While the rest of the world is moving forward to Web 2.0 and beyond, the internet in Canada is standing still at 1.0. That’s right, today I finally received the official letter from Rogers announcing that they will be increasing the price from $25 to $50 per month for those who exceed monthly bandwidth limit.

We are currently living in 21st century where access to information continues to play a vital role in knowledge and innovation development, such business practice from Rogers or any other company is completely against public interest and unacceptable. Even Senator Hilary Clinton has recently expressed that she considers access to information a basic necessity for any human, like food or water. Therefore it is outrageous for us to learn that consumers may have to pay Rogers as much as $150 per month before tax to receive unlimited internet access ($99.99 Ultimate package plus $50 unlimited bandwidth), while people everywhere else in the world from Europe (Sweden, Romania, etc.) to Asia (Japan, Korea, etc.) can get unlimited internet access with faster speed for a fraction of Rogers’s price.

Some consumers really have no any other options to go to as Bell seems to always play the same song with Rogers in perfect coordination. It is as if they play together in the same orchestra band, as soon as one increases their price the other would follow. The consumers have got to wonder whether there is any price fixing happening behind the scene, needless to say I think even a man like Stevie Wonder could see through it clearly. Many international companies such as Sharp, Samsung, etc. have been handed billion-dollar of fines in other countries for their price fixing activities, yet complaints from Canadian consumers seem to have hit a brick wall. We slowly learn that these decisions by Rogers are not going to be changed as long as CRTC deem that it is “for the public interest” after all.

The question is, what drives Rogers to make such move? And the answer simply is, conflict of interest. The internet medium today has become a highway of information where people are utilizing it to receive all sorts of information or entertainment, such as music, movies, games, etc. Consumers are increasingly spending more time on the internet and less time in watching TV, and this presents a significant problem for Rogers since cable TV has always been one of their main revenue sources. The company could sense the danger ahead and it is not willing to give up on that stream of profit so easily. Their solution was simply to put a stop to innovation by increasing the price of internet access because it was the easiest thing to do. Rogers wanted to ensure that they would still be racking in profit from those who decide to chose the internet over cable TV subscription. What unfair for the end consumers is that they would now have to pay premium price for an internet package, only because its price now also covers for the revenue in which Rogers would normally have received through cable TV subscription. So what if a consumer who is already subscribing to both services? That’s double profit in the pocket for Rogers!

It seems the only way to resolve this conflict of interest is by separating any content provider from internet service provider. Companies like Rogers should only be allowed to provide either cable TV content OR internet access service, not both. Unfortunately, it is what it is today, the only authorized organization that can initiate that change is CRTC, and knowing them I’m sure we would have a better chance landing on Mars then actually seeing that happens.

Although it would take much courage and something beyond extraordinary to win this fight, but ultimately we as the consumers do have the power in our hands and should not give it up. Do what you can, there are a few alternatives out there for some of us: Teksavvy, WindMobile, etc. If there is one thing that we all have learned from our history, it is that no empire will last forever.

So while I and other students happened to have a quite interesting discussion in our Marketing class regarding Apple and its products, the company was busy reporting its best earning ever yesterday, an increase of revenue to $15.68 billion from $11.88 billion.

While it is undeniable that Apple has made a strong impact in shaping our consumer behaviour and culture, it would be nonsensical for anyone to consider Apple iMac or Macbook computer a superior product than a PC. I understand this is an old topic that has been beaten to death, but I would like to point out a couple of facts briefly.

People argue and justify for the expensive price tag of Apple computers by its superiority in comparison to other brands of computers, such as Dell or HP, etc. The truth is, there is absolutely nothing one can do on a Mac that cannot be achieved in the same way on a PC through FREE third party software with little effort, from its application dock down right to its virtual workspace, or even its method of switching applications.

The whole saga associated with “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” advertising campaign was quite ridiculously retarded and lame, yet it worked so effectively and was such a perfect case study because there is a large segment of consumers these days who are so uninformed and can be easily misguided. The truth is that Mac is no different than any other PC. At this point, some people would probably cry out loud “but how is that possible? Apple is a hardware company!”. Sorry but I beg to differ, uninformed consumers like those are exactly the reason why Apple have been able to pocket mountains of money. The fact is that Apple is never a hardware company, they do not make any of the components inside their computers, not the motherboard, not the memory, and certainly not the CPU neither (well I would give them credit for their case design). Therefore essentially, the only argument can be used to differentiate Apple from other “PCs” is its Operating System. But then again this would go back to the previous point where pretty much anything on a MAC can be achieved on a PC, yet we unquestionably cannot say the same the other way around.

This just shows us that Apple has successfully found a niche in the consumer segment who are technically too lazy to even install a third party software. They were able to create this illusion, an “elite” or “superior” image associated with their products, that can effective help those consumer segments feel better and make up for the lack of their technical knowledge.

Having said this, I give my hat off to the Apple Marketing Team. Prior to the iPod era, Apple was never an empire and their products only really started taking off after the unprecedented success of iPod products. Their computers, specifically MAC OS and the way it functions, essentially have not changed much since then, yet their Marketing team were able to leverage the success of iPod and spread it across many other product lines.

Apple today is a $50+ billion empire, largely thanks to its Marketing team who have done a brilliant job in building the Apple brand image and have molded it to perfection throughout the years. It is undeniable the company has brought enormous change in helping not only the computer industry, but also the entertainment industry to move leap forward, and so we must give them credit where it is due. Although their entire image is based on fictitious characteristics but why should anyone of us be surprised? After all, that is how our culture and society are functioning today, and the only thing we can be assured of is that the future of Apple tomorrow will be even brighter.

Fortune has just released its list of Top 100 Companies to Work For in 2010 (U.S). SAS software company has been named the best of all, Google sits not too far away at number four on the list, but Microsoft are quite a distance away at fifty one. Quite a large number of consulting companies have made their names onto the list this year. Interestingly enough, Starbucks also managed to stay on the list, albeit being at #93. Here are the Top 10 Companies:

1. SAS
2. Edward Jones
3. Wegman Food Markets
4. Google
5. Nugget Market
6. DreamWorks Animation SKG
7. NetApp
8. Boston Consulting Group
9. Qualcomm
10. Camden Property Trust

For full Top 100 list, visit here.