Apple's History And Product Lines

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Apple is a leader in research, development, manufacturing and marketing computers for consumers, businesses, educational and government institutions. The company’s financial success can be attributed to their innovative products and marketing techniques that stress the importance that computers should "just work". During the last thirty-two years Apple has had its share of ups and downs, this essay will focus on major events from the company’s history, current events and their most significant products. ←Thesis goes here →

History

The company started April 1, 1976 with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Charismatic Jobs persuaded Wozniak to build computers for resale that Wozniak originally designed as a hobby for personal use. To purchase the first computer components, Jobs’ sold his VW mini-bus and Wozniak had to part with his “beloved” HP calculator. (TAM) Apple I was resold by a local store called the “Byte Shop” for $666.66. Apple was incorporated on January 3, 1977. December of 1979 in exchange for company stock XEROX invited Jobs and several Apple employees to see the “Alto Computer” which featured a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI allows for a user to navigate his/her computer using a mouse and click on objects as opposed to pressing a designated key. Jobs quotes saying that he was “instantly convinced” that all future computers would have a GUI, and set off to create an “insanely great” computer.

In September 1980 Apple launched their IPO, within a year the stock’s value increased 1700%. (SOURCE) The success was overwhelming and amateur Jobs was not managing the company effectively. Jobs recruited Sculley the CEO of Pepsi with a famous quote "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?" (The Apple Museum) Sculley did not understand computers and disagreed with Jobs. Sculley later stripped Jobs of managerial duties when he found out that Jobs was trying to take over the company. Shortly thereafter Jobs quit and took several employees with him to start company called NeXT. Sculley is responsible for drastically changing the computer industry by allowing Microsoft to use GUI as long as they kept making software for Apple computers. This created a predominant competitor to Apple, and facilitated Microsoft in becoming the most widely used operating system and office application in the world.

Product Lines

The above factors hurt Apple’s bottom line until August 16th, 1998.

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