Page 133 - Electronic Commerce

Chapter 2

4. As you learned in this chapter, accountants and financial analysts around the world have
agreed to use XBRL to format financial statements and other reports. In about 200 words,
108 outline the advantages that companies and financial analysts obtained by using the XBRL
standard to replace printed reports and data formatted for download into spreadsheet soft-
®
ware (such as Microsoft Excel ). You can research this subject in your school library or online
using your favorite search engine and the links provided for this exercise in the Web Links.

Cases

C1. Internet Access in Hyderabad
Hyderabad is the fourth-largest city in India, with a population of nearly 8 million in the city itself
and more than 14 million in the metropolitan area. It is the capital of the State of Andhra Pra-
desh, which has 84 million people and a $90 billion-per-year economy. Hyderabad itself
accounts for $50 billion of that annual activity, much of it in information technology (the city
houses the Indian headquarters of Amazon.com, Google, and Microsoft, for example) and phar-
maceuticals. With more than a dozen universities, the city is a leader in education and research.
Like the rest of the country, however, citizens in the Hyderabad metropolitan area are less
connected to the Internet than the city’s strong presence in the information technology industry
would suggest. Overall, only about 1.2 million residents (about 15 percent of the population)
have regular online access. About 600 million (about 8 percent of the population) of those with
regular access use an Internet-capable phone as their primary access device. Approximately 80
percent of Hyderabad citizens own mobile phones, but most of them are not Internet-capable.
Although the level of Internet access in Hyderabad is greater than the average for India, it
lags far behind the United States, where more than 90 percent of the population has regular
online access. It also lags behind online access in China, where about 42 percent of the popu-
lation has regular online access (about 75 percent of that through mobile devices).

Required:
1. What are the implications of the low Internet access rates for the citizens of Hyderabad as
they become active participants in the world economy over the next five years? Summarize
your thoughts in about 100 words.
2. Using your library or your favorite search engine, identify current trends in the growth of
Internet-capable phones and other online access devices in India. In a report of about 200
words, evaluate the prospects for significant changes in online access rates over the next
few years.
3. Use what you learned about online access technologies in this chapter to outline several
alternatives that the government of Hyderabad should consider developing (perhaps in
partnership with local information technology companies) that might increase online access
rates for its citizens. Prepare a report of about 200 words in which you discuss at least two
of these alternatives.
Note: Your instructor might assign you to a group to complete this case and might ask you to
prepare a formal presentation of your results to your class.

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