Comp Description

Apple Computer was formed in 1976 by friends Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Their goals were to offer affordable personal "easy to use" computers with graphical interfaces to consumers. With the release of Apple's Macintosh in 1984, the company moved ahead of IBM in terms of market share and revolutionized the computer market.Today, Apple lags behind Microsoft in regards to operating systems and software. They also seem to be dominated by Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard in the personal PC industry.Apple risks falling into total irrelevance in the personal computer market, particularly after the failure of the last few products it attempted to introduce.

Apple's products are simple and to many they are condidered the easiest to use and navigate. Apple is already established in the personal computer market and is the oldest computer hardware manufacture out there. Apple too is unique in that it manufactures both their computer hardware and also there own operating systems that run the computers. This enables Apple to deliver a fully integrated product. Apple, as well, is known as an innovator. They have proved to consumers that they are capable of creating new products that other companies have yet to do, as seen with their Macintosh computer and their Itunes and Ipod hardware and software. There are some that are skepticle and view Apple as having some weaknesses. Industry analysts say that the ease of use of Apple computers causes an image problem and look at the Mac as more of a toy than a machine.

Oppurtunities abound for Apple, especially in the education sector. In both higher education and younger schooling the Macintosh ease of use and low maintenance costs are attractive to school districts and universities. Apple too has opened up new avenues of sales channels recently. Apple now has over fifty retail outlets across the Unites States where they stress the fact that Windows users can move their old files to Apple formats,