Apple Case Study

Executive Summary

Apple did not corner the computer hardware market easily. It’s most popular products, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad (Baltzan, 2012) became profitable after Steve Jobs, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Apple Inc. underwent a lengthy series of failures. Among the many products that are barely recognized is the Next computer, Apple’s Pippin game player, the Lisa computer, Apple TV, the Newton PDA and the Apple mouse because they failed miserably. For awhile it seemed unlikely that Apple could keep up with competitors like Microsoft.

This paper will address what practices brought Apple back into the forefront and how well they utilized information systems management to elevate their company. During the company’s rise, the CEO realized there had to be a better way to build the business. Some of the practices developed will be discussed as lessons learned from this technology giant. At $164.00 a share (stocks) and over 60,400 employees, (Blodget, 2012), the company must have done something right. The most important lesson learned from Apple’s success is how the company focused on well-designed products and involved the employees in the decision making process.

Introduction

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (his computer club crony) are credited with radically changing the computer industry by making technology user friendly and building machines that were smaller, cheaper, and accessible to everyday consumers (Bio.True Story, 2012). Their first model, the Apple I, earned them $774,000. Three years after the release of their second model, the Apple II, sales increased 700 percent to $139 million dollars. In 1980, Apple Computer became a publically traded company with John Scully, a marketing expert from Pepsi-Cola at the helm.

In 1984 the Macintosh was released and proved to be incompatible with International Business Machines (IBM) even though sales were higher, the competition was taking over. Jobs left Apple and purchased an animation company now called Pixar. During this time he produced many failures, the Next Computer and the Newton PDA to name a few.

Many years later (1997), Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO despite Pixar's success. Apple bought the company for $429 million. He came back with clever products such as the iMac and Macbook Air, successful branding campaigns, and trendy designs which put Apple back on the map.

Steve Jobs also put together a new management team, lucrative stock options and reduced his own salary to 1 dollar annually. During this time he was also diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and postponed his surgery so that shareholders would not back away from the company.

What was different at Apple Inc.?

Jobs stated success requires “listening