Who hasn’t heard of the legendary consumer electronics company Apple Inc.? With its trademark logo of a monochrome apple, it is hard not to notice it. In today’s day and age, the company has literally attained the status of a computer giant. With its impeccable manufacturing standards and distinct products with unique patented features, the wide range of Apple products make it hard not to be a fan of the company.
But the company was not always like this. It was not always seen as a technological giant. Au contraire, the company had to struggle for several years towards the end of the 20th century. The company was founded by the trio of Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak in the year 1976 as Apple Computers Inc. and had extremely humble beginnings. The first product launched by the company was a wooden hand crafted computer called the Apple I, which lacked a monitor, a GUI (Graphic User Interface) and everything else we now blindly associate with a computer. In fact, the modern day generation would be hard pressed to distinguish it from a regular typewriter, as that is what it looked like.
From these humble beginnings, began a journey of building a company whose USP was its products. “Think Different”, the motto of the company, might scarcely have been implemented more effectively by any other company. Since the very beginning, Apple prided itself in delivering products which were different in their design, structure as well as internal architecture than the products of other companies.
Through its rich legacy of more than 30 years, the company has seen many ups and downs and a lot of infighting and power struggles as well. In the initial years, after a string of successes, the company saw a long line of failures which eroded its market share and consumer trust. These were the years when there was a lot of rivalry going on with then then CEO John Sculley and Steve Jobs, a rivalry which ultimately led to the bitter resignation of Steve Jobs from a company he created.
But all was not lost. As luck would have it, the board of directors eventually dismissed John Sculley, brought in another CEO who again didn’t do much to turn around the company’s fortune. It would finally take the next CEO, Gil Amelio to be the harbinger of change. While he too failed to vitalize the company’s stocks and consumer trust, he did make the decision to purchase Steve Jobs’s company which he had formed when he was ousted from Apple. In 1997, Steve Jobs was reinstated as an interim CEO and under his magical hands did Apple finally manage to find its feet and become the technological giant we have come to know it as.
The company’s fortunes were greatly revitalized in the post 2000 era. With radical design changes to its flagship range of personal computers, the Macintosh, the customer suddenly had a very viable alternative to staid looking desktop computers. But the golden age of Apple Inc. actually commenced post 2007 when the company finally got its act right and successfully ventured into the non-computer markets. The launch of the now ubiquitous portable music player iPod heralded a new era in the company’s history and with the elimination of the name ‘Computer’ from its name, Apple finally became the most valued technological company in the world.
