Disruptive Innovation of Apple Inc.



Disruptive Innovation of Apple Inc.

Introduction

Apple Inc. is an American based multinational company whose headquarter is in California. Apple Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells consumer electronics, personal computers and software. The widely known hardware products of Apple are the iPhone mobile phones, Mac computers, the iPod music player, and the iPad tablet computers. The operating software of its products includes the iOS and OS X operating systems. The company also owns a number of internet applications among which the iTunes online music browser, the Safari web browser, and the iWork and iLife creativity and production suites are widely known and used.

Apple Inc was established in April, 1976 and was known as Apple Computer Inc. But the "Computer" word was removed In January 2007 from its name, reflecting its changed focus on consumer electronics with the innovation of the iPhone.

Position of Apple Inc.

Apple is now the world's second-largest company in Information technology industry by revenue after Samsung Electronics, it is the world's third-largest cellular phone company after Samsung and Nokia. Apple Inc. has been listed as the most admired company in the world from 2008 to 2012 (Owen Thomas, 2007).

Apple has built up a very gigantic reputation and a very powerful brand, it is supposed to be one of the most expensive brands on the earth. Everybody links Apple with innovation, attractive design, high quality and the property of being different. From the market point of view Apple has aligned itself to a specific type of customer which includes wealthy people, innovators, people with good lifestyle and good jobs.

Products of Apple Inc.

Apple covers a number of products including computers, cell phones, software applications, and consumer electronics, therefore, there it faces a number of rivals and competitors. We can say that most of the computer makers were the competitors of Apple, like Dell, Alienware, and Gateway in the field of hardware and Microsoft may also be considered a rival to their Operating Systems.

But in the last few years, as Apple has started to expand out greatly in the field of online media (iTunes, iPhone, MobileMe) so we can also include in Napster and some other legal music download websites. In the Smartphone industry, Apple can be considered a competitor to Samsung, Nokia, Blackberry and alike.

Disruptive Product of Apple (iPhone):

Apple Inc is well known for its innovative products and applications. A number of products have been launched from the forum of Apple Inc. that can now be counted as disruptive innovations. Among these many innovations is the iPhone Smartphone. The first generation of iPhone known as iPhone 1 was released on June 29, 2007. Since the launch of the first iPhone, it has created a huge disruption in the international cellphone market. A number of analysts agree that the iPhone to be the greatest disruptive innovation of all times. Although, many do not agree, even though the iPhone technology is a proven success that has brought about a number of new innovative features and applications in the market that ...