Apple Case Study

Executive Summary

Apple Inc. is an American computer-technology corporation that has its headquarter located in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, California. Apple was established in April 1st 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne under the name Apple Computer Inc. and was changed into Apple Inc. in 2007. The annually global revenue of it is 13,9 billion dollar (2005) and the number of staff in various countries is 14800. Apple's offerings include laptop, software, hardware, Mp3 player, and other media players. Some famous products of firm are Apple Macintosh(Laptop and Desktop), iPod, iTunes, especially iPhone & iPad. America, Canada, Japan and England are several markets which Apple is typically deploy its business.The service go along with the device form Apple also is the reason for client to buy. For now, All of the Apple's product still cause a big effect in many market.

* In smartphone area, iphone was launch when there is no smartphone has a truly touchscreen and nobody believe in its success. But the performent of Ios and amazing touchscreen, low price with plan form GSM provider made Iphone more and more popular. And after ... iphone generation , now, Apple is considered as a leader of smartphone business with ...% marketshare, the number of people waiting to buy a new generation of Iphone every time it launch is being bigger

* In tablet area, Ipad

* In Macintosh, born as a computer company, Apple has a lot of experience in this field and used to has a big marketshare before Microsoft came in with Windows. But now, Apple computer is raising again with macbook and mac pro. A good design and incredible macOS, uninflectable against virus is what make a customer want to buy a Mac in spite of high price

* In multimedia, the born of Ipod is a also a born of whole new way in produce a multimedia player. Offering to customer a device just like an no-call-Iphone but thinner and cheaper is the brilliant way that Apple attracting everyone. When Ipod came in, no one want to buy the older one anymore.

Introduction

1. What are the chief elements of Apple's overall competitive strategy? How well do the pieces fit together? Is the strategy evolving?

Easily to be seen, Apple has a distinctive competence in product innovation, as exemplified by its iPod, iPhone and iPad products. While improving its current products, Apple also research for new products elements, thus brings its product line to a higher position in the global market. Moreover, Apple puts a strict restriction on its program developer to make its own operating system and software technologies. Such act will help Apple to be flexible in developing new products as they have complete control over the adjusting of the software and hardware.

Recently, Apple has focused a great deal of strategic attention and resources on entering into the digital electronics and computer markets as they were introducing innovative products. This, in combination with the successful entry into the personal media player industry, marks a clear evolution in Apple's strategy.

In conclusion, as it is currently entering the tablet industry with its iPad device and has taken the mobile phone industry over Nokia, Apple's strategy is still evolving and getting a lot of success.

2. What are the key elements of Apple's strategy in computers, personal media players, and smartphones? Have its strategies in its core businesses yielded success? Explain.

In computer business, Apple has several significant strategies. First of all, they have the proprietary capabilities which focus on using unique advanced technology that differentiated Macs from PCs. They also produce various product lines for many segmentations. For example, in desktop lines, Apple developed Mac Pro (for professional and business users), the iMac (for consumer, educational and business use) and Mac mini (for consumer use). Similarly for notebook product lines. Besides, Apple also focuses on targeting design users. Apple designs appealing features (13.3 inch screen, a fill-size keyboard, build-in camera, cutting-edge wireless connectivity) for MacBook Air, which targets to users who valued both portability and power. Moreover, they also use price cut strategy. Apple had lowered the prices of all its computer models by 10% or more in June 2009. However, those strategies are not fully successful. One of reasons is the premium prices of Apple's products. . And before the iMac, Apple did not produce any product lines for conscious customers. They are also deficiency of competitiveness for the Macintosh due the intellectual property protection. Because Apple put very strict restrictions Apple Certified Developer Program. Finally, Apple lacks of customization ability. They do not have the customization ability so that it limits their competitiveness for Dell and HP.

Apple has different strategies in personal media player business. They have innovation by creating their competitiveness by several advanced features such as innovative touch screen interface, Wifi connectivity, map accessing, etc. Their products are stylish designed and easy to use. Last but not the least, Apple have the iPod/iTunes combination. Admittedly, with the support of iTunes - the online store where people can purchase and download several entertainments available -, the development of iPod had been boosted up.

In smartphone business, Apple have some key elements of strategies. The first one is the innovation. Apple use advanced technology for their iPhone product line. Moreover, more and more features were upgraded over the version of iPhone (iPhone 3G, iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4) such as video-calling capabilities, higher resolution display, longer-lasting battery, etc. Another is App Store Support. Similarity to the iTune, App Store allows developers to build applications for the iPhone and offers them either for free or for a fee. However, those strategies are not fully successful. Because of the China market's counterfeiting. In China, popular-selling models were quickly counterfeited, it was difficult to develop keyboards that included the thousands of commonly used characters in the Chinese language. However, many consumers preferred inexpensive features phones over smartphones. Moreover, Apple has not really satisfied for business users' needs. For example, unlike RIM with BlackBerry, Apple lacked of many things to satisfy customers in business user segmentation - who have the needs to check e-mail, maintain appointment calendars, receive fax transmissions and open, edit and save Microsoft Office and PDF files.

3. What does a competitive strength assessment reveal about Apple's computer business,