Apple was initiated in April of the year 1976 by Ronald Gerald Wayne, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Atkinson 111). However, Wayne sold his 10 percent share to Jobs and Wozniak for $800 at the initial stages of the company. At that time Jobs was only 21 years old while Wozniak was 26 years old, the two were college dropouts who had been working together on several innovative projects before they invented Apple. Their partnership began with the selling of boxes that allowed individuals to make long distance calls for free which were built by Wozniak who was a self-taught electronics engineer.
In 1976 Wozniak started working on building a computer without a keyboard or power supply for a hobbyist club, the two named the computer Apple I. They initiate this project with $ 1300 from the sale of two calculators and their van. One of the local retailers gave them their first large order which was an order of 50 of their computers which they built in Jobs's garage. They then managed to sell 200 computers at $ 666 each in the San Francisco Bay (Townsend & Selck 1). The funds enabled them to start working on Apple II. It also enabled them to employee local computer enthusiast who helped them in assembling the circuit boards and in designing the software to be used. The employees who were mostly students who were still in high school were mainly hired and interviewed by Jobs.
At that time the microcomputers that were used hard metallic outer cover. Jobs and Wozniak thus decided to be unique by housing Apple II with modular beige plastic cover thus making them more attractive. The two had intentions of making larger computers, and thus they approached Mike Markkula who was a retired electronics engineer who previously worked for Intel Corporation and Fairchild Semiconductor. Markkula was intrigued by their idea and even bought a third of the company at $250000 making him one of the company's chairman. He assisted Jobs in making the business plans while Wozniak concentrated on the engineering department of the enterprise. In 1977 they hired Mike Scott as the company's president and Regis McKenna as the company's marketer.
McKenna owned one of the renowned advertising firms in Silicon Valley. He helped in the designing of the logo of Apple Company and the advertising of the organization's personal computers in various consumer magazines. The marketing efforts of McKenna enabled the firm's computers to be stocked in different retailers' outlets, and by the end of June in the year 1977, the organization had managed to have sales that reached a million dollars. Apple II was the first microcomputer that utilized color graphics and had a television set screen. In the year 1978 Wozniak made some improvements to the earliest version of Apple II by inventing the Apple Disk II. The modification he made was in the storage system used. Apple II used to utilize cassette tapes to store data this made them slow and unreliable. The introduction of the disk was an improvement from this since it was faster and very cheap. It also enabled facilitated the development of Apple II software.
By the end of the year, 1978 Apple was noted as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States since it had its products sold by over 100 dealers within two years. Apple II+ was introduced in the year 1979 it had a larger memory capacity and had an easier startup system (Atkinson 111). In this year the company also produced its first printer. The firm's popularity had grown, and Apple IIs were computers that were in high demand. The sales of the company had increased 400 percent by the end of the year with more than 35000 computers sold. Wozniak then introduced Apple Fortran in March of the year 1980 with more developed software that promoted various technical and educational applications.
The company went public in December of the same year offering 4.6 million of its shares at $ 22 each which sold out within minutes. They then offered another 2.6 million shares in May of the year 1981 which also sold out within minutes. The company under pressure to produce a successor to the Apple II series which was meant to have improved memory capacity and graphics introduced Apple III. At that time Apple II series had doubled its sales with more than 78000 computers sold. Apple III was released in September of 1980 and was priced at $ 3495. The company thought that their introduction of the Apple III first series would help them break into the market that was majorly dominated by IBM. However, the calculation of the firm was inaccurate since most of the units sold were defective since the company did not conduct adequate testing. The firm had to stop its production process to rectify the era the sales of the series was weak as compared to that of Apple II. This forced the company to discontinue its production in April of the year 1984.
The issue with Apple III led Mike Scott to lay off many of the firm's employees in February of the year 1981 a move that was not taken well with Steve Jobs. This lead to Mike Markkula being named the president, Jobs the chairman, and Scott the vice-chair before he left the firm. Despite the challenge, the company soldiered. The company conducted numerous market research programs through that year. This enabled it to introduce 40 new software programs, open its first offices in Europe, and introduce its first hard disk. By January of the year 1982 the firm had managed to sell 650,000 Apple computers worldwide, and in December the firm became the first company selling personal computers to record an annual sale of one billion dollars.
However, in the next year, the company lost most of its European customers to IBM making the company the leading supplier of personal computers in Europe. Apple then introduced Lisa computers to challenge the popularity of IBM. Lisa enabled the company to initiate the use of mouse which was meant to substitute the use of keyboard commands such as the displaying of pictures (Townsend & Selck 1). The firm's invention did not manage to break IBM's competitiveness and thus the business earnings significantly reduced leading its stock to be valued at $ 35 which half its selling price. In April of the year, 1983 Jobs employed John Sculley as the enterprise's president taking after Mike Markkula who was the acting president. Sculley had initially worked as the president of Pepsi-Cola, and thus Jobs saw him as the most suitable candidate who would utilize his marketing skills to boost the sales of the firm's products.
In the year 1984, the company introduced the Macintosh computer (Townsend & Selck 1). The computer was meant to attract individuals with little technical knowledge on computer use mainly and was priced at $ 2495. The computer had a three-inch disk drive. The disk was faster as compared to the 5 and a quarter inched disk used by computers such as the Apple II series. The company managed to sell 70000 Macintosh computers within the first 100 days from its introduction. In September of the same year, they introduced a new series of the Macintosh computer which had a larger memory capacity and had two disk drivers. In six months they introduced other Macintosh products such as laser printers and hard drives.
Apple Inc. is one of the leading multinational technological companies that has specialized in developing, designing and selling of electronics, computer software, and online services. Some of the company's hardware products are such as its iPad tablets series, iPhone cell phone series, Mac series of personal computers, iPod music players, and the Apple television sets and smart watch. Some of the software of the company are such as iOS and MacOS operating systems, the Safari web browser, iTunes media player and iWork and iLife creativity and productivity suites (Hennessy & Najjar 5). The company offers online services such as Mac and iOS App Stores, Apple Music, iTunes Store and iCloud. The firm's headquarters is currently located in Cupertino, in California. The firm also has over 478 retail stores in over seventeen different countries. Its online stores are available in 39 countries and are tailored to the needs of citizens of the different countries.
According to Muller et al. (15), Best Practices are organizations set of rules and ideas that ensure the firm takes the most suitable course of action that may lead it to accomplish its mission and vision while still observing its set principles and the trading policies implemented by the government. Best Practices possess a combination of different qualities, for example, they are measurable thus their goals are usually clear and progressive. They are successful enabling the organization to not only register good results but also move towards their goals. They are also replicable which makes it easy for firms to document them and reuse them over time. Best Practices Analysis is thus the examination of how an organization has managed to ensure it follows its set guidelines on factors such as ethics and its planned operational actions, and the rules of trade established by the government.
The Best Practices employed by most organizations usually possess many similar characteristics. Some of the common characteristics of the practice are such as the practices are comprehensive. This means that Best Practice usually aims at influencing all the aspects relating to the issue at hand. The comprehensive nature of the Best Practice ensures that the firms ensure that all the necessary requirements that would make the firm successful in its relating project are considered. Best Practices are usually flexible and responsive. The flexibility of the practices allows them to adopt new factors that relate with companies intention (Muller et al. 26). The flexible nature also allows the practice to be easily customized to meet the expectations of the firm effectively. In a case where an error is noted the necessary rectifications can also be easily made thus making the practice ensure the companies register the most suitable gains. Best Practice concentrates on the issue at hand. The concentration ensures the necessary attention is given to the matter thus supporting the obtaining of the desired results.
They evolve with time and need. This character allows the Best Practice to remain relevant by adapting to the way of the present environment. They promote the coordination of the individuals involved in its formulation process. The coordination ensures that the people involved in the Best Practice understand each other thus enabling them to set practices that are relevant to the interests of the organization. Best Practices are also usually managed by individuals who are well trained on issues relating to the practice. The skills from people managing it support the adaptation of the most suitable practices that are error free. In the case where an error is identified in relation to the Best Practice implementation, the team can easily look into the issue and make the required adjustments thus securing the practice productivity.
Best Practice and its analysis usually attract various beneficial factors to companies that employ it. In consideration of a company such as Apple Inc., some of the advantageous factors that the firm has obtained from the conducting of a Best Practice and its analysis are such as it enabled the organization to have confidence in their investments and innovations since it has justified their actions. The practice and analysis enabled the company to successfully introduce the first series of Macintosh computers in the year 1984. The organization was confident that the new series would enable the firm to attract back its customers who they had lost to their competitor IBM. Best Practice has also allowed the company to introduce the various other forms of technological gadgets such as the iPo...
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