2. APPLE
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation which designs and markets
consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The best-known hardware
products of Apple Inc. include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the
iPad. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the
iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the iWork suite of productivity software;
Aperture, a professional photography package; Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio
and film-industry software products; Logic Studio, a suite of music production tools; the Safari
web browser; and iOS, a mobile operating system.
Apple Inc. was Established on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California, and incorporated
January 3, 1977. The previous name of Apple Inc. was Apple Computer, Inc., for its first 30
years, but removed the word "Computer" on January 9, 2007, to reflect the company's ongoing
expansion into the consumer electronics market in addition to the traditional focus on personal
computers.
Apple had 46,600 full time employees and 2,800 temporary full time employees
worldwide and had worldwide annual sales of $65.23 billion as of September 2010.
The Early Years Story:
Apple was established on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald
Wayne, to sell the Apple I personal computer kit. They were hand-built by Wozniak and first
shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard
(with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips)—less than what is today considered a complete
personal computer. The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66
($2,572 in 2011 dollars, adjusted for inflation.)
Apple was incorporated January 3, 1977 without Wayne, who sold his share of the company
back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Multi-millionaire Mike Markkula provided essential
business expertise and funding of $250,000 during the incorporation of Apple.
3. The Apple II was introduced on April 16, 1977 at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It
differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because it came with character
cell based color graphics and an open architecture. While early models used ordinary cassette
tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk
drive and interface, the Disk II.
The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first "killer app" of the business
world—the VisiCalc spreadsheet program. VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II,
and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II—compatibility with the office.[31]
According to Brian Bagnall, Apple exaggerated its sales figures and was a distant third place to
Commodore and Tandy until VisiCalc came along.
By the end of the 1970s, Apple had a staff of computer designers and a production line. The
company introduced the ill-fated Apple III in May 1980 in an attempt to compete with IBM and
Microsoft in the business and corporate computing market.
Jobs and several Apple employees including Jef Raskin visited Xerox PARC in December 1979
to see the Xerox Alto. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities
in return for the option to buy 100,000 shares (800,000 split-adjusted shares) of Apple at the pre-
IPO price of $10 a share. Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a
graphical
Apple Inc. has many products. The products of Apple are Mac and accessories, iPad,
iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, Software.
I. Corporate
4. Apple was one of some highly successful companies founded in the 1970s which
bucked the traditional notions of what a corporate culture should look like in
organizational hierarchy (flat versus tall, casual versus formal attire, etc.). Other
highly successful firms with similar cultural aspects from the same period include
Southwest Airlines and Microsoft.
II. Users
Mac users would meet at the European Apple Expo and the San Francisco
Macworld Conference & Expo trade shows where Apple traditionally introduced
new products each year to the industry and public until Apple pulled out of both
events. When the conferences continue, Apple does not have official
representation there. Mac developers, in turn, continue to gather at the annual
Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.
III. Headquarters
World corporate headquarters of Apple Inc are located in the middle of Silicon
Valley, at 1-6 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California. This Apple campus has six
buildings that total 850,000 square feet (79,000 m2) and was built in 1993 by
Sobrato Development Cos.
IV. Future plans
Apple announced its intention to build a second campus on 50 acres (200,000 m2)
assembled from various contiguous plots (east of N Wolfe Road between
Pruneridge Avenue and Vallco Parkway) in 2006. Later aquisitions increased this
to 175 acres. Steve Jobs gave a presentation to Cupertino City Council, detailing
the architectural design of the new building and its environs on June 7 , 2011. The
new campus is planned to house up to 13,000 employees in one central four-
storied circular building (with a café for 3,000 sitting people integrated)
surrounded by extensive landscape (with parking mainly underground and the rest
centralized in a parking structure).
Apple Future Plan:
5. Liquidmetal Technologies, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Liquidmetal”), entered into a
Master Transaction Agreement with Apple Inc., a California corporation (“Apple”), pursuant to
which (i) Liquidmetal contributed substantially all of its intellectual property assets to a newly
organized special-purpose, wholly-owned subsidiary (the “IP Company”), (ii) the IP Company
granted to Apple a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such
intellectual property in the field of consumer electronic products in exchange for a license fee,
and (iii) the IP Company granted back to Liquidmetal a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid,
exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in all other fields of use (together
with all ancillary agreements, the “Master Transaction Agreement”).
SWOT ANALYSIS OF APPLE
1. STRENGTHS
A. Apple is a very successful company. In June 2005, Sales of iPod music player
increased its second quarter profits to $320. The favourable brand perception had also
increased sales of Macintosh computers. So, iPod gives the company access to a
whole new series of segments which buy into other parts of the Apple brand. Sales of
notebooks products of Apple is also very strong, and represents a large contribution to
income for Apple.
B. Brand is very important for Apple. Apple is one of the most established and healthy
IT brands in the World. Apple has a very loyal set of enthusiastic customers which
advocate the brand. Powerful loyalty means that Apple is not only recruits new
customers, they come back for more products and services from Apple, and the
company also has the opportunity to extend new products to them, for example the
iPod.
2. WEAKNESSES
A. It is reported that Apple iPod Nano may have a faulty screen. The company has
commented that a batch of its product has screens which break under impact and
Apple is replacing all faulty items. This is in addition to problems with early iPods
6. which had faulty batteries, whereby the company offered customers free battery
cases.
B. There is pressure on Apple to increase the price of the music download file, from the
music industry itself. Many of these companies make more money from iTunes (i.e.
downloadable music files) than from their original CD sales. Apple has sold about 22
million iPod digital music players and more than 500 million songs thorugh iTunes
music store. The accounts for 82% of all legally downloaded music in the US. The
company is resolute, but if it gives in to the music producers, it may be perceived as a
commercial weakness.
C. Apple announced that it was to end its long-standing relationship with IBM as a chip
supplier and that it was about to switch to Intel in the early 2005. Some industry
specialists commented that the swap could confuse the consumers of Apple.
3. OPPORTUNITIES
A. Apple has the opportunity to develop iTunes and music player technology into a
mobile phone format. The Rokr mobile phone device was developed by Motorola. It
has a colour screen, stereo speakers and an advance camera system. A version of the
iTunes music store of Apple has been developed for the phone so users can manage
the tracks they store on it. Downloads are available via a USB cable and software on
the handset pauses music if a phone call comes in. New technologies and strategic
alliances offer opportunities for Apple.
B. Podcasts are downloadable radio shows which can be downloaded from the Internet,
and then played back on iPods and other MP3 devices at the convenience of the
listener. The listener can subscribe to Podcasts for free, and ultimately revenue could
be generated from paid for subscription or through revenue generated from sales of
other downloads.
4. THREATS
A. The biggest threat to IT companies like Apple is the very high level of competition in
the technology markets. Being successful attracts competition and Apple works very
7. hard on research and development and marketing in order to retain the competitive
position. The popularity of iPod and Apple Mac are subject to demand and will be
affected if economies begin to falter and demand falls for their products.
B. There is also a high product substitution effect in the innovative and fast moving IT
consumables market. So, iPod and MP3 rule today, but only yesterday it was CD,
DAT, and Vinyl. The technology for tomorrow will be completely different. Wireless
technologies could replace the need for a physical music player.
C. Apple won a legal case that forced Bloggers to name the sources of information that
pre-empted the launch of new Apple products in 2005. It was suspect that own
employees of Apple had leaked confidential information about their new Asteroid
product. The three individuals prosecuted, all owned Apple tribute sites, and were big
fans of the company's products. The blogs had appeared on their sites, and they were
forced to reveal their source. The ruling saw commercial confidentiality as more
important as the right to speech of individuals. Apple are vulnerable to leaks that
could cost them profits.
Apple Future plan:
With the big investment like “Metal liquid” apple want to make their product very
strong, and long last product, the vision like making the device that “Understand”
you, and help you, for example like apple developed “Siri” to “understand” you
command through iphone4s may be in the next couple years, we can “type” just
by speaking, or our iphone can “write” everything we say,
Or the ipad that can compete the PC, and blockbuster PC, now if we buy apple
product, ex: ipod or iphone, we don’t have to “Connect” to pc anymore to activate
the device, just by connected the ipod through wifi and we can active the product
right to the product itself.
