In the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote address on June 6 2005, Steve Jobs officially announced that Apple would begin producing Intel-based Mac computers beginning in 2006. Jobs confirmed rumors that the company had secretly been producing versions of its current operating system Mac OS X for both PowerPC and Intel processors for the previous five years and that the transition to Intel processor systems would last until the end of 2008.
On January 10 2006, Apple released its first Intel chip computers, a new notebook computer known as the MacBook Pro (with a 15.4" screen) and a new (though cosmetically identical) iMac with purportedly two to three times faster performance compared with its predecessor. Both used Intel's Core Duo chip technology. Later in February, Apple introduced the new Intel-based Mac mini, running up to four times faster and also featuring Front Row, available with a Core Duo or Core Solo (single core) processor. In February 2006, the Apple Online Store sold its last 17" iMac G5, Apple ended the life of its 15" PowerBook G4 on February 22 2006, and the G4 Mac mini was removed from the Apple online store on February 28 2006 and replaced with the Intel Core Mac mini. On March 10 2006 Apple retired the iMac G5 and on May 16 2006, replaced the iBook G4 and the 12" PowerBook G4 with the MacBook. On August 7 2006, the PowerMac was replaced with the Mac Pro, completing the transition of all Mac computers, well in advance of their original prediction. On September 6 2006, Apple updated its iMac line to include new Intel Core 2 Duo processors, and adding a model with a 24" screen to the line-up, as well as quietly bumping the speeds of their Mac mini. The Xserve was transitioned in mid-November 2006. On October 24 2006 the MacBook Pros were fitted with Intel Core 2 Duo processors as well, running up to 39% faster than the original Intel Core Duo MacBook Pros. The MacBooks were fitted with the Core 2 Duo processors on November 8, and run up to 25% faster than the Core Duo ones according to Apple's tests.
Apple's current operating system, Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger", runs natively on the new Intel machines, as do the Darwin open source underpinnings. Many applications, such as iLife '06, also run natively on Intel chips. Other applications (including Microsoft Office) which have not been updated to run on the Intel architecture, run using a technology known as Rosetta. Because Rosetta is a translation software that allows PowerPC programs to run on Intel processors, these PowerPC programs run slower than native applications. Programs compiled only for the PowerPC must be recompiled to run at full speed on the new Intel machines. Programs that have been designed to run on both PowerPC and Intel chips can be certified by Apple as "Universal". The Intel-based machines also do not support Classic, which allows Mac OS X to run applications written for OS 9 and earlier, so applications that require this environment will not run on these machines. Apple currently has no plans to bring Classic support to the Intel platform.
The Intel chip also allows the new machines to run the Windows operating system. On March 16 2006 a bootloader CD image and a how-to for getting XP on your MacBook Pro, iMac, or mini was released to the Internet as an entry into a US$13,000 contest. Many hackers attempted over three months to win the prize by becoming the first to run Windows natively on a new Intel Mac. The Intel-based Macs are now the only computers officially capable of running both Mac OS X and Windows without emulation (a pre-release version of Mac OS X for Intel was patched to run on non-Apple PCs through the OSx86 community; however such procedure is not permitted by the Apple EULA). Further, on April 5 2006, Apple announced a new piece of software called Boot Camp that helps users install Windows XP on their Intel Mac alongside Mac OS X. Apple has said that Boot Camp will be included, as standard, in Apple's next OS release (10.5, “Leopard”).
The Apple/Intel partnership coined several catch phrases among Apple fans and technology reporters. Some of the most widespread ones include "Mactel" and "Macintel", a response to the phrase "Wintel", which is an informal moniker that describes all Intel-powered systems running the Microsoft Windows operating system. Another is "ICBM", for "Intel-chip-based Mac." Apple itself has not publicly used these terms.
Apple's success during this period, beginning in 1997 (the first year the company turned a profit after losses through 1995 and 1996), but accelerating between 2003 to 2005, was evident in its skyrocketing stock. Between early 2003 and January 2006, the price of a share of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from a little more than US$6 per share (split-adjusted) to more than US$80 per share. On January 13 2006, Apple's market cap surpassed that of Dell. Nearly ten years prior, in 1997, Dell's CEO, Michael Dell, had asserted that if he ran Apple he would "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
Delivering his keynote at Macworld 2007 (January 9 2007), Steve Jobs announced a change of name: Apple Computer Inc. would from that point be known as Apple Inc. The event also saw the announcement of the iPhone, and the Apple TV. The following day, Apple shares hit US$97.80, then an all-time high. In May 2007, Apple's share price passed the US$100 mark.
On February 7 2007, Apple indicated that it would be willing to sell music on the iTunes store without Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection (allowing tracks to be played on any compatible player) if major record labels would agree to drop that anti-piracy technology. On April 2 2007, Apple and record label EMI jointly-announced the removal of anti-piracy technology from EMI's catalog in the iTunes Store, effective in May.
The company’s investment in R&D, measured as a percentage of revenues, has declined over the past few years. Though Apple investment in R&D has increased from $446 million in 2002 to $712 million in 2006, its R&D investment as a percentage of total revenues has declined from 7.8% in 2002 to 3.8% in 2006. Microsoft Corporation — one of the major competitors of the company — has invested 16.1% of its total revenues on R&D, in the fiscal year 2007.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Apple in 1998 to 2005: New beginnings
On August 15 1998, Apple introduced a new all-in-one Mac computer reminiscent of the original Macintosh 128K: the iMac. The iMac design team was led by Jonathan Ive, who would come later to design the iPod and the iPhone. While not groundbreaking from a technological standpoint, the iMac featured an innovative new translucent plastic exterior, originally in Bondi Blue, but later many other colors. The iMac proved phenomenally successful, selling close to 800,000 units in its first five months and significantly boosting the company's revenue and profitability. Thanks in part to the iMac; fiscal 1998 was Apple's first profitable year since 1993. Some consider the iMac an industrial design icon of the late 90s, and its designer, Jonathan Ive, has won awards for its innovation.
At the National Association of Broadcasters convention, Apple purchased the Final Cut software from Macromedia, beginning its entry into the digital video editing market, and signaling a return to application development after a decade long policy of delegating non-system software to its Claris subsidiary. iMovie was released in 1999 for consumers, and Final Cut Pro was released for professionals in the same year. Final Cut Pro has gone on to be a significant video-editing program. Similarly, in 2000 Apple bought Astarte's DVDirector software, which morphed into iDVD (for consumers) and DVD Studio Pro (for professionals) at the Macworld Conference and Expo of 2001.
In 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X, the operating system based on NeXT's OPENSTEP and BSD Unix. Aimed at consumers and professionals alike, Mac OS X aimed to marry the stability, reliability and security of the Unix operating system with the ease of use afforded by a completely overhauled user interface. To aid users in moving their applications from Mac OS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of OS 9 applications through Mac OS X's Classic environment. Apple's Carbon API also allowed developers to adapt their OS 9 software to use Mac OS X's features often with a simple recompile.
On May 19 2001, after much speculation, Apple announced the opening of the first official Apple Retail Stores, to be located in major U.S. consumer locations. These stores were designed for two purposes: to stem the tide of Apple's declining share of the computer market and to counter a poor record of marketing Apple products by third-party retail outlets. The company faced challenges to balance the deployment of its own retail stores with its dependence on, and the demands of, its existing channel partners and dealers. Apple slowly built up the number of stores in the U.S., (now totaling 183 as of June 2007) later opening stores in Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, recently Italy, and has plans for a France location. These efforts in retail succeeded and proved to be very profitable, averaging annual returns of US$4,032 per square foot of every store, the most in retail. These returns bested retail favorites such as Best Buy at $930 and Tiffany's at $2666.
On October 23 2001 Apple introduced its first iPod portable digital audio player and released it on November 10 of that year. The product has proven phenomenally successful; over 100 million units have been sold. Apple's iTunes Store was introduced soon after, offering online music downloads for US 99¢ a song and integration with the iPod. The service quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 3 billion downloads by August 2007.
In 2002 Apple purchased Nothing Real and their advanced digital compositing application Shake, raising Apple's professional commitment even higher. In the same year they also acquired Emagic, and with it, obtained their professional-quality music productivity application Logic, which led to the development of their consumer-level GarageBand application. With iPhoto's release in 2002, this completed Apple's collection of consumer and professional level creativity software, with the consumer-level applications being collected together into the iLife suite.
Apple's design team progressively abandoned the flashy colors of the iMac G3 era in favor of white polycarbonate for consumer lines such as the iMac and iBook, as well as the educational eMac, and metal enclosures for the professional lines. This began with the 2001 release of the titanium PowerBook and was followed by the 2001 white iBook, the 2002 flat-panel iMac, the 2003 Power Mac G5, and the 2004 Apple Cinema Displays. Divergent to this consumer/professional identity, the low-cost Mac mini has an aluminum case while featuring the distinctive white polycarbonate top.
At the National Association of Broadcasters convention, Apple purchased the Final Cut software from Macromedia, beginning its entry into the digital video editing market, and signaling a return to application development after a decade long policy of delegating non-system software to its Claris subsidiary. iMovie was released in 1999 for consumers, and Final Cut Pro was released for professionals in the same year. Final Cut Pro has gone on to be a significant video-editing program. Similarly, in 2000 Apple bought Astarte's DVDirector software, which morphed into iDVD (for consumers) and DVD Studio Pro (for professionals) at the Macworld Conference and Expo of 2001.
In 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X, the operating system based on NeXT's OPENSTEP and BSD Unix. Aimed at consumers and professionals alike, Mac OS X aimed to marry the stability, reliability and security of the Unix operating system with the ease of use afforded by a completely overhauled user interface. To aid users in moving their applications from Mac OS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of OS 9 applications through Mac OS X's Classic environment. Apple's Carbon API also allowed developers to adapt their OS 9 software to use Mac OS X's features often with a simple recompile.
On May 19 2001, after much speculation, Apple announced the opening of the first official Apple Retail Stores, to be located in major U.S. consumer locations. These stores were designed for two purposes: to stem the tide of Apple's declining share of the computer market and to counter a poor record of marketing Apple products by third-party retail outlets. The company faced challenges to balance the deployment of its own retail stores with its dependence on, and the demands of, its existing channel partners and dealers. Apple slowly built up the number of stores in the U.S., (now totaling 183 as of June 2007) later opening stores in Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, recently Italy, and has plans for a France location. These efforts in retail succeeded and proved to be very profitable, averaging annual returns of US$4,032 per square foot of every store, the most in retail. These returns bested retail favorites such as Best Buy at $930 and Tiffany's at $2666.
On October 23 2001 Apple introduced its first iPod portable digital audio player and released it on November 10 of that year. The product has proven phenomenally successful; over 100 million units have been sold. Apple's iTunes Store was introduced soon after, offering online music downloads for US 99¢ a song and integration with the iPod. The service quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 3 billion downloads by August 2007.
In 2002 Apple purchased Nothing Real and their advanced digital compositing application Shake, raising Apple's professional commitment even higher. In the same year they also acquired Emagic, and with it, obtained their professional-quality music productivity application Logic, which led to the development of their consumer-level GarageBand application. With iPhoto's release in 2002, this completed Apple's collection of consumer and professional level creativity software, with the consumer-level applications being collected together into the iLife suite.
Apple's design team progressively abandoned the flashy colors of the iMac G3 era in favor of white polycarbonate for consumer lines such as the iMac and iBook, as well as the educational eMac, and metal enclosures for the professional lines. This began with the 2001 release of the titanium PowerBook and was followed by the 2001 white iBook, the 2002 flat-panel iMac, the 2003 Power Mac G5, and the 2004 Apple Cinema Displays. Divergent to this consumer/professional identity, the low-cost Mac mini has an aluminum case while featuring the distinctive white polycarbonate top.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Apple in 1994 to 1997: Attempts at reinvention
By the mid-90s, Apple realized that it had to reinvent the Macintosh in order to stay competitive in the market. The needs of both computer users and computer programs were becoming, for a variety of technical reasons, harder for the existing hardware and operating system to address.
In 1994 Apple surprised its loyalists by allying with its long-time competitor IBM and CPU maker Motorola in the so-called AIM alliance. This was a bid to create a new computing platform (the PowerPC Reference Platform or PReP), which would use IBM and Motorola hardware coupled with Apple's software. The AIM alliance hoped that PReP's performance and Apple's software would leave the PC far behind, thus countering Microsoft, which had become Apple's chief competitor.
As the first step toward launching the PReP platform, Apple started the Power Macintosh line in 1994, using IBM's PowerPC processor. This processor utilized a RISC architecture, which differed substantially from the Motorola 68k series that had been used by all previous Macs. Apple's OS was rewritten so that most software for the older Macs could run on the PowerPC series (in emulation).
Throughout the mid to late 1990s, Apple tried to improve its operating system's multitasking and memory management. After first attempting to modify its existing code, Apple realized that it would be better to start with an entirely new operating system and then modify it to fit the Macintosh interface. Apple did some preliminary work with IBM towards this goal with the Taligent project, but that project never produced a replacement operating system. A new internal effort, Copland, ran afoul of Apple's now uncontrollable engineering and became a massive failure. A fresh attempt was made with the Gershwin operating system.
In 1995 Apple tried to break into the gaming industry with the Apple Pippin. Despite the success of competing game consoles like Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn, Pippin experienced very limited success and as little as 5000 units were sold worldwide and there was a very small variety of games available for those who did own a console. Overall this was a failure for Apple; its scope was more general in purpose than serious gaming, leaving the console expensive and underpowered compared with its rivals.
Next, the company considered its options for an operating system, investigating Be Inc.'s BeOS, NeXT's NeXTSTEP OS, and also Microsoft's Windows NT. NeXTSTEP was chosen, and this supplied the platform for the modern Mac OS X. On February 7 1997, Apple completed its purchase of NeXT and its NeXTSTEP operating system, in the process bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple. On July 9 1997, Gil Amelio was ousted as CEO of Apple by the board of directors after overseeing a 3-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses. Jobs stepped in as the interim CEO and began a critical restructuring of the company's product line.
At the 1997 Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be entering into partnership with Microsoft. Settlement discussions regarding Apple's "Look and Feel" lawsuit and the QuickTime piracy lawsuit resulted in a five-year commitment from Microsoft to release Microsoft Office for Macintosh as well as a US$150 million investment in non-voting Apple stock. (This event is often inaccurately described as a "bailout" of Apple by Microsoft. At the time Apple had a little over US$1 billion in cash and cash equivalents according to their 10-Q statement. Microsoft later sold its shares for a tidy profit.) Jobs also announced that Internet Explorer would be shipped as the default browser on the Macintosh. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates appeared at the expo on the large screen, explaining Microsoft's plans for the software they were developing for the Macintosh, and saying that he was very excited to be helping Apple. This was met with a less than positive response from the audience. Steve Jobs said:
"If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple needs to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that's great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault, it's our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective. If we want Microsoft Office on the Mac, we should treat the company that puts it out with a little bit of gratitude; we like their software.
So, the era of setting this thing up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over as far as I'm concerned. This is about getting Apple healthy, this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry and to get healthy and prosper again."
On November 10 1997, Apple announced a new online retail store, based upon the WebObjects application server the company had acquired in its purchase of NeXT. The new direct sales outlet was also tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing strategy and announced at the same time as new machines using the G3 PowerPC processor.
In 1994 Apple surprised its loyalists by allying with its long-time competitor IBM and CPU maker Motorola in the so-called AIM alliance. This was a bid to create a new computing platform (the PowerPC Reference Platform or PReP), which would use IBM and Motorola hardware coupled with Apple's software. The AIM alliance hoped that PReP's performance and Apple's software would leave the PC far behind, thus countering Microsoft, which had become Apple's chief competitor.
As the first step toward launching the PReP platform, Apple started the Power Macintosh line in 1994, using IBM's PowerPC processor. This processor utilized a RISC architecture, which differed substantially from the Motorola 68k series that had been used by all previous Macs. Apple's OS was rewritten so that most software for the older Macs could run on the PowerPC series (in emulation).
Throughout the mid to late 1990s, Apple tried to improve its operating system's multitasking and memory management. After first attempting to modify its existing code, Apple realized that it would be better to start with an entirely new operating system and then modify it to fit the Macintosh interface. Apple did some preliminary work with IBM towards this goal with the Taligent project, but that project never produced a replacement operating system. A new internal effort, Copland, ran afoul of Apple's now uncontrollable engineering and became a massive failure. A fresh attempt was made with the Gershwin operating system.
In 1995 Apple tried to break into the gaming industry with the Apple Pippin. Despite the success of competing game consoles like Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn, Pippin experienced very limited success and as little as 5000 units were sold worldwide and there was a very small variety of games available for those who did own a console. Overall this was a failure for Apple; its scope was more general in purpose than serious gaming, leaving the console expensive and underpowered compared with its rivals.
Next, the company considered its options for an operating system, investigating Be Inc.'s BeOS, NeXT's NeXTSTEP OS, and also Microsoft's Windows NT. NeXTSTEP was chosen, and this supplied the platform for the modern Mac OS X. On February 7 1997, Apple completed its purchase of NeXT and its NeXTSTEP operating system, in the process bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple. On July 9 1997, Gil Amelio was ousted as CEO of Apple by the board of directors after overseeing a 3-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses. Jobs stepped in as the interim CEO and began a critical restructuring of the company's product line.
At the 1997 Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be entering into partnership with Microsoft. Settlement discussions regarding Apple's "Look and Feel" lawsuit and the QuickTime piracy lawsuit resulted in a five-year commitment from Microsoft to release Microsoft Office for Macintosh as well as a US$150 million investment in non-voting Apple stock. (This event is often inaccurately described as a "bailout" of Apple by Microsoft. At the time Apple had a little over US$1 billion in cash and cash equivalents according to their 10-Q statement. Microsoft later sold its shares for a tidy profit.) Jobs also announced that Internet Explorer would be shipped as the default browser on the Macintosh. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates appeared at the expo on the large screen, explaining Microsoft's plans for the software they were developing for the Macintosh, and saying that he was very excited to be helping Apple. This was met with a less than positive response from the audience. Steve Jobs said:
"If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple needs to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that's great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault, it's our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective. If we want Microsoft Office on the Mac, we should treat the company that puts it out with a little bit of gratitude; we like their software.
So, the era of setting this thing up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over as far as I'm concerned. This is about getting Apple healthy, this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry and to get healthy and prosper again."
On November 10 1997, Apple announced a new online retail store, based upon the WebObjects application server the company had acquired in its purchase of NeXT. The new direct sales outlet was also tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing strategy and announced at the same time as new machines using the G3 PowerPC processor.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Apple in 1989 to 1991: The Golden Age
Having learned several painful lessons after introducing the bulky Macintosh Portable in 1989, Apple turned to industrial designers and adopted a product strategy based in three portable devices. One portable was built by Sony, which at the time had a strong reputation for designing small, durable and functional electronics devices[citation needed]. Sony took the specs of the Mac Portable, put in a smaller two-hour battery, a much smaller (physically) 20 MB hard drive and a smaller nine-inch passive matrix screen.
Called the PowerBook 100, this landmark product was introduced in 1991 and established the modern form and ergonomic layout of the laptop computer. This solidified Apple's reputation as a quality manufacturer, both of desktop and now portable machines. The same year, Apple introduced a massive upgrade to the Mac OS, in the form of System 7. Although resource-hungry (for the era), System 7 dramatically improved the Macintosh experience, adding color to the interface, simplifying common operations, and introducing a number of powerful new networking capabilities. System 7 would be the basis for the Mac OS until 2001.
The success of the PowerBook and several other Apple products during this period led to increasing revenue. The computer press listened to Apple press releases with rapt attention and speculation was rife about what projects from Apple's famed Advanced Technology Group would next come to market. Apple merely had to mention a technology, Taligent for instance, for people to christen it the "new standard". For some time, it appeared that Apple could do no wrong, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazine MacAddict named the period between 1989 to 1991 the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.
The continuing development of Microsoft Windows had given birth to an interface that was competitive with Apple's. Combined with a huge base of low-cost computers and peripherals and an improving software suite, an increasing number of potential customers turned to the "Wintel" standard.
Apple, relying on high profit margins to maintain their massive R&D budget, never developed a clear response. Instead they sued Microsoft for theft of intellectual property, in Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation. The lawsuit dragged on for years before finally being thrown out of court. Worse, the lawsuit distracted management while a deep rot developed within the engineering ranks, which became increasingly unmanageable. At first there was little outward sign of the problem, but a series of major product flops and missed deadlines destroyed Apple's reputation of invincibility.
At about the same time, Apple branched out into consumer electronics. One example of this product diversification was the Apple QuickTake digital camera, one of the first digital cameras brought to the consumer market. A more famous example was the Newton, termed a "Personal digital assistant" or "PDA" by Sculley, that was introduced in 1993. Though it failed commercially, it defined and launched a new category of computing and was a forerunner of devices such as Palm Pilot, PocketPC, and eventually the iPhone.
During the 1990s, Apple greatly expanded its computer lineup. It offered a multitude of models ("Quadra 840av", "Performa 6116"), but many felt Apple failed to adequately differentiate one model from another and the cost of supporting so many products adversely affected profitability. Apple lost market share to Microsoft Windows, particularly Windows 95 — a major turning point in the history of the rival Windows operating system.
Called the PowerBook 100, this landmark product was introduced in 1991 and established the modern form and ergonomic layout of the laptop computer. This solidified Apple's reputation as a quality manufacturer, both of desktop and now portable machines. The same year, Apple introduced a massive upgrade to the Mac OS, in the form of System 7. Although resource-hungry (for the era), System 7 dramatically improved the Macintosh experience, adding color to the interface, simplifying common operations, and introducing a number of powerful new networking capabilities. System 7 would be the basis for the Mac OS until 2001.
The success of the PowerBook and several other Apple products during this period led to increasing revenue. The computer press listened to Apple press releases with rapt attention and speculation was rife about what projects from Apple's famed Advanced Technology Group would next come to market. Apple merely had to mention a technology, Taligent for instance, for people to christen it the "new standard". For some time, it appeared that Apple could do no wrong, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazine MacAddict named the period between 1989 to 1991 the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.
The continuing development of Microsoft Windows had given birth to an interface that was competitive with Apple's. Combined with a huge base of low-cost computers and peripherals and an improving software suite, an increasing number of potential customers turned to the "Wintel" standard.
Apple, relying on high profit margins to maintain their massive R&D budget, never developed a clear response. Instead they sued Microsoft for theft of intellectual property, in Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation. The lawsuit dragged on for years before finally being thrown out of court. Worse, the lawsuit distracted management while a deep rot developed within the engineering ranks, which became increasingly unmanageable. At first there was little outward sign of the problem, but a series of major product flops and missed deadlines destroyed Apple's reputation of invincibility.
At about the same time, Apple branched out into consumer electronics. One example of this product diversification was the Apple QuickTake digital camera, one of the first digital cameras brought to the consumer market. A more famous example was the Newton, termed a "Personal digital assistant" or "PDA" by Sculley, that was introduced in 1993. Though it failed commercially, it defined and launched a new category of computing and was a forerunner of devices such as Palm Pilot, PocketPC, and eventually the iPhone.
During the 1990s, Apple greatly expanded its computer lineup. It offered a multitude of models ("Quadra 840av", "Performa 6116"), but many felt Apple failed to adequately differentiate one model from another and the cost of supporting so many products adversely affected profitability. Apple lost market share to Microsoft Windows, particularly Windows 95 — a major turning point in the history of the rival Windows operating system.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Apple in 1981 to 1989: Lisa and Macintosh
Jobs and several other Apple employees including Jef Raskin visited Xerox PARC in December 1979 to see the Alto computer. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for selling them US$1 million in pre-IPO Apple stock (approximately US$18 million net).
It is said that Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a GUI, and decided to turn over design of Apple's first project, the Apple Lisa, to produce such a device. The Lisa was named after Jobs' daughter (however, an acronym, Local Integrated Software Architecture, was coined). He was eventually pushed from the group due to infighting, and instead took over Jef Raskin's low-cost computer project, the Macintosh. Branding the new effort as the product that would "save Apple", an intense turf war broke out between the Lisa's "corporate shirts" and Jobs' Macintosh "pirates", both teams claiming they would ship first and be more successful. In 1983 the Lisa team won the race and Apple introduced the first personal computer to be sold to the public with a GUI. However, the Lisa was a commercial failure as a result of its high price tag (US$9,995) and limited software titles.
In 1984, drawing upon its experience with the Lisa, Apple next launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by a single national broadcast of the now famous US$1.5 million television commercial, "1984", based on George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The commercial was directed by Ridley Scott and aired during Super Bowl XVIII on January 22 1984. Jobs' intention with the ad was to represent the IBM PC as Big Brother, and the Macintosh as a nameless female action hero portrayed by Anya Major. While the Macintosh initially sold well, follow-up sales were not particularly strong. The machine's fortunes changed with the introduction of the LaserWriter, the first laser printer to be offered at a reasonable price point, and PageMaker, an early desktop publishing (DTP) package. The Mac was particularly powerful in this market due to its advanced graphics capabilities, which were already necessarily built-in to create the Macintosh GUI. It has been suggested that the combination of these three products was responsible for the creation of the DTP market. As DTP became widespread, Apple's sales reached a series of new highs.
In anticipation of the Macintosh launch, Bill Gates, co-founder and chairman of Microsoft, was given several Macintosh prototypes in 1983 to develop software. While the company was indeed ready with its BASIC and the MultiPlan spreadsheet at the Macintosh's launch, in 1985 Microsoft launched Windows, its own GUI for IBM PCs. Although sales started slow, by the mid 1990s it became the most commonly-used desktop operating system, cutting deeply into the Macintosh's sales.
An internal power struggle developed between Jobs and new CEO John Sculley in 1985. Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and Jobs was removed from his managerial duties. Jobs later resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc., a computer company that built machines with futuristic designs and ran the UNIX-derived NeXTStep operating system. Although powerful, NeXT computers never caught on with buyers, due in part to their high purchase price.
It is said that Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a GUI, and decided to turn over design of Apple's first project, the Apple Lisa, to produce such a device. The Lisa was named after Jobs' daughter (however, an acronym, Local Integrated Software Architecture, was coined). He was eventually pushed from the group due to infighting, and instead took over Jef Raskin's low-cost computer project, the Macintosh. Branding the new effort as the product that would "save Apple", an intense turf war broke out between the Lisa's "corporate shirts" and Jobs' Macintosh "pirates", both teams claiming they would ship first and be more successful. In 1983 the Lisa team won the race and Apple introduced the first personal computer to be sold to the public with a GUI. However, the Lisa was a commercial failure as a result of its high price tag (US$9,995) and limited software titles.
In 1984, drawing upon its experience with the Lisa, Apple next launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by a single national broadcast of the now famous US$1.5 million television commercial, "1984", based on George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The commercial was directed by Ridley Scott and aired during Super Bowl XVIII on January 22 1984. Jobs' intention with the ad was to represent the IBM PC as Big Brother, and the Macintosh as a nameless female action hero portrayed by Anya Major. While the Macintosh initially sold well, follow-up sales were not particularly strong. The machine's fortunes changed with the introduction of the LaserWriter, the first laser printer to be offered at a reasonable price point, and PageMaker, an early desktop publishing (DTP) package. The Mac was particularly powerful in this market due to its advanced graphics capabilities, which were already necessarily built-in to create the Macintosh GUI. It has been suggested that the combination of these three products was responsible for the creation of the DTP market. As DTP became widespread, Apple's sales reached a series of new highs.
In anticipation of the Macintosh launch, Bill Gates, co-founder and chairman of Microsoft, was given several Macintosh prototypes in 1983 to develop software. While the company was indeed ready with its BASIC and the MultiPlan spreadsheet at the Macintosh's launch, in 1985 Microsoft launched Windows, its own GUI for IBM PCs. Although sales started slow, by the mid 1990s it became the most commonly-used desktop operating system, cutting deeply into the Macintosh's sales.
An internal power struggle developed between Jobs and new CEO John Sculley in 1985. Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and Jobs was removed from his managerial duties. Jobs later resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc., a computer company that built machines with futuristic designs and ran the UNIX-derived NeXTStep operating system. Although powerful, NeXT computers never caught on with buyers, due in part to their high purchase price.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Apple in 1976 to 1980: The early years
Apple was founded on April 1 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne[10] (and later incorporated January 3 1977[3] without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak) to sell the Apple I personal computer kit. They were hand-built by Steve Wozniak[11][12] in the living room of Jobs' parents' home, and the Apple I was first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club.[13] Eventually 200 computers were built. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard (with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips) — not what is today considered a complete personal computer.[14] The user was required to provide two different AC input voltages (the manual recommended specific transformers), wire an ASCII keyboard (not provided with the computer) to a DIP connector (providing logic inverter and alpha lock chips in some cases), and to wire the video output pins to a monitor or to an RF modulator if a TV set was used.
Jobs approached a local computer store, The Byte Shop, which ordered fifty units and paid US$500 for each unit after much persuasion. He then ordered components from Cramer Electronics, a national electronic parts distributor. Using a variety of methods, including borrowing space from friends and family and selling various items including a Volkswagen Type 2 bus, Jobs managed to secure the parts needed while Wozniak and Ronald Wayne assembled the Apple I.[15]
The Apple II was introduced on April 16 1977 at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because it came with color graphics and an open architecture. While early models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, this was quickly superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface, the Disk II.
Another key to business for Apple was software. The Apple II was chosen by programmers Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston to be the desktop platform for the first "killer app" of the business world—the VisiCalc spreadsheet program.[16] VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II, and the corporate market attracted many more software and hardware developers to the machine, as well as giving home users an additional reason to buy one—compatibility with the office.[16] (See the timeline for dates of Apple II family model releases—the 1977 Apple II and its younger siblings the II+, IIe, IIc, and IIGS.)
According to Brian Bagnall's book, "On the Edge" (pg. 109-112), Apple exaggerated their sales figures and that Apple was a distant 3rd place until VisiCalc came along. VisiCalc was first released on Apple II because Commodore and Tandy computers were tied up in VisiCalc's software development office due to their popularity. VisiCalc's association with Apple was thus pure happenstance, not a technical decision. And even after VisiCalc, Apple II didn't surpass the Tandy TRS-80, whose sales were helped by the large number of Radio Shack stores. However, VisiCalc did put Apple ahead of Commodore's PET, at least in the US. (Commodore later regained the lead for a while with the Commodore 64 in the mid 80s, the best selling specific model of computer to date.)[17]
By the end of the 1970s, Jobs and his partners had a staff of computer designers and a production line. The Apple II was succeeded by the Apple III in May 1980 as the company struggled to compete against IBM and Microsoft in the lucrative business and corporate computing market. The designers of the Apple III were forced to comply with Jobs' request to omit the cooling fan, and this ultimately resulted in thousands of recalled units due to overheating.[18] An updated version, the Apple III+, was introduced in 1983, but it was also a failure due to bad press and wary buyers.
In the early 1980s, IBM and Microsoft continued to gain market share at Apple's expense in the personal computer industry. A fundamentally different business model evolved, once cloners forced-open through reverse engineering the IBM PC hardware standard. In response, IBM attempted and failed to establish a new proprietary Micro Channel architecture. The IBM compatible hardware market became highly competitive, with clones running a bundled MS-DOS from a floppy disk, or running a competing IBM-style DOS such as DR DOS.[citation needed]
Apple's sustained growth during the early 1980s was partly due to its leadership in the education sector, attributed to their adaptation of the programming language LOGO, used in many schools with the Apple II. The drive into education was accentuated in California with the donation of one Apple II and one Apple LOGO software package to each public school in the state. The deal concluded between Steve Jobs and Jim Baroux of LCSI, and having required the support of Sacramento, established a strong and pervasive presence for Apple in all schools throughout California. The initial conquest of education environments was critical to Apple's acceptance in the home where the earliest purchases of computers by parents was in support of children's continued learning experience.
Jobs approached a local computer store, The Byte Shop, which ordered fifty units and paid US$500 for each unit after much persuasion. He then ordered components from Cramer Electronics, a national electronic parts distributor. Using a variety of methods, including borrowing space from friends and family and selling various items including a Volkswagen Type 2 bus, Jobs managed to secure the parts needed while Wozniak and Ronald Wayne assembled the Apple I.[15]
The Apple II was introduced on April 16 1977 at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because it came with color graphics and an open architecture. While early models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, this was quickly superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface, the Disk II.
Another key to business for Apple was software. The Apple II was chosen by programmers Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston to be the desktop platform for the first "killer app" of the business world—the VisiCalc spreadsheet program.[16] VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II, and the corporate market attracted many more software and hardware developers to the machine, as well as giving home users an additional reason to buy one—compatibility with the office.[16] (See the timeline for dates of Apple II family model releases—the 1977 Apple II and its younger siblings the II+, IIe, IIc, and IIGS.)
According to Brian Bagnall's book, "On the Edge" (pg. 109-112), Apple exaggerated their sales figures and that Apple was a distant 3rd place until VisiCalc came along. VisiCalc was first released on Apple II because Commodore and Tandy computers were tied up in VisiCalc's software development office due to their popularity. VisiCalc's association with Apple was thus pure happenstance, not a technical decision. And even after VisiCalc, Apple II didn't surpass the Tandy TRS-80, whose sales were helped by the large number of Radio Shack stores. However, VisiCalc did put Apple ahead of Commodore's PET, at least in the US. (Commodore later regained the lead for a while with the Commodore 64 in the mid 80s, the best selling specific model of computer to date.)[17]
By the end of the 1970s, Jobs and his partners had a staff of computer designers and a production line. The Apple II was succeeded by the Apple III in May 1980 as the company struggled to compete against IBM and Microsoft in the lucrative business and corporate computing market. The designers of the Apple III were forced to comply with Jobs' request to omit the cooling fan, and this ultimately resulted in thousands of recalled units due to overheating.[18] An updated version, the Apple III+, was introduced in 1983, but it was also a failure due to bad press and wary buyers.
In the early 1980s, IBM and Microsoft continued to gain market share at Apple's expense in the personal computer industry. A fundamentally different business model evolved, once cloners forced-open through reverse engineering the IBM PC hardware standard. In response, IBM attempted and failed to establish a new proprietary Micro Channel architecture. The IBM compatible hardware market became highly competitive, with clones running a bundled MS-DOS from a floppy disk, or running a competing IBM-style DOS such as DR DOS.[citation needed]
Apple's sustained growth during the early 1980s was partly due to its leadership in the education sector, attributed to their adaptation of the programming language LOGO, used in many schools with the Apple II. The drive into education was accentuated in California with the donation of one Apple II and one Apple LOGO software package to each public school in the state. The deal concluded between Steve Jobs and Jim Baroux of LCSI, and having required the support of Sacramento, established a strong and pervasive presence for Apple in all schools throughout California. The initial conquest of education environments was critical to Apple's acceptance in the home where the earliest purchases of computers by parents was in support of children's continued learning experience.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
History Of Apple Inc.
The company introduced the Apple II microcomputer in 1977. A few years later, in 1983, it introduced the Lisa, the first commercial personal computer to employ a graphical user interface (GUI), which was influenced in part by the Xerox Alto. Lisa was also the first personal computer to have the mouse. In 1984, the Macintosh was introduced, which arguably advanced the concept of a new user-friendly graphical user interface. Apple's success with the Macintosh became a major influence in the development of graphical interfaces elsewhere, with major computer operating systems, such as the Commodore Amiga, and Atari ST, appearing on the market within two years of the introduction of the Macintosh.
In 1991, Apple introduced the PowerBook line of portable computers. The 1990s also saw Apple's market share fall as competition from Microsoft Windows and the comparatively inexpensive IBM PC compatible computers that would eventually dominate the market. In the 2000s, Apple expanded its focus on software to include professional and prosumer video, music, and photo production solutions, with a view to promoting their products as a "digital hub". It also introduced the iPod, the most popular digital music player in the world.
In 1991, Apple introduced the PowerBook line of portable computers. The 1990s also saw Apple's market share fall as competition from Microsoft Windows and the comparatively inexpensive IBM PC compatible computers that would eventually dominate the market. In the 2000s, Apple expanded its focus on software to include professional and prosumer video, music, and photo production solutions, with a view to promoting their products as a "digital hub". It also introduced the iPod, the most popular digital music player in the world.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
2001: iPod, Catalyst to Growth
Apple's turnaround was confirmed in the first years of the 21st century, as the company strode toward its 30th anniversary exuding an unprecedented degree of strength. At the heart of the company's surging growth was a digital music player branded as iPod. Introduced in late 2001, the device featured five gigabytes (GB) of storage, enabling the user to store approximately 1,000 songs on a player that was smaller than a deck of playing cards. Retailing for $399, the iPod represented another example of Apple's skill in designing an elegant and functional product, a product that became one of the most sought after consumer electronics items during the first half of the decade. Succeeding generations of iPods hit the market and scored resounding success, driving the company's financial growth. A 10 GB model was introduced in mid-2002, followed by the iPod Mini, iPod Shuffle, and iPod Nano, together representing a massive new source of revenue for the company. The fifth generation of the iPod debuted in 2005, a device available in a 30 GB or 60 GB model that was capable of storing and playing video files. By the time the video iPod arrived in stores, Apple derived roughly 35 percent of its revenue from iPods. Between 2001 and 2005, thanks primarily to the popularity of iPods, the company's sales nearly tripled, increasing from $5.3 billion to $13.9 billion. Apple controlled more than 75 percent of the $2.5 billion digital audio player market in the United States.
As the company enjoyed escalating sales midway through the decade, it also celebrated the success of a new dimension to its business. In 2001, the company opened its first retail outlet, a 6,000-square-foot store located in Tysons Corner, Virginia, that became the first unit of a chain of Apple-owned stores. By 2005, the company operated nearly 125 stores in the United States and a handful of stores in Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom. With an expanding retail arm devoted to highlighting an impressively popular selection of products, Apple approached its 30th anniversary in a stronger position than ever before in its history. In the years ahead, the company's well-established ability to develop singular products for the digital marketplace promised to deliver impressive growth and excite the interests of consumers worldwide.
As the company enjoyed escalating sales midway through the decade, it also celebrated the success of a new dimension to its business. In 2001, the company opened its first retail outlet, a 6,000-square-foot store located in Tysons Corner, Virginia, that became the first unit of a chain of Apple-owned stores. By 2005, the company operated nearly 125 stores in the United States and a handful of stores in Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom. With an expanding retail arm devoted to highlighting an impressively popular selection of products, Apple approached its 30th anniversary in a stronger position than ever before in its history. In the years ahead, the company's well-established ability to develop singular products for the digital marketplace promised to deliver impressive growth and excite the interests of consumers worldwide.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Mismanagement, Crippling an Industry Giant: 1990s
Apple entered the 1990s well aware that the conditions that made the company an industry giant in the previous decade had changed dramatically. Management recognized that for Apple to succeed in the future, corporate strategies would have to be reexamined. Apple had soared through the 1980s on the backs of its large, expensive computers, which earned the company a committed, yet relatively small following. Sculley and his team saw that competitors were relying increasingly on the user-friendly graphics that had become the Macintosh signature and recognized that Apple needed to introduce smaller, cheaper models, such as the Classic and LC, which were instant hits. At a time when the industry was seeing slow unit sales, the numbers at Apple were skyrocketing. In 1990, desktop Macs accounted for 11 percent of the PCs sold through U.S. computer dealers. In mid-1992, the figure was 19 percent.
But these modestly priced models had a considerably smaller profit margin than their larger cousins. So even if sales took off, as they did, profits were threatened. In a severe austerity move, Apple laid off nearly 10 percent of its workforce, consolidated facilities, moved production plants to areas where it was cheaper to operate, and drastically altered its corporate organizational chart. The bill for such forward-looking surgery was great, however, and in 1991 profits were off 35 percent. But analysts said that such pitfalls were expected, indeed necessary, if the company intended to position itself as a leaner, better-conditioned fighter in the years ahead.
Looking ahead is what analysts say saved Apple from foundering. In 1992, after the core of the suit that Apple had brought against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard was dismissed, industry observers pointed out that although the loss was a disappointment for Apple, the company wisely had not banked on a victory. They credited Apple's ambitious plans for the future with quickly turning the lawsuit into yesterday's news.
In addition to remaining faithful to its central business of computer making (the notebook PowerBook series, released in 1991, garnered a 21 percent market share in less than six months), Apple intended to ride a digital wave into the next century. The company geared itself to participate in a revolution in the consumer electronics industry, in which products that were limited by a slow, restrictive analog system would be replaced by faster, digital gadgets on the cutting edge of telecommunications technology. Apple also experimented with the interweaving of sound and visuals in the operations of its computers.
For Apple, the most pressing issue of the 1990s was not related to technology, but concerned capable and consistent management. The company endured tortuous failures throughout much of the decade, as one chief executive officer after another faltered miserably. Scully was forced out of his leadership position by Apple's board of directors in 1993. His replacement, Michael Spindler, broke tradition by licensing Apple technology to outside firms, paving the way for ill-fated Apple clones that ultimately eroded Apple's profits. Spindler also oversaw the introduction of the Power Macintosh line in 1994, an episode in Apple's history that typified the perception that the company had the right products but not the right people to deliver the products to the market. Power Macintosh computers were highly sought after, but after overestimating demand for the earlier release of its PowerBook laptops, the company grossly underestimated demand for the Power Macintosh line. By 1995, Apple had $1 billion worth of unfilled orders, and investors took note of the embarrassing miscue. In a two-day period, Apple's stock value plunged 15 percent.
After Spindler's much publicized mistake of 1995, Apple's directors were ready to hand the leadership reins to someone new. Gil Amelio, credited with spearheading the recovery of National Semiconductor, was named chief executive officer in February 1996, beginning another notorious era of leadership for the beleaguered Cupertino company. Amelio cut Apple's payroll by a third and slashed operating costs, but drew a hail of criticism for his compensation package and his inability to relate to Apple's unique corporate culture. Apple's financial losses, meanwhile, mounted, reaching $816 million in 1996 and a staggering $1 billion in 1997. The company's stock, which had traded at more than $70 per share in 1991, fell to $14 per share. Its market share, 16 percent in the late 1980s, stood at less than 4 percent. Fortune magazine offered its analysis, referring to Apple in its March 3, 1997 issue as "Silicon Valley's paragon of dysfunctional management."
Amelio was ousted from the company in July 1997, but before his departure a significant deal was concluded that brought Apple's savior to Cupertino. In December 1996, Apple paid $377 million for NeXT, a small, $50-million-in-sales company founded and led by Steve Jobs. Concurrent with the acquisition, Amelio hired Jobs as his special advisor, marking the return of Apple's visionary 12 years after he had left. In September 1997, two months after Amelio's exit, Apple's board of directors named Jobs interim chief executive officer. Apple's recovery occurred during the ensuing months.
Jobs assumed his responsibilities with the same passion and understanding that had made Apple one of the greatest success stories in business history. He immediately discontinued the licensing agreement that spawned Apple clones. He eliminated 15 of the company's 19 products, withdrawing Apple's involvement in making printers, scanners, portable digital assistants, and other peripherals. From 1997 forward, Apple would focus exclusively on desktop and portable Macintoshes for professional and consumer customers. Jobs closed plants, laid off thousands of workers, and sold stock to rival Microsoft Corporation, receiving a cash infusion of $150 million in exchange. Apple's organizational hierarchy underwent sweeping reorganization as well, but the most visible indication of Jobs's return was unveiled in August 1998. Distressed by his company's lack of popular computers that retailed for less than $2,000, Jobs tapped Apple's resources and, ten months after the project began, unveiled the massively successful iMAC, a sleek and colorful computer that embodied Apple's skill in design and functionality.
Because of Jobs's restorative efforts, Apple exited the 1990s as a pared-down version of its former self, but, importantly, a profitable company once again. Annual sales, which totaled $11.5 billion in 1995, stood at $5.9 billion in 1998, from which the company recorded a profit of $309 million. In 1999, sales grew a modest 3.2 percent, but the newfound health of the company was evident in a 94 percent gain in net income, as Apple's profits swelled to $601 million. Further, Apple's stock mustered a remarkable rebound, climbing 140 percent to $99 per share in 1999. By the decade's end, "interim" was dropped from Jobs's corporate title, signaling Jobs's return on a permanent basis and fueling optimism that Apple could look forward to a decade of vibrant and consistent growth.
But these modestly priced models had a considerably smaller profit margin than their larger cousins. So even if sales took off, as they did, profits were threatened. In a severe austerity move, Apple laid off nearly 10 percent of its workforce, consolidated facilities, moved production plants to areas where it was cheaper to operate, and drastically altered its corporate organizational chart. The bill for such forward-looking surgery was great, however, and in 1991 profits were off 35 percent. But analysts said that such pitfalls were expected, indeed necessary, if the company intended to position itself as a leaner, better-conditioned fighter in the years ahead.
Looking ahead is what analysts say saved Apple from foundering. In 1992, after the core of the suit that Apple had brought against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard was dismissed, industry observers pointed out that although the loss was a disappointment for Apple, the company wisely had not banked on a victory. They credited Apple's ambitious plans for the future with quickly turning the lawsuit into yesterday's news.
In addition to remaining faithful to its central business of computer making (the notebook PowerBook series, released in 1991, garnered a 21 percent market share in less than six months), Apple intended to ride a digital wave into the next century. The company geared itself to participate in a revolution in the consumer electronics industry, in which products that were limited by a slow, restrictive analog system would be replaced by faster, digital gadgets on the cutting edge of telecommunications technology. Apple also experimented with the interweaving of sound and visuals in the operations of its computers.
For Apple, the most pressing issue of the 1990s was not related to technology, but concerned capable and consistent management. The company endured tortuous failures throughout much of the decade, as one chief executive officer after another faltered miserably. Scully was forced out of his leadership position by Apple's board of directors in 1993. His replacement, Michael Spindler, broke tradition by licensing Apple technology to outside firms, paving the way for ill-fated Apple clones that ultimately eroded Apple's profits. Spindler also oversaw the introduction of the Power Macintosh line in 1994, an episode in Apple's history that typified the perception that the company had the right products but not the right people to deliver the products to the market. Power Macintosh computers were highly sought after, but after overestimating demand for the earlier release of its PowerBook laptops, the company grossly underestimated demand for the Power Macintosh line. By 1995, Apple had $1 billion worth of unfilled orders, and investors took note of the embarrassing miscue. In a two-day period, Apple's stock value plunged 15 percent.
After Spindler's much publicized mistake of 1995, Apple's directors were ready to hand the leadership reins to someone new. Gil Amelio, credited with spearheading the recovery of National Semiconductor, was named chief executive officer in February 1996, beginning another notorious era of leadership for the beleaguered Cupertino company. Amelio cut Apple's payroll by a third and slashed operating costs, but drew a hail of criticism for his compensation package and his inability to relate to Apple's unique corporate culture. Apple's financial losses, meanwhile, mounted, reaching $816 million in 1996 and a staggering $1 billion in 1997. The company's stock, which had traded at more than $70 per share in 1991, fell to $14 per share. Its market share, 16 percent in the late 1980s, stood at less than 4 percent. Fortune magazine offered its analysis, referring to Apple in its March 3, 1997 issue as "Silicon Valley's paragon of dysfunctional management."
Amelio was ousted from the company in July 1997, but before his departure a significant deal was concluded that brought Apple's savior to Cupertino. In December 1996, Apple paid $377 million for NeXT, a small, $50-million-in-sales company founded and led by Steve Jobs. Concurrent with the acquisition, Amelio hired Jobs as his special advisor, marking the return of Apple's visionary 12 years after he had left. In September 1997, two months after Amelio's exit, Apple's board of directors named Jobs interim chief executive officer. Apple's recovery occurred during the ensuing months.
Jobs assumed his responsibilities with the same passion and understanding that had made Apple one of the greatest success stories in business history. He immediately discontinued the licensing agreement that spawned Apple clones. He eliminated 15 of the company's 19 products, withdrawing Apple's involvement in making printers, scanners, portable digital assistants, and other peripherals. From 1997 forward, Apple would focus exclusively on desktop and portable Macintoshes for professional and consumer customers. Jobs closed plants, laid off thousands of workers, and sold stock to rival Microsoft Corporation, receiving a cash infusion of $150 million in exchange. Apple's organizational hierarchy underwent sweeping reorganization as well, but the most visible indication of Jobs's return was unveiled in August 1998. Distressed by his company's lack of popular computers that retailed for less than $2,000, Jobs tapped Apple's resources and, ten months after the project began, unveiled the massively successful iMAC, a sleek and colorful computer that embodied Apple's skill in design and functionality.
Because of Jobs's restorative efforts, Apple exited the 1990s as a pared-down version of its former self, but, importantly, a profitable company once again. Annual sales, which totaled $11.5 billion in 1995, stood at $5.9 billion in 1998, from which the company recorded a profit of $309 million. In 1999, sales grew a modest 3.2 percent, but the newfound health of the company was evident in a 94 percent gain in net income, as Apple's profits swelled to $601 million. Further, Apple's stock mustered a remarkable rebound, climbing 140 percent to $99 per share in 1999. By the decade's end, "interim" was dropped from Jobs's corporate title, signaling Jobs's return on a permanent basis and fueling optimism that Apple could look forward to a decade of vibrant and consistent growth.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
1984 Debut of the Macintosh
The production division for Lisa had been vying with Jobs's Macintosh division. The Macintosh personal computer offered Lisa's innovations at a fraction of the price. Jobs saw the Macintosh as the "people's computer," designed for people with little technical knowledge. With the failure of the Lisa, the Macintosh was seen as the future of the company. Launched with a television commercial in January 1984, the Macintosh was unveiled soon after, with a price tag of $2,495 and a new 3-inch disk drive that was faster than the 5 1/4-inch drives used in other machines, including the Apple II.
Apple sold 70,000 Macintosh computers in the first 100 days. In September 1984 a new Macintosh was released with more memory and two disk drives. Jobs was convinced that anyone who tried the Macintosh would buy it. A national advertisement offered people the chance to take a Macintosh home for 24 hours, and over 200,000 people did so. At the same time, Apple sold its two millionth Apple II. Over the next six months Apple released numerous products for the Macintosh, including a laser printer and a hard drive.
Despite these successes, Macintosh sales temporarily fell off after a promising start, and the company was troubled by internal problems. Infighting between divisions continued, and poor inventory tracking led to overproduction. Although originally a strong supporter of Sculley, Jobs eventually decided to oust the executive; Jobs, however, lost the ensuing showdown. Sculley reorganized Apple in June 1985 to end the infighting caused by the product-line divisions, and Jobs, along with several other Apple executives, left the company in September. They founded a new computer company, NeXT Incorporated, which would later emerge as a rival to Apple in the business computer market.
The Macintosh personal computer finally moved Apple into the business office market. Corporations saw its ease of use as a distinct advantage. It was far cheaper than the Lisa and had the necessary software to link office computers. In 1986 and 1987 Apple produced three new Macintosh personal computers with improved memory and power. By 1988, over one million Macintosh computers had been sold, with 70 percent of sales to corporations. Software was created that allowed the Macintosh to be connected to IBM-based systems. Apple grew rapidly; income for 1988 topped $400 million on sales of $4.07 billion, up from income of $217 million on sales of $1.9 billion in 1986. Apple had 5,500 employees in 1986 and over 14,600 by the early 1990s.
In 1988, Apple management had expected a worldwide shortage of memory chips to worsen. They bought millions when prices were high, only to have the shortage end and prices fall soon after. Apple ordered sharp price increases for the Macintosh line just before the Christmas buying season, and consumers bought the less expensive Apple line or other brands. In early 1989, Apple released significantly enhanced versions of the two upper-end Macintosh computers, the SE and the Macintosh II, primarily to compete for the office market. At the same time IBM marketed a new operating system that mimicked the Macintosh's ease of use. In May 1989 Apple announced plans for its new operating system, System 7, which would be available to users the next year and allow Macintoshes to run tasks on more than one program simultaneously.
Apple was reorganized in August 1988 into four operating divisions: Apple USA, Apple Europe, Apple Pacific, and Apple Products. Dissatisfied with the changes, many longtime Apple executives left. In July 1990, Robert Puette, former head of Hewlett-Packard's personal computer business, became head of the Apple USA division. Sculley saw the reorganization as an attempt to create fewer layers of management within Apple, thus encouraging innovation among staff. Analysts credit Sculley with expanding Apple from a consumer and education computer company to a business computer company, one of the biggest and fastest-growing corporations in the United States.
Competition in the industry of information technology involved Apple in a number of lawsuits. In December 1989 for instance, the Xerox Corporation, in a $150 million lawsuit, charged Apple with unlawfully using Xerox technology for the Macintosh software. Apple did not deny borrowing from Xerox technology but explained that the company had spent millions to refine that technology and had used other sources as well. In 1990 the court found in favor of Apple in the Xerox case. Earlier, in March 1988, Apple had brought suits against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, charging copyright infringement. Four years later, in the spring of 1992, Apple's case was dealt a severe blow in a surprise ruling: copyright protection cannot be based on "look and feel" (appearance) alone; rather, "specific" features of an original program must be detailed by developers for protection.
Apple sold 70,000 Macintosh computers in the first 100 days. In September 1984 a new Macintosh was released with more memory and two disk drives. Jobs was convinced that anyone who tried the Macintosh would buy it. A national advertisement offered people the chance to take a Macintosh home for 24 hours, and over 200,000 people did so. At the same time, Apple sold its two millionth Apple II. Over the next six months Apple released numerous products for the Macintosh, including a laser printer and a hard drive.
Despite these successes, Macintosh sales temporarily fell off after a promising start, and the company was troubled by internal problems. Infighting between divisions continued, and poor inventory tracking led to overproduction. Although originally a strong supporter of Sculley, Jobs eventually decided to oust the executive; Jobs, however, lost the ensuing showdown. Sculley reorganized Apple in June 1985 to end the infighting caused by the product-line divisions, and Jobs, along with several other Apple executives, left the company in September. They founded a new computer company, NeXT Incorporated, which would later emerge as a rival to Apple in the business computer market.
The Macintosh personal computer finally moved Apple into the business office market. Corporations saw its ease of use as a distinct advantage. It was far cheaper than the Lisa and had the necessary software to link office computers. In 1986 and 1987 Apple produced three new Macintosh personal computers with improved memory and power. By 1988, over one million Macintosh computers had been sold, with 70 percent of sales to corporations. Software was created that allowed the Macintosh to be connected to IBM-based systems. Apple grew rapidly; income for 1988 topped $400 million on sales of $4.07 billion, up from income of $217 million on sales of $1.9 billion in 1986. Apple had 5,500 employees in 1986 and over 14,600 by the early 1990s.
In 1988, Apple management had expected a worldwide shortage of memory chips to worsen. They bought millions when prices were high, only to have the shortage end and prices fall soon after. Apple ordered sharp price increases for the Macintosh line just before the Christmas buying season, and consumers bought the less expensive Apple line or other brands. In early 1989, Apple released significantly enhanced versions of the two upper-end Macintosh computers, the SE and the Macintosh II, primarily to compete for the office market. At the same time IBM marketed a new operating system that mimicked the Macintosh's ease of use. In May 1989 Apple announced plans for its new operating system, System 7, which would be available to users the next year and allow Macintoshes to run tasks on more than one program simultaneously.
Apple was reorganized in August 1988 into four operating divisions: Apple USA, Apple Europe, Apple Pacific, and Apple Products. Dissatisfied with the changes, many longtime Apple executives left. In July 1990, Robert Puette, former head of Hewlett-Packard's personal computer business, became head of the Apple USA division. Sculley saw the reorganization as an attempt to create fewer layers of management within Apple, thus encouraging innovation among staff. Analysts credit Sculley with expanding Apple from a consumer and education computer company to a business computer company, one of the biggest and fastest-growing corporations in the United States.
Competition in the industry of information technology involved Apple in a number of lawsuits. In December 1989 for instance, the Xerox Corporation, in a $150 million lawsuit, charged Apple with unlawfully using Xerox technology for the Macintosh software. Apple did not deny borrowing from Xerox technology but explained that the company had spent millions to refine that technology and had used other sources as well. In 1990 the court found in favor of Apple in the Xerox case. Earlier, in March 1988, Apple had brought suits against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, charging copyright infringement. Four years later, in the spring of 1992, Apple's case was dealt a severe blow in a surprise ruling: copyright protection cannot be based on "look and feel" (appearance) alone; rather, "specific" features of an original program must be detailed by developers for protection.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Apple Origins
Apple was founded in April 1976 by Steve Wozniak, then 26 years old, and Steve Jobs, 21, both college dropouts. Their partnership began several years earlier when Wozniak, a talented, self-taught electronics engineer, began building boxes that allowed him to make long-distance phone calls for free. The pair sold several hundred such boxes.
In 1976 Wozniak was working on another box, the Apple I computer, without keyboard or power supply, for a computer hobbyist club. Jobs and Wozniak sold their most valuable possessions, a van and two calculators, raising $1,300 with which to start a company. A local retailer ordered 50 of the computers, which were built in Jobs's garage. They eventually sold 200 to computer hobbyists in the San Francisco Bay area for $666 each. Later that summer, Wozniak began work on the Apple II, designed to appeal to a greater market than computer hobbyists. Jobs hired local computer enthusiasts, many of them still in high school, to assemble circuit boards and design software. Early microcomputers had usually been housed in metal boxes. With the general consumer in mind, Jobs planned to house the Apple II in a more attractive modular beige plastic container.
Jobs wanted to create a large company and consulted with Mike Markkula, a retired electronics engineer who had managed marketing for Intel Corporation and Fairchild Semiconductor. Chairman Markkula bought one-third of the company for $250,000, helped Jobs with the business plan, and in 1977 hired Mike Scott as president. Wozniak worked for Apple full time in his engineering capacity.
Jobs recruited Regis McKenna, owner of one of the most successful advertising and public relations firms in Silicon Valley, to devise an advertising strategy for the company. McKenna designed the Apple logo and began advertising personal computers in consumer magazines. Apple's professional marketing team placed the Apple II in retail stores, and by June 1977, annual sales reached $1 million. It was the first microcomputer to use color graphics, with a television set as the screen. In addition, the Apple II expansion slot made it more versatile than competing computers.
The earliest Apple IIs read and stored information on cassette tapes, which were unreliable and slow. By 1978 Wozniak had invented the Apple Disk II, at the time the fastest and cheapest disk drive offered by any computer manufacturer. The Disk II made possible the development of software for the Apple II. The introduction of Apple II, with a user manual, at a consumer electronics show signaled that Apple was expanding beyond the hobbyist market to make its computers consumer items. By the end of 1978, Apple was one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States, with its products carried by over 100 dealers.
In 1979 Apple introduced the Apple II+ with far more memory than the Apple II and an easier startup system, and the Silentype, the company's first printer. VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet for microcomputers, was also released that year. Its popularity helped to sell many Apple IIs. By the end of the year sales were up 400 percent from 1978, at over 35,000 computers. Apple Fortran, introduced in March 1980, led to the further development of software, particularly technical and educational applications.
In December 1980, Apple went public. Its offering of 4.6 million shares at $22 each sold out within minutes. A second offering of 2.6 million shares quickly sold out in May 1981.
Meanwhile Apple was working on the Apple II's successor, which was intended to feature expanded memory and graphics capabilities and run the software already designed for the Apple II. The company, fearful that the Apple II would soon be outdated, put time pressures on the designers of the Apple III, despite the fact that sales of the Apple II more than doubled to 78,000 in 1980. The Apple III was well received when it was released in September 1980 at $3,495, and many predicted it would achieve its goal of breaking into the office market dominated by IBM. However, the Apple III was released without adequate testing, and many units proved to be defective. Production was halted and the problems were fixed, but the Apple III never sold as well as the Apple II. It was discontinued in April 1984.
The problems with the Apple III prompted Mike Scott to lay off employees in February 1981, a move with which Jobs disagreed. As a result, Mike Markkula became president and Jobs chairman. Scott was named vice-chairman shortly before leaving the firm.
Despite the problems with Apple III, the company forged ahead, tripling its 1981 research and development budget to $21 million, releasing 40 new software programs, opening European offices, and putting out its first hard disk. By January 1982, 650,000 Apple computers had been sold worldwide. In December 1982, Apple became the first personal computer company to reach $1 billion in annual sales.
The next year, Apple lost its position as chief supplier of personal computers in Europe to IBM, and tried to challenge IBM in the business market with the Lisa computer. Lisa introduced the mouse, a hand-controlled pointer, and displayed pictures on the computer screen that substituted for keyboard commands. These innovations came out of Jobs's determination to design an unintimidating computer that anyone could use.
Unfortunately, the Lisa did not sell as well as Apple had hoped. Apple was having difficulty designing the elaborate software to link together a number of Lisas and was finding it hard to break IBM's hold on the business market. Apple's earnings went down and its stock plummeted to $35, half of its sale price in 1982. Mike Markkula had viewed his presidency as a temporary position, and in April 1983, Jobs brought in John Sculley, formerly president of Pepsi-Cola, as the new president of Apple. Jobs felt the company needed Sculley's marketing expertise.
In 1976 Wozniak was working on another box, the Apple I computer, without keyboard or power supply, for a computer hobbyist club. Jobs and Wozniak sold their most valuable possessions, a van and two calculators, raising $1,300 with which to start a company. A local retailer ordered 50 of the computers, which were built in Jobs's garage. They eventually sold 200 to computer hobbyists in the San Francisco Bay area for $666 each. Later that summer, Wozniak began work on the Apple II, designed to appeal to a greater market than computer hobbyists. Jobs hired local computer enthusiasts, many of them still in high school, to assemble circuit boards and design software. Early microcomputers had usually been housed in metal boxes. With the general consumer in mind, Jobs planned to house the Apple II in a more attractive modular beige plastic container.
Jobs wanted to create a large company and consulted with Mike Markkula, a retired electronics engineer who had managed marketing for Intel Corporation and Fairchild Semiconductor. Chairman Markkula bought one-third of the company for $250,000, helped Jobs with the business plan, and in 1977 hired Mike Scott as president. Wozniak worked for Apple full time in his engineering capacity.
Jobs recruited Regis McKenna, owner of one of the most successful advertising and public relations firms in Silicon Valley, to devise an advertising strategy for the company. McKenna designed the Apple logo and began advertising personal computers in consumer magazines. Apple's professional marketing team placed the Apple II in retail stores, and by June 1977, annual sales reached $1 million. It was the first microcomputer to use color graphics, with a television set as the screen. In addition, the Apple II expansion slot made it more versatile than competing computers.
The earliest Apple IIs read and stored information on cassette tapes, which were unreliable and slow. By 1978 Wozniak had invented the Apple Disk II, at the time the fastest and cheapest disk drive offered by any computer manufacturer. The Disk II made possible the development of software for the Apple II. The introduction of Apple II, with a user manual, at a consumer electronics show signaled that Apple was expanding beyond the hobbyist market to make its computers consumer items. By the end of 1978, Apple was one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States, with its products carried by over 100 dealers.
In 1979 Apple introduced the Apple II+ with far more memory than the Apple II and an easier startup system, and the Silentype, the company's first printer. VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet for microcomputers, was also released that year. Its popularity helped to sell many Apple IIs. By the end of the year sales were up 400 percent from 1978, at over 35,000 computers. Apple Fortran, introduced in March 1980, led to the further development of software, particularly technical and educational applications.
In December 1980, Apple went public. Its offering of 4.6 million shares at $22 each sold out within minutes. A second offering of 2.6 million shares quickly sold out in May 1981.
Meanwhile Apple was working on the Apple II's successor, which was intended to feature expanded memory and graphics capabilities and run the software already designed for the Apple II. The company, fearful that the Apple II would soon be outdated, put time pressures on the designers of the Apple III, despite the fact that sales of the Apple II more than doubled to 78,000 in 1980. The Apple III was well received when it was released in September 1980 at $3,495, and many predicted it would achieve its goal of breaking into the office market dominated by IBM. However, the Apple III was released without adequate testing, and many units proved to be defective. Production was halted and the problems were fixed, but the Apple III never sold as well as the Apple II. It was discontinued in April 1984.
The problems with the Apple III prompted Mike Scott to lay off employees in February 1981, a move with which Jobs disagreed. As a result, Mike Markkula became president and Jobs chairman. Scott was named vice-chairman shortly before leaving the firm.
Despite the problems with Apple III, the company forged ahead, tripling its 1981 research and development budget to $21 million, releasing 40 new software programs, opening European offices, and putting out its first hard disk. By January 1982, 650,000 Apple computers had been sold worldwide. In December 1982, Apple became the first personal computer company to reach $1 billion in annual sales.
The next year, Apple lost its position as chief supplier of personal computers in Europe to IBM, and tried to challenge IBM in the business market with the Lisa computer. Lisa introduced the mouse, a hand-controlled pointer, and displayed pictures on the computer screen that substituted for keyboard commands. These innovations came out of Jobs's determination to design an unintimidating computer that anyone could use.
Unfortunately, the Lisa did not sell as well as Apple had hoped. Apple was having difficulty designing the elaborate software to link together a number of Lisas and was finding it hard to break IBM's hold on the business market. Apple's earnings went down and its stock plummeted to $35, half of its sale price in 1982. Mike Markkula had viewed his presidency as a temporary position, and in April 1983, Jobs brought in John Sculley, formerly president of Pepsi-Cola, as the new president of Apple. Jobs felt the company needed Sculley's marketing expertise.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Apple Computer
Incorporated: 1977
NAIC: 334111 Electronic Computer Manufacturing; 334119 Other Computer Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing; 511210 Software Publishers
SIC: 3571 Electronic Computers; 3577 Computer Peripheral Equipment Nec; 7372 Prepackaged Software
Apple Computer, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers, software, networking solutions, and peripherals, including a line of portable digital music players. Apple's product family includes the Macintosh line of desktop and notebook computers, the iPod digital music player, the Mac OS X operating system, the iTunes Music Store, the Xserve G5 server, and Xserve RAID storage products. The company's products are sold online, through third-party wholesalers, and through its own chain of stores. Apple owns approximately 125 retail stores in the United States, as well as stores in Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
NAIC: 334111 Electronic Computer Manufacturing; 334119 Other Computer Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing; 511210 Software Publishers
SIC: 3571 Electronic Computers; 3577 Computer Peripheral Equipment Nec; 7372 Prepackaged Software
Apple Computer, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers, software, networking solutions, and peripherals, including a line of portable digital music players. Apple's product family includes the Macintosh line of desktop and notebook computers, the iPod digital music player, the Mac OS X operating system, the iTunes Music Store, the Xserve G5 server, and Xserve RAID storage products. The company's products are sold online, through third-party wholesalers, and through its own chain of stores. Apple owns approximately 125 retail stores in the United States, as well as stores in Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Apple Inc.
(Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA, www.apple.com.) A manufacturer of computers and consumer electronics, Apple is the industry's most fabled story. Founded in a garage by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs and guided by Mike Markkula, Apple blazed the trails for the personal computer industry. Apple was formed on April Fool's Day in 1976. After introducing the Apple I at the Palo Alto Homebrew Computer Club, 10 retail stores were selling them by the end of the year.
In 1977, the Apple II was introduced, a fully-assembled computer with 4K RAM for $1,298. Its open architecture encouraged third-party vendors to build plug-in hardware enhancements. This, plus sound and color graphics, caused Apple IIs to become the most widely used computer in the home and classroom. They were also used in business primarily for the innovative VisiCalc software that was launched on it.
In 1983, Apple introduced the Lisa, the forerunner of the Macintosh. Lisa was aimed at the corporate market, but was soon dropped in favor of the Mac. As a graphics-based machine, the Mac was successful as a low-cost desktop publishing system. Although praised for its ease of use, its slow speed, small monochrome screen and closed architecture didn't excite corporate buyers. But, things were to change.
In 1987, the Mac II offered higher speed, larger screens in color and traditional cabinetry that accepted third-party add-in cards. Numerous models were offered and widely accepted. In 1991, Apple surprised the industry by announcing an alliance with IBM to form several companies that would develop hardware and software together. All these eventually folded back into Apple and IBM, but the major product of the alliance was the PowerPC chip (see Apple-IBM alliance). In 1994, Apple came out with its first PowerPC-based Power Macs, which proved very popular. Its PowerBook laptops were an instant success, and all subsequent models departed from the original Motorola 68K architecture to the PowerPC.
Apple has stood alone in a sea of IBM and IBM-compatible PCs for more than a decade and a half. It has watched its graphical interface copied more with each incarnation of Windows and watched its market share drop simultaneously. In late 1994, Apple began to license its OS to system vendors in order to create a Macintosh clone industry, which pundits had been suggesting for years. However, a couple of years later, that was discontinued.
In 1997, Apple acquired NeXT Computer, which brought Steve Jobs back to the company he founded and gave it a raft of object-oriented development tools, parts of which filtered down into the Mac OS X operating system.
In 1998, Apple introduced the iMac, a low-priced Internet-ready Mac that was the first personal computer without a floppy disk. Self-contained in one unit like the original Mac, Apple sold 800,000 iMacs in a year, making it the fastest-selling computer in its history. Apple's subsequent models, including the G4 Cube and Titanium portable, were in a class by themselves. Apple continues to offer attractive alternatives to the Windows-based PC.
In 2001, Apple launched the iPod, one of the most successful consumer electonics products in history. Setting the bar for portable music players, every competing product is measured against the iPod's ease of use and capabilities. In 2007, Apple announced the iPhone, a combination iPod, phone and Internet appliance that is available in the U.S. exclusively from AT&T (formerly Cingular) for two years.
In 1977, the Apple II was introduced, a fully-assembled computer with 4K RAM for $1,298. Its open architecture encouraged third-party vendors to build plug-in hardware enhancements. This, plus sound and color graphics, caused Apple IIs to become the most widely used computer in the home and classroom. They were also used in business primarily for the innovative VisiCalc software that was launched on it.
In 1983, Apple introduced the Lisa, the forerunner of the Macintosh. Lisa was aimed at the corporate market, but was soon dropped in favor of the Mac. As a graphics-based machine, the Mac was successful as a low-cost desktop publishing system. Although praised for its ease of use, its slow speed, small monochrome screen and closed architecture didn't excite corporate buyers. But, things were to change.
In 1987, the Mac II offered higher speed, larger screens in color and traditional cabinetry that accepted third-party add-in cards. Numerous models were offered and widely accepted. In 1991, Apple surprised the industry by announcing an alliance with IBM to form several companies that would develop hardware and software together. All these eventually folded back into Apple and IBM, but the major product of the alliance was the PowerPC chip (see Apple-IBM alliance). In 1994, Apple came out with its first PowerPC-based Power Macs, which proved very popular. Its PowerBook laptops were an instant success, and all subsequent models departed from the original Motorola 68K architecture to the PowerPC.
Apple has stood alone in a sea of IBM and IBM-compatible PCs for more than a decade and a half. It has watched its graphical interface copied more with each incarnation of Windows and watched its market share drop simultaneously. In late 1994, Apple began to license its OS to system vendors in order to create a Macintosh clone industry, which pundits had been suggesting for years. However, a couple of years later, that was discontinued.
In 1997, Apple acquired NeXT Computer, which brought Steve Jobs back to the company he founded and gave it a raft of object-oriented development tools, parts of which filtered down into the Mac OS X operating system.
In 1998, Apple introduced the iMac, a low-priced Internet-ready Mac that was the first personal computer without a floppy disk. Self-contained in one unit like the original Mac, Apple sold 800,000 iMacs in a year, making it the fastest-selling computer in its history. Apple's subsequent models, including the G4 Cube and Titanium portable, were in a class by themselves. Apple continues to offer attractive alternatives to the Windows-based PC.
In 2001, Apple launched the iPod, one of the most successful consumer electonics products in history. Setting the bar for portable music players, every competing product is measured against the iPod's ease of use and capabilities. In 2007, Apple announced the iPhone, a combination iPod, phone and Internet appliance that is available in the U.S. exclusively from AT&T (formerly Cingular) for two years.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Sony : Recent Developments
In June, 2006, Spanish-language support for domestic U.S. customers and Central/South American customers was re-established after a period of hiatus at an Argentina-based third-party call center company named Teleperformance. This facility is manned by a team of approximately 30 agents who are tasked with support for Sony's VAIO notebook and desktop computers, as well as Sony's line of consumer electronics, such as televisions, DVD players, digital recorders, video and still-image cameras, and sound systems. Unlike their English-only counterparts, these agents are empowered to make determinations of hardware failure and arrange service as necessary to resolve customers' product concerns.
In June of 2007, Alorica transitioned the Sony technical support to another location, having replaced it with their support account for a warehouse retailer.
In June of 2007, Alorica transitioned the Sony technical support to another location, having replaced it with their support account for a warehouse retailer.
Sony : Leadership
The last permanent head of the CISC was SEL Vice President Maureen Reed.
The person currently leading operations at the CISC is Mr. David Christopher.
The person currently leading operations at the CISC is Mr. David Christopher.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
CISC : Facility Functions And Areas Of Responsibility
The Sony Customer Information "Service" Center is the headquarters for the following North American distribution lines of the following products (please note: these lists are not exhaustive):
Consumer Electronics:
Consumer Electronics:
- Televisions (CRT, LCD, plasma, etc.)
- CD, DVD and DVD/CD players (portable, single, changer, and jukebox-style)
- Video cameras (VHS, VHS-C, SVHS, Mini8, Super8, Digital8, etc.)
- Walkman portable cassette and CD players
- Cordless telephones
- Cell phones (Sony and Sony/Ericsson)
- Sony-branded DirecTV
- WebTV
- AiBO Robotic Animal
- VAIO Desktop and Notebook computers
- CRT and LCD computer monitors
- Palm OS-based CLIE PDAs
- JumboTron
- Sony rack-mounted server systems
- Sony portable film and television production rigs
Sony Cierge Group:
- Cierge does not really have an exclusive product range, per se; they are an invitation-only membership-driven premium support program offered typically to executives of large companies, celebrities, and other similarly-situated persons. Membership offers immediate "head-of-queue" access to upper-tier techs, and immediate and/or on-site repair or replacement of any Sony product.
National Customer Relations and International Customer Relations
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