Business Overview Apple Inc - 1703 Words

2.0 Company Industry Background 2.1 Business Overview Apple, Inc. is a multi-billion dollar company based in Cupertino, California focusing on the design and manufacturing of personal computers, tablets, mobile phones, media and music devices, as well as, the software and services related to these (Richardson, 2015). Today, Apple’s products include the iPod, iPad, Apple Watch, AppleTV, Mac computers and laptops, and iTunes (Apple, 2015). Apple Computer was founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and incorporated on January 3, 1977 with the purpose of developing personal, user-friendly computers (Richardson, 2015). While working out of Jobs’ garage, Jobs and Wozniak created their first personal computer the Apple I,†¦show more content†¦Jobs departure, as Wozniak’s, consisted of conflicting views on the direction the company was being taken by the board of directors and the then CEO, John Sculley (Richardson, 2015). Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Apple produced vario us Macintosh computer models with varying degrees of success, mostly due to the high cost of the Macintosh computer and the rise in competing brands, who offered a similar product at a portion of the cost; a situation which was partially resolved by releasing several lower cost Macintosh models (Cite). The 1990s saw a rapid decline in the company’s success. While Apple introduced some the highly successful products such as the PowerBook, Apple’s first truly portable laptop computer, the increasing innovation and success of Microsoft put the company at risk (Rebello, Burrows, Sager, 1996). This was partially due to a failed series of investments aimed at launching Apple into various new markets, such as digital cameras and speakers, as well as, the lack of an operating system which could successfully compete with Windows. Attempts to create a new operating system to replace the Macintosh led to the acquisition of NeXT Software, Inc. in 1997 and the return of Steve Jobs as an advisor to then CEO, Gilbert Amelio (Apple, 1997). By the end of 1997, Gilbert Amelio was ousted as CEO of Apple and