-relationship .712 -.448 -.138
ser-satis-service
.146 .924 -.116
guarantee
ser-satis-product
9.938E-02 -6.00E-02 -.929
guarantee
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 5 iterations.
b. Only cases for which when purchase = 2 are used in
the analysis phase.
 97

CONSUMER’S OPINION ABOUT THE SERVICES OF THE

COMPANY THOSE PURCHASED THE COMPUTER TWO
YEARS BEFORE.

Com ponent Plot in Rotated Space

se r-sa
setis-se rvice
r-sa tis-a n nguua l se r
1 .0
se r-sa tis-so ftw a re s

.5 se r-sa tis- m o n th ly
se r-sa tis-se rvice re
se r-sa tis-im m e d ia te

C om ponent 2 0 .0
se r-sa tis-p ro d u ct g u
se r-sa tis-re la tio n sh

-.5

1 .0 1 .0
.5 .5
0 .0 0 .0
-.5 -.5
C om ponent 1 C om ponent 3
 98

The above graph shows that the respondents are highly

satisfied with immediate service, software support, annual
service club and monthly services. At the same time product
guarantee and relationship are away from correlation area.
Monthly maintenance and service satisfaction reliability are at
moderate distance.
99
 100

Findings

• Tremendous marketing opportunity exists in the area

covered.

• Demands for PCs are recently very high when compared

to 3 years back.

• The above said 3 years categories may be in the

replacement stage.

• Though the students are only 19%, majority of them are

using their PCs for their educational purposes. This
indicates that the software and study materials have
advanced very well. The demand is in increasing trend
(derived demand)
 101

• When table no:8 and 10 are compared, It shows that most

of the respondents expects only after sales service than
the product guarantee. This may be because both branded
and assembled may use premier brand parts. So they
focus their expectation on after sales service.

• When compared to the existing consumers, the new

consumers are more interested in buying branded
computers.

General Findings of Factor Analysis:

• Satisfactory level of customer towards the company

service is considerably away from the high correlation.

• Service guarantee and reliability are in the positive

directions.
 102

• Monthly check up and immediate attempts have not

satisfied the customer at high level.

• Customer doesn’t have high confidence about companies

after sales service.

• Customer relationship needs to be developed.

Service Positioning Map For Branded Customers:

• Customers are having high hopes about companies with
regard to software support, annual service maintenance
club and service guarantee. Though they are in high
correlation region it is slightly away from customers true
expectations but not definitely in the negative side.

• Company’s relationship with the customer is totally on

the negative side.
 • Personal touch with the customer is expected.

103

Service Positioning Map For Assembled Customer:

• The limitation that annual service club is not run properly
is overcome by the smooth relationship between the
company and customer. This is the main difference
between the assembled and branded product.

• Customer opinion about services of the company as

perceived by those purchased the computer two years
back: is that Immediate service, software support, annual
service club and monthly services are highly satisfied.

• Product guarantee and relationship are unique in character

• Monthly maintenance and service satisfaction,

relationships are at moderate distance.
104
 105

SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

The study entitled, “A STUDY ON SERVICE PERCEPTION BY

CONSUMER RELATING TO BRANDED/ASSEMBLED PC
VENDORS IN CHENNAI CITY.” Was conducted with the
objective of analyzing the consumer perception with
regared to service of Branded/ Assembled PCs.

For the present study the researcher administered a

questionnaire to a sample of 62 users selected on convenience
sampling method under descriptive research design and the
following inferences were observed from the study:

Customers are having high hopes about companies with regard

to software support, annual service maintenance club and
service guarantee.

The limitation that annual service club is not run properly is

overcome by the smooth relationship between the company
and customer. This is the main difference between the
assembled and branded product.
106
 107

Questionnaire
Name:

1. Demographic Details

Age Below 21-30 31-40 Above

20 40

Occupation Government Private Business Professional Student

Income Status >5000 5000- 10000- Above

1000 15000 15000
Educational Computer0 Biological Mathematics Professional Arts
Qualification science science courses

2. Do you own a computer? Yes NO

If No please go to question No 15

3. If yes, when did you purchase?

Recently 2 years before 3 years before

4. For which purposes you are using your PC?

Office Personal Business Education

5. On average basis how many hours in a week you are using your computer?

Less than 10 hrs 10-20 hrs More than 20 hrs

6. What are all the services highly expected by you before purchasing the PC?
 Monthly visit/ check up Immediate attempt

Software support Annual service club

Service reliability Relationship

If any other please specify____

108

7. Which type of product you own?

Branded Assembled

8. What are the factors that insisted you to go for it?

Price Services Relationship Services guarantee

Reliability Combination of various companies’ parts

Name Product guarantee

9. Do you feel that Branded products are better than the Assembled products?

Yes No

10. Do you have Internet connection?

Yes No

11. Does your PC satisfy your Expectation?

Yes No

12. Are the services from the company up to your expectation?

Yes No
 109
13. At what level the present company’s service satisfy you?

Monthly Highly Satisfied Moderately Some Not

visit/check up satisfied satisfied what satisfied
satisfied

Immediate Highly Satisfied Moderately Some Not

attempt satisfied satisfied what satisfied
satisfied

Software support Highly Satisfied Moderately Some Not

satisfied satisfied what satisfied
satisfied

Highly Satisfied Moderately Some Not

Annual service satisfied satisfied what satisfied
club satisfied

Service reliability Highly Satisfied Moderately Some Not

satisfied satisfied what satisfied
satisfied

Relationship Highly Satisfied Moderately Some Not

satisfied satisfied what satisfied
satisfied
Service guarantee Highly Satisfied Moderately Some Not
satisfied satisfied what satisfied
satisfied

Product guarantee Highly Satisfied Moderately Some Not

satisfied satisfied what satisfied
satisfied
14. Will you recommend this company product to others?

Yes No

Thank you

110

Those do not have PCs

15. Are you willing to buy?

Yes No

16. If yes, when have you planned to buy it?

With in 2 months Within 2-6 months

After one year Not yet decided

17. Which type of PC will you prefer?

Assembled Branded

18. What are the factors insisted you to go for it?

Monthly visit/ check up immediate attempt Price

Software support Annual service club Services

Service reliability Relationship Services guarantee

Reliability Combination of various companies’ parts

Name Product guarantee

19. Do you feel Assembled PCs are Better than the branded one?

Yes No

111

20. What is the purpose for which you are in need of PCs?

Office Personal Business Education

21. If your expected product and services are offered either by

companies or by Assembled PC centers, will you think about
switching over?

Yes No

Thank you
112
 113

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Consumer Behaviour

David L. Loudon & Albert J Della Bitta

Marketing Management

Philip Kotler 11th Edition

Marketing Research

David J. Luck & Ronald S. Rubin 7th Edition

Rajendra Nargundkar 2nd Edition
Malhotra 4th Edition
114
 115

REFERENCES

www.jason@pattosoft.com.au

http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/tutorial/flynn/factor.htm

http://www.managementhelp.org

http://www.decisionanalyst.com/

http://davidmlane.com

http://stat.tamu.edu

http://www.powerdecisions.com/information-
sources.cfm#Glossaries
116