Apple inc: marketing strategy

Apple history

A brief history

Established on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, Apple is an american company that designs and markets Computer hardware and sofware, consumer electrics and digital distribution. On 2010 Apple employs about 50 000 people and had a profit of 14 billion USD.
At first the company was named « Apple computer inc » but the word computer was removed in the year 2007 to reflect the expansion on the consumer electronics.
The company released many products over the years such as the first macintosh in the year 1984 (Ridley Scott directed a commercial inspired by « 1984 » for this occasion) and the first macintosh portable computer (1989).
From 2001 Apple focused on the consumer electronics: iPod (2001), iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010).

Steve Jobs

When people talks about Apple, it is really hard not to think about Steve Jobs who really became the image of the company.
Steve jobs, born February 24, 1955, is the perfect illustration of the american self-made man.
Adopted by a modest californian family, Steve Jobs is not graduated of any university.
He started the apple company in his parent's garage with his friend Steve Wozniak when he was 21 years old. Four years later Apple is listed and Steve Jobs became the yougest man in history to figure in the Fortune 400 (classification of the 400 most important fortune around the world).
In 1983, Steve Jobs hired John Sculley to serve as Apple's CEO. While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time had described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. In 1984 there is a deterioration in Job's working relationship with Sculley and the board of director decided to fire Jobs as head of the macintosh division. Before his return as Apple CEO in 1998( the company called him back because they were dealing with major difficulties), Jobs created two