APPLE INC

Apple Inc. - Journey from Conception to Market leadership

Apple Inc. - Journey from Conception to Market leadership

History of Apple Inc.

Apple is considered to be the most renowned company when it comes to talk about innovative technology. Apple products are something that every person would like to own. The foundation of Apple Computer was laid down by two college dropped out boys, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, from Reed College and UC Berkeley in 1975. Wherever they have went they were considered as outcasts to the places, whether it is school or college. Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Steve Wozniak hocked his HP programmable calculator to raise $1,300 in seed money to start their new company. Apple Computer came into being as a company when they launched the Apple I in 1976 situated in Cupertino, California. Jobs and Wozniak has started Apple Company from their garage, where most of the people would start their business at some costly location. Maybe this is the main reason of the success of the company because it was built by the guys who knew what they really wanted.

One of their mutual friends helped him recruiting A.C Markkula to help them market the company that helped them to give a company an image of million dollars. The success of the company was accredited mostly to marketing and technological innovation. Apple grew quickly in high-growth industry of computers in 1980s and stayed ahead from its competitors by launching key products that has enthused the software development for personal computers. The company has produced landmark programs including Visicale. Apple managed to dominate the consumer markets and education by donating thousands of US dollars to schools and individuals for software education development. The revenue of Apple continued to grow at extraordinary rate even at such immense competition. Apple introduced Macintosh in 1984 that had graphical user interface along with windows, pull-down menus and icons, which became the technological revolution for the company Apple. Apple claimed that it cannot be cloned like IBM Personal Computer as Apple has kept the architecture of Macintosh proprietary. This strategy allowed the company to charge at premium price because of it user friendly features.

The introduction of IBM in Personal Computer market in 1983 was the first shakeout for the company, which affected companies that were selling personal computers at low priced to consumers. Companies that were not strong enough, made strategic mistakes or that were lacking distribution or brand awareness of their products disappeared.

Steve Jobs has recruited Sculley, who was an experienced executive from PepsiCo. Jobs was replaced with Sculley as a CEO of Apple in 1983. In 1985, the founder of company, Jobs and Wozniak left the company as power struggle took place between Jobs and Sculley when Jobs wanted to take the company in new risky direction. In contrast with the Jobs, Sculley wanted the company to be more careful by making strategic moves. The board of directors supported Sculley and made the decision to strip Jobs of ...