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Apple Inc.

Introduction

Apple Computers has been through it all in the computer industry. They were one of the first companies to venture into the computer market place. The company was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Currently Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple Computers. Apple mission is to provide easy-to-use computers to everyday people. In 1984, Apple changed the computer industry forever by introducing “the first widely available graphics user interface operating system. Apple computers have been strong in the education and professional niche markets. Apple’s hardware and software has been developed to work just with Apple computers and because of this they have produced a more stable operating system then Windows. Apple will continue to grow by expanding it market areas and have started this with the iPod entering into the music industry and will continue it by entering the cell phone market with the iPhone.

The external environment

To assess the external environment, we first need to describe the industries in which Apple operates. Because Apple is in more than one industry, applying Porter’s five forces model becomes somewhat more complicated.
The main products of Apple are hardware and software. However with the introduction of the iPod and the iPhone, Apple is now venturing in the consumer electronics. This means that the competitors should be competing in either one of these product groups.

The Five Forces

Competitors
In all sectors in which Apple are active they are competing in a mature market place. Meaning that the saturation level is rather high, thus competition is severe. Market share can only increase through taking away customers from the competition.
Major competitors that compete in the hardware industry are IBM and HP/Compaq. Whereas on software level Apple’s largest competitor is Microsoft, however this is open to discussion, since Microsoft does not make software for Apple computers nor does Apple create software for the PCs...