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Apple Computer, Inc.,
American personal computer manufacturer with
headquarters in Cupertino, California. Apple
designs, produces, and sells personal computer
systems for use in business, education,
government, and the home. Its products are sold
in more than 120 countries and include personal
computers, printers, monitors, scanners,
software, and networking products.
Manufacturing, distribution, and sales
facilities are located in the United States,
Ireland, and Singapore.
Apple was formed by Steven Jobs and Stephen
Wozniak in 1976 to market the Apple I, a
computer circuit board that they had designed
and built in Jobs’s garage in Los Altos,
California. They scrapped their plan to sell the
board alone when Jobs’s first sales call yielded
an order for 50 units. They were, however, sold
without monitor, keyboard, or casing. The
company was incorporated in January 1977 by the
charismatic Jobs, the meditative and inventive
Wozniak, and their new partner and chairman,
Mike Markkula. Markkula brought maturity,
engineering and product management experience,
and an extremely broad-based knowledge of the
business world, as well as investment cash of
his own and contacts among Silicon Valley’s
venture capitalists. Markkula also recruited all
of Apple’s outside board members and lured
managers from other major high-technology firms,
including Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and National
Semiconductor.
In 1977 Apple introduced the Apple II, a
personal computer able to generate colour
graphics, with its own keyboard and power
supply, and with eight slots for peripheral
devices, which gave users wide possibilities for
add-on devices and software. Apple established
its corporate headquarters in Cupertino in 1978
and went public in 1980. In 1982 it became the
first personal computer company to reach an
annual sales rate of $1 billion. In January 1983
Apple introduced the Lisa, a personal computer
designed for business use that incorporated a
hand-held mouse to select commands and control
an on-screen cursor. The Lisa was followed by
the Macintosh personal computer, which was
designed to be economical for the general user
and featured a graphical user interface for ease
of use. In 1986 Apple entered the office market
with the introduction of its Mac Plus and
LaserWriter printer, a combination that
contributed to the desktop publishing
revolution. Although the company prospered in
the early 1980s, Wozniak left Apple to start a
company of his own. In 1985 disappointing sales
and internal wrangling led to restructuring, the
company’s first lay-offs, and Jobs’s departure
from the company. John Sculley replaced Jobs as
chairman of the board while retaining his
position as chief executive officer.
In the late 1980s Apple’s net income increased
substantially, and in 1990 the company
introduced a new line of Macintosh computers, at
much lower prices than previous models to
attract new customers to the Macintosh. In
addition to the expansion of the Macintosh line,
Apple extended its system software, the modular
System 7. An alliance with IBM was formed in
October 1991. In 1992 Apple introduced the
family of Macintosh PowerBook computers, the
company’s first notebook computers, which
offered built-in networking capabilities. That
same year the company introduced the multimedia
software Quicktime, which allowed computer
applications to incorporate text, graphics,
video, and sound.
In 1993 Michael Spindler replaced John Sculley
as chief executive officer of Apple. That same
year the company introduced the Newton, a
hand-held communications device with the ability
to translate handwriting into typewritten text.
The company also announced restructuring plans
that included substantial lay-offs, wage
freezes, and changes at executive level.
In 1994 Apple formed a new partnership with IBM
to produce the PowerPC, a computer capable of
running both companies’ software. After a year
of solid growth, Apple’s fortunes declined again
in 1995. A string of problems, including severe
shortages of some computer models, led to
sluggish sales, culminating in a $69 million
loss in the last quarter of 1995.
In February 1996 Gilbert F. Amelio, an executive
credited with reviving the fortunes of the
National Semiconductor Corporation, replaced
Spindler as chief executive officer of Apple
Computer. Despite a US$740 million loss in the
first quarter of 1996, Apple rejected a number
of proposed mergers. In May 1996 Amelio
announced a plan for revitalizing the company.
After discussions with several other companies
in a search for a replacement for the
Macintosh’s operating system, Apple acquired
Steve Jobs’s company, NeXT, Inc., in January
1997. Jobs returned to Apple in an advisory
role. Apple’s continuing unprofitability forced
the company into another major restructuring in
February 1997. However, it continued with its
plans to encourage other companies to develop
applications for the Apple platform, reduce the
number of Macintosh product lines, and focus on
improved cross-platform Internet and multimedia
capabilities. In August 1997 Apple reversed its
traditional opposition to Microsoft and
announced a business alliance with its longtime
rival, a move seen by some commentators as an
attempt by Microsoft to counter allegations of
monopolistic practices in the computer industry.
This new collaboration did not prevent Apple
from giving hostile evidence in November 1998 in
the US Department of Justice's prosecution of
Microsoft on monopoly charges. New product lines
such as the capsule-like consumer multimedia
machine the iMac, released in the autumn of
1998, helped Apple recover its profitability and
garner new recognition for its designs. In 2000,
Jobs accepted the role of permanent chief
executive officer. Apple retained a strong
position despite a decline in the
personal-computer market, releasing its
powerful, ultra-lightweight Titanium PowerBook
G4 notebook computer, and its new operating
system, Mac OS X, built on an open source
UNIX-based foundation named Darwin, in early
2001. Later in the year, in its first foray
outside its core business for eight years, Apple
unveiled a portable digital music device named
the iPod with the capacity to store 1,000 songs
and to download an entire audio CD of music in
10 seconds. In April 2003 Apple launched iTunes,
an online music service through which customers
can download songs. The service was launched in
Europe in June 2004. In May 2004 a new iMac, the
iMac GF, was unveiled.
In 2004 Apple employed over 11,695 people in its
offices around the world. Its corporate
headquarters are located in Cupertino,
California, and it also has important offices in
Austin, Texas, as well as in Cork in the
Republic of Ireland and in Singapore. The total
net revenues figure for 2004 stood at US$8.28
billion, with a net profit of US$276 million. |
