Essay about apple company

The Apple Company Analytical Essay

We will write a custom Essay on The Apple Company specifically for you
for only $16.05 $11/page

301 certified writers online

Introduction

The Apple Company has made an indelible mark in the world stage with its innovations that have changed the way people use computers and mobile devices. Apple has been very successful and it is worth billions (Farivar 1). The share price of the company is over $530 making Apple the most successful company in the technological sector. In this paper, the effect of the apple company on the society in terms of ordinary people, employees, costs and on other electronic companies will be discussed.

Effect on ordinary people

Apple started in 1976 and its effect on ordinary people started with the introduction of personal computers. The personal computer revolutionized the technological world. The personal computers had a simple design and they were user-friendly to people. However, Apple did not achieve a large market share in the face of stiff competition from other companies.

As a result it started a product that has become part and parcel of modern day activities from the office to homes and the brand of choice (Sanderson 1). The products that Apple has produced such as iPod, iPhone, IPad are household names.

They have changed the way people buy music with the successful iTunes store. The products are sleek and functional and help meet needs that ordinary people did not know they had (Greenwood 1). The effect of Apple can be seen with the excitement that announcement of any new products create and the long queues of people waiting to buy them. Apple will continue to affect the lives of ordinary people through innovation of useful new products.

Effect on employees

The employees of Apple have to stay at the top of their game to continue releasing new products that stir the market. They must maintain the high standards that the former Apple products have set and surpass them. The employees must remain committed to the vision of Apple as embodied by Steve Jobs. He is synonymous to Apple, and with his demise the company employees have to deal with the post-Jobs era.

They are constantly faced asked what Jobs would have done about the decisions made by the new CEO Tim Cook, and such questions may frustrate some. The employees have to adjust working under Tim Cook who is different from Jobs and continue working hard to keep steering Apple towards its vision (Cheng 1).

Effect on costs

The price tag on Apple products is high unlike that of other companies. The features of Apple’s products are high quality and unmatched in the market. Therefore, Apple is able to charge high prices, but customers still buy because they feel the products are worth (Greenwood 1).

The cost of the Apple products is not likely to come down as the company offers other things for instance after sale services and customer care support. The company has an edge over the other companies with its brand products that have won the faith of many people and created loyal fan base. On the other hand, the company produces its products in China amidst of criticism for shipping jobs overseas, but the cost of production is cheaper than at home increasing the profit margin.

Effects on other electronics companies

Apple is the leader in the tech world and it has a major impact on other electronics companies. Its greatest rival in the mobile technological market is Samsung that leads the competition in the sale of mobile devices. Furthermore, Apple faces competition from other smaller companies that have improved their products to tap into the market.

They produce products similar to those of Apple, but their prices are lower hence they will get customers who want the experience of sleek gadgets, but at a cheap price. One the other hand, in the wake of patent suit against Samsung for patent infringement, the other companies have to be careful in designing their products lest they make them similar to Apple products and get slapped with a patent suit. The fear of suits can curtail some electronics company innovation (Mullis 1).

Conclusion

Apple has changed the world through its products. The effects on consumers is phenomenon and only the future knows what products the Apple is going to bring to the market if their past trend is anything to go by, and it is likely to remain a giant for a long time. They have come up with products that people never imagined they needed, but once introduced to them they became hooked.

Apple is a maverick in the technology world, and the successful strategies they employ are likely to keep the company on an upward trend, consolidating its lead and market share. The company has huge cash reserves at its disposal that it can use to develop products, and invest in any area they see fit to ensure that the company remains the leader in the technological world. Therefore, Apple will continue to affect the society in the near future with its strong brands that are famous across the globe.

Works Cited

Cheng, Jacqui. The ghost of Jobs: Apple’s challenge to decide “what would Steve do?” 5 Oct. 2012. Web.

Farivar, Cyrus. 30 years of Apple: Accessing Apple’s impact. 31 Mar. 2012. Web.

Greenwood, Ben. Apples booms so what next for the tech giant? 2012. Web.

Mullis, Steve. Apple’s patent win could Alter Landscape of smart phone Industry. 25 Aug. 2012. Web.

Sanderson, Rachel. The Apple brand has the biggest impact on the world’s consumers, while Microsoft and the United States nation brand are those considered most in need of a remake, a survey showed on Monday. 31 Mar. 2008. Web.

Источник

Apple Company’s Problems Problem Solution Essay

We will write a custom Essay on Apple Company’s Problems specifically for you
for only $16.05 $11/page

301 certified writers online

Brief History of Apple Inc

Apple Computer Company was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Woziniak in 1976 after they had dropped out of school. They were working in a family garage in California where they decided to come up with a computer circuit board which they called Apple 1. They made more than two hundred units within a few months after starting.

In order to boost their new business, they decided to incorporate a new partner who was more experienced for them to attract venture capital. The aim of these two entrepreneurs was to introduce into the market a computer that was easy to use and they came up with Apple II in 1978. There endeavors led to a complete revolution in the PC industry raising the sales to 1$ billion in less than three years.

The company became one of the most successful dealers in computers with high sales until they launched their IPO in 1980. However, the company started experiencing problems with its sales falling in the recent years. This problem is compounded by the entry of other players in the PC market such as windows 7 which started pushing Apple further (Yoffie and Kim 2). This essay will discuss some of the problems Apple has been facing and how they could possibly be solved.

Competition and Marketing Problem in Apple Inc

One of the most serious problems that apple Inc is facing and which to a large extent contributes to the occasional failures of the company is a marketing problem due to stiff competition in the industry. Initially, Apple was dealing with Macintosh computers when it started facing stiff competition from other PC manufacturers such as IBM. Later on, Apple decided to shift from PC industry into mobile phone industry.

The company wanted to go beyond Macintosh computers and embrace a digital hub strategy. This shift was marked by the introduction of iPod in 2001 and the iPhone in 2007. Later in 2010, the company introduced the iPad. After these developments the company changed its name from Apple computers to Apple Inc. one of the distinguishing features of Apple Inc iPods is the iTunes software that they incorporated (Yoffie and Kim 9).

Despite the success of the iTunes Apple Inc has enjoyed, it has had strained relationships with content companies. These companies are in strong opposition of the fact that Apple Inc has dominated the digital music market and its structure of fixed prices.

In addition, music labels are seeing the threat posed by Apple Inc because there high priced CDs are being faced out of the market. Apple Inc faces strong competition from online music stores such as Napster, amazon.com and Walmart.com which often inconveniences the marketing strategies of company.

These online music stores have been offering music downloads at discounted prices. Some music labels have been allowing music stores to sell DRM free music. For example, MySpace which is a social network has been networking with other music labels to come up with its own music service. This increases the competition hence forcing Apple Inc to start looking for new marketing strategies in order to remain relevant in the market.

In addition to the music services provided by social networks which pose a threat to Apple Inc, the company has also experienced another challenge coming from internet radio sites such as last.fm and Pandora which offer free streaming services. Other companies like Nokia started offering music services with their phones.

The impact of this competition is that it forces Apple Inc to diversify its marketing strategies and look for new products which is costly for the company. For instance, in response to these threats the company had to buy Lala.com which is a music streaming service in 2009. This raised speculations from the competitors that Apple Inc had intentions of coming up with a new model of storing digital music.

The entry into mobile phone industry for Apple is a risky endeavor because there are strong competitors with remarkable experience in the industry. The products also have a short life span and sophistication in technology of which apple Inc has little experience in. there is also a strong challenge in distribution since some of the distributors already in the market such as Vodafone are formidable. This makes the marketing strategies for Apple Inc challenging (Yoffie and Kim 9)

Proposed Solution for the problems

The marketing problem facing Apple Inc as result of increased competition can be handled through intensive market research and analysis. Apple Inc should be very keen on identifying the strategies and moves being used by its rivals. Apart from observing the rivals, the company should conduct continued market research and identify what the customers require in order to satisfy them.

Through proper knowledge of what the customers need and the strategies being used by the competitors, the company will be able to apply the requisite innovativeness in coming bringing into the market new products. The company should also strife to invest a lot in its distribution strategies to ensure that the competitors do not take advantage of its poor distribution strategies.

Current Situation of Apple Inc

Despite the problems that have occasionally bedeviled Apple Inc causing the company to drop its sales in various times, the company is now doing well. The introduction of its latest devices like the iPhone and the iPad recently has seen the company grow tremendously. In October 2010, the shares of the company rose very high which is an indication that it is doing fine.

In the same year, the company also opened the Mac App Store for distributing digital applications. The market capitalization of the company went beyond that of Microsoft this year and it was rated as the brand with the highest value in consumer facing issues. By July of 2011, the reserves of the company had gone beyond those of the US government (Apple Press Info 10)

Works Cited

Apple Press Info. Apple Reports Second Quarter Results. 2011. Web.

Yoffie, David and Renee Kim. Apple Inc in 2010. 2011. Web.15 Aug 2011.

Источник

Apple Inc.

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer, Inc., American manufacturer of personal computers, smartphones, tablet computers, computer peripherals, and computer software. It was the first successful personal computer company and the popularizer of the graphical user interface. Headquarters are located in Cupertino, California.

Garage start-up

Apple Inc. had its genesis in the lifelong dream of Stephen G. Wozniak to build his own computer—a dream that was made suddenly feasible with the arrival in 1975 of the first commercially successful microcomputer, the Altair 8800, which came as a kit and used the recently invented microprocessor chip. Encouraged by his friends at the Homebrew Computer Club, a San Francisco Bay area group centred around the Altair, Wozniak quickly came up with a plan for his own microcomputer. In 1976, when the Hewlett-Packard Company, where Wozniak was an engineering intern, expressed no interest in his design, Wozniak, then 26 years old, together with a former high-school classmate, 21-year-old Steve Jobs, moved production operations to the Jobs family garage. Jobs and Wozniak named their company Apple. For working capital, Jobs sold his Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak his programmable calculator. Their first model was simply a working circuit board, but at Jobs’s insistence the 1977 version was a stand-alone machine in a custom-molded plastic case, in contrast to the forbidding steel boxes of other early machines. This Apple II also offered a colour display and other features that made Wozniak’s creation the first microcomputer that appealed to the average person.

Commercial success

Though he was a brash business novice whose appearance still bore traces of his hippie past, Jobs understood that in order for the company to grow, it would require professional management and substantial funding. He convinced Regis McKenna, a well-known public relations specialist for the semiconductor industry, to represent the company; he also secured an investment from Michael Markkula, a wealthy veteran of the Intel Corporation who became Apple’s largest shareholder and an influential member of Apple’s board of directors. The company became an instant success, particularly after Wozniak invented a disk controller that allowed the addition of a low-cost floppy disk drive that made information storage and retrieval fast and reliable. With room to store and manipulate data, the Apple II became the computer of choice for legions of amateur programmers. Most notably, in 1979 two Bostonians—Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston—introduced the first personal computer spreadsheet, VisiCalc, creating what would later be known as a “killer app” (application): a software program so useful that it propels hardware sales.

While VisiCalc opened up the small-business and consumer market for the Apple II, another important early market was primary educational institutions. By a combination of aggressive discounts and donations (and an absence of any early competition), Apple established a commanding presence among educational institutions, contributing to its platform’s dominance of primary-school software well into the 1990s.

Competition from IBM

Apple’s profits and size grew at a historic rate: by 1980 the company netted over $100 million and had more than 1,000 employees. Its public offering in December was the biggest since 1956, when the Ford Motor Company had gone public. (Indeed, by the end of 1980, Apple’s valuation of nearly $2 billion was greater than Ford’s.) However, Apple would soon face competition from the computer industry’s leading player, International Business Machines Corporation. IBM had waited for the personal computer market to grow before introducing its own line of personal computers, the IBM PC, in 1981. IBM broke with its tradition of using only proprietary hardware components and software and built a machine from readily available components, including the Intel microprocessor, and used DOS (disk operating system) from the Microsoft Corporation. Because other manufacturers could use the same hardware components that IBM used, as well as license DOS from Microsoft, new software developers could count on a wide IBM PC-compatible market for their software. Soon the new system had its own killer app: the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, which won an instant constituency in the business community—a market that the Apple II had failed to penetrate.

Macintosh and the first affordable GUI

Apple had its own plan to regain leadership: a sophisticated new generation of computers that would be dramatically easier to use. In 1979 Jobs had led a team of engineers to see the innovations created at the Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto (California) Research Center (PARC). There they were shown the first functional graphical user interface (GUI), featuring on-screen windows, a pointing device known as a mouse, and the use of icons, or pictures, to replace the awkward protocols required by all other computers. Apple immediately incorporated these ideas into two new computers: Lisa, released in 1983, and the lower-cost Macintosh, released in 1984. Jobs himself took over the latter project, insisting that the computer should be not merely great but “insanely great.” The result was a revelation—perfectly in tune with the unconventional, science-fiction-esque television commercial that introduced the Macintosh during the broadcast of the 1984 Super Bowl—a $2,500 computer unlike any that preceded it.

Источник