TMIA ASSIGNMENT

TMIA Assignment

TMIA Assignment

As same as most the technology companies started, Apple established from the family garage by Steve Jobs (the visionary) and Steve Wozniak (the technical genius) in 1976. The first item introduced was Apple I that made 200 sales. Then, they had taken on a new partner Markkula Jr. who retired from Intel and had a good experience in the business field. In 1978, the company launched the Apple II which led them to be the leader on PC industry by 1 Billion. In 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh, but it wasn't profitable at that time, the sale fell 17%. Therefore, Apple's board removed Jobs. Then, the company hired John Scully who moved from Pepsi-Cola in 1983. (Apple Museum, 2004)

In fact, he did an excellent job with Apple by increasing the production line, improve the Apple capabilities in graphic and design, and sell Apple's product at a premium price. In this period also, Apple typically designed its product from scratch. In 1993, during the high competition between Apple and IBM, Apple decided to change the CEO to be Michael Spindle who was a head of Apple Europe but he wasn't successful, because he decided to reduce the R&D budget from 9% to 6%, and to sell a copy for a Mac OS license. As a result, Apple hired Gilbert Amelio who returned the price of Apple's product to its premium - price differentiation strategy and announced that Apple acquired NEXT software. Actually Amelio led the company to lose $1.6 Billion. Therefore, in 1997 Apple's board forced Amelio out and Steve Jobs became the company CEO. The first announcement from Steve was Microsoft had agreed to invest $150 million, develop the core product of Apple, and reducing the number of its line from 15 to 3. In 1998, Jobs shut down two divisions which were the Newton division and a portable PC division. Also, he continued its restructuring effort by reducing headcount, closing facilities, and outsourcing tasks. In addition, Apple launched a website to sell its product. In 2003, he increased its R&D from 5% to be 8%. (Macintosh, 2004)

Finally, we found based on the history of Apple that Steve Jobs is the secret of the apple's successes because he turned apple around in 1997, and then make them the leader in the technology market in 2006.

In order to better understand Apple Inc. and all of its components we have put together a SWOT analysis. SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. There are the general definitions that we are going by in order to determine the ones relative to Apple.

Strengths: attributes of the person or company that are helpful to achieving the objective.

Weaknesses: attributes of the person or company that are harmful to achieving the objective.

Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective.

Threats: external conditions which could do damage to the business's ...