Background:
Apple company was extablished by Steve Jobs ,Steve Woaniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976 in california.After they introduced Apple I and II,they had attract people in the market. When Mike joined them,they introduced Apple III and start investing Apple computer,finally gain some success,but meanwhile,competitors like IBM rised sharply. Jobs left Apple because some clashes between management in 1985,some strategic changes happened to increase productivity,but lost increase at the same time,jobs returned to Apple as CEO after ten years and introduced Imac and Ibook as well as their own OS X, because of compatibility problems,Apple asked some third party software developers to help them to made software’s for OS but they refused,so Apple had to writing software by themselves,continuely developing,Apple introduced Ipod,Iphone,Ipad few years later and start their retail stores, They were ranked 6th in the worldwide market share at the end of the 2nd quarter of 2008.
SWOT analysis:
Strengths:Apple has a strong management runs by jobs and other executives who have long-sighted and devote themselves in developing new products like PC(innovative and attractive look from the beginning)Ipod,Iphone with the support of R&D departments;With innovated high quality and value added products and powerful experience,customers are attracted
Weaknesses:Apple has a very limited software support and Won't open the operating system to other developers which leads to a weak adaptation to other equipments.
Opportunities:Since Apple has large loyalty customers who rely on the quality ,so the company can continue introduce new products and go to globalization;Apple can increase on line sales and ratail stores as they they had already did.
Threats:Strong competitors like HP,DELL are all implementing effective strategies to gain market share;Some free online music download will also be an impact on Itunes.
Corporate level strategy:
The headquarter is located in California but...