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Apple Inc. in 2011: Can It Prosper Without Steve Jobs?

In: Business and Management

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BA 380
Case #9

APPLE INC. IN 2011: CAN IT PROSPER WITHOUT STEVE JOBS?

INTRODUCTION

It is not a secret that for 2009-2011 the United States had had poor economic conditions and it was barely possible to succeed for any businesses under these circumstances in the market. However, Apple Inc. had dared to celebrate its record quarterly revenues for 2011 that its stock price boomed to a level where Apple Inc. became the most valuable and demanded company by market capitalization worldwide. The growth revenues and profits came primarily from increased sales of iPhones and iPads, which increased by 142 percent and 183 percent from the same period in 2010. In addition, the sales of Mac computers increased by 14 percent from third quarter 2010 and reached a record of 3.95 million units.

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer in 1976 and started selling them under the name the Apple I to computer enthusiasts. Two years later they produced their first major personal computer (PC) and named it the Apple II, and the sales for this new product became to be more than 10, 000 units. However, their next product line, the Macintosh (Mac), had changed personal computing history through graphical user interface (GUI) which was user-friendly and allowed users to interact more with screen images rather than regular typing text commands. In spite of the fact that the Macintosh introduced in 1984 became crucial in the personal computing history, because of speed limit and the power lacks, it could not compete with the PC of IBM, which had been introduced in 1981. One of the reasons why Macintosh lacked in its software was that Apple put very strict restrictions on the Apple Certified Developer Program, and it was very hard for software developers to obtain Macs on discounts and also receive informational materials about its operating system. In spite of all the

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