Dasd

Case study notes

This case has been updated to include the Apple iPad.

Principally this is case explores the issue of licensing and how successful firms can become unsuccessful. It is not a case about Apple and why it has become successful.

This case study explores the rise of the Apple Corporation. The Apple iPod is one of the most successful new product launches in recent years, transforming the way the public listens to music, with huge ramifications for major record labels. More than 50 million MP3 players are expected to be sold in 2005; over a third more than last year. Mobile phones have long been regarded as the most credible challengers to MP3 players and iPods. The launch of digital download services via mobile phones illustrates the dramatic speed of convergence between the telecom and media industries, which many observers expect to usher in a new era of growth for mobile phones. Users are willing to pay more for additional services and many analysts predict that mobile phone handsets will eventually emerge as the dominant technology of the age, combining personal organisers, digital music players and games consoles in a single device. Indeed, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has predicted that mobile phones will supersede the iPod as the favoured way of listening to digital music.

The launch of the Apple ipad in 2010 makes this case even more topical.

This should form the basis of supplementary questions at the end of the case: How will the iPhone succeed? What about Android and the rise of HTC and Samsung?

The mobile phone market is very competitive.

The iPhone does not use the latest technology. Indeed it offers no new technology, but it may be, as was the iPod, the simplest technology to use! And this may help it win.

Case study questions

1. Explain how the iPod is helping Apple achieve increased sales of its range of Mac personal computers.

Apple was established in the 1970s and became a pioneer in the 1980s; many iPod owners may not realise...