OPPapers.com

Apple Hbr Case Study Questions

Apple Assignment 2007/2008

_________________________

Historically, what were Apple’s major competitive advantages?

• Industrial design/Hardware design.
• Apples focus and vision.
• Integrated approach with software, hardware and service.
• Patents covering technology, “look and feel”, interfaces and methods.
• Strong legal team to enforce the above.
• Dedicated market shares.
• Ease of use.
• Strong brand.
• Brand loyalty.
• Marketing.
• Steve Jobs.

Analyse the structure of the personal computer industry over the last 15 years. How have the dynamics of the PC industry changed?

At the beginning of the 1990s the structure of the personal computer industry changed dramatically after several decades of relative stability. IBM dominance of the PC industry and its role as coordinator of the “IBM-compatible” standard started to erode in the late 1980s. It attempted to regain control of the PC standard by connecting it to IBM-proprietary technology. The strategy failed. By the early 1990s “IBM-compatible” had been replaced by “Wintel” as the dominant standard with IBM‘s early partners, Microsoft and Intel, taking the helm as coordinators. The new “Wintel” regime, like its predecessor, was an arena where technical invention was divided amongst vertically disintegrated firms. This market structure, one of divided technical leadership, is a structure in which a number of firms possess the capability to supply interoperable components.

Throughout the 1990s and beyond, thousands of manufacturers built PCs around hardware and software components mainly supplied by Microsoft and Intel. There are two distinct types of supplier to the PC industry. The first type supplies components such as disk drives, chassis‘, RAM, peripherals etc. Products in this category are available from a wide variety of sources at highly competitive prices. The other type of supplier provides products - most notably CPUs and operating systems- available from just a few...