Tm583 Apple Case 1

Apple Computer – How Apple Managed to Reinvent Itself Over the Years

Apple Computer has had great success in building and developing a loyal consumer base for its products and applications. This relates directly to TCO A, as Apple has quite successfully attracted and retained a loyal base of customers who demand products and applications that are cutting edge and are a step or two above what its competitors are producing. Apple has applied the industry dynamics of technological innovation to carve out its own market niche and used its substantial abilities to design and produce the types of products that loyal followers demand to position itself as one of the top companies in the world.

Apple’s history of products has had their highs and lows over the years. One low was Lisa (1983), which failed due to the very high price tag that came with it and the relatively few programs that were available to run on it. Lisa did have some technological advances that carried on into the Apple Macintosh, such as protected memory, cooperative multitasking and built-in screensaver, but its complicated operating system and slow processor made it a commercial failure. The Apple Macintosh came in 1984 and was the first commercial computer with a mouse and graphical user interface (GUI). The Mac became a hit but was labeled a toy when critics got a look at its somewhat playful graphical interface. While away from Apple, Jobs created the NeXT workstation. This offering was technologically advanced but was again too expensive for the marketplace. The iMac followed quickly after and set the design standard for the personal computer.

In 2001, the iPod was introduced and became a huge success as newer and newer iterations came to market that were more and more user friendly and included more features. In 2003, Apple introduced the iTunes music store and today, is the biggest vendor of music in the US. The Motorola ROKR followed after and turned out to be a major...