Running head: CASE STUDY: APPLE 1
Case Study: Apple
Chad Steele
Northwest Nazarene University
BSNS6302 Strategic Marketing
Dr. Konya Weber
May 21, 2017
CASE STUDY: APPLE 2
Case Study: Apple
In 1976 a couple of college dropouts started a computer company out of a garage in
Southern California. This company is one of the largest companies in the world known as Apple.
This company at its core started out as a computer company and has evolved into a brand that is
synopsis with technical. They set the standard for others to follow what a consumer wants before
they even want it (Yoffie & Baldwin, 2015). The two individuals who started the company were
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The name Apple came to Steve Jobs’ mind after visiting an apple
orchard in Oregon, stating, “the name sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating” (Rivkin, 2011,
para. 3). When the release of Apple II in 1978 it ignited a revolution, and in less than three years
personal computers surpassed one billion dollars in annual sales. However, in the early years of
the company going public, Apple didn’t use an open system and relied strictly on proprietary
design, this led to losing market share. Other well-known computer companies gained market
share and set the standard of open design (Yoffie & Baldwin, 2015).
In the beginning, Apple’s mission statement was: to make a contribution to the world by
making tools for the mind that advance humankind (Hindle, 2009). Apple exists to accomplish
something, in this simple mission statement for a young company, Steve Jobs answers the
questions, what is our business, who is the customer, and what is of value to the client (Kotler &
Keller, 2015). As the company evolved, Apple current mission statement is: Apple designs
Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional
software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple
has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store and is defining the
future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad. It is a radical difference from where
CASE STUDY: APPLE 3
the organization started. The founder saw his products as a tool to improve the quality of life,
and now Apple sees its products as a purpose for its existence (Investopedia, 2015).
When 1980 came around, Apple was a leader in their innovation and product of Apple II,
but for seven years, Apple failed to deliver a successful follow-up. Apple III had flaws that were
recalled, and the Apple Lisa was very expensive. Another known computer company
International Business Machines (IBM) entered the market-outsourced production on its
operating system partnered with Microsoft. Consumers were already familiar with IBM
surpassed Apple’s offerings. Microsoft wasn’t exclusive like Apple was and started selling its
operating system to any personal computer company. This substantially increased Microsoft’s
market share for consumers; this led to developers working on applications for its operating
system instead of Apple’s computers (Yarrow, 2012). At the time no one knew the success of
