Apple Inc. Management and Product Development Timeline Research Paper

Apple Inc. Management and Product Development Timeline - Research Paper Example The research paper "Apple Inc. Management and Product Development Timeline" investigates the compliance to various regulations governing the computer industry, project management within the enterprise, the productivity of the company and its market position and share in the computer technology market in a timeline of a series of events. Apple Inc. formerly known as Apple Computers Inc is a public traded company in the industry of computer software and appliances. Formed in 1976 and incorporated in 1977, the company that was founded by the trio of Jobs, Wozniak, and Wayne and has its headquarters in California, U.S.A. It stands out as the company that managed to grow from strength to strength amid all the challenges in the computer technology market. Presently a multinational company with the market and operational presence in various countries of the world, Apple is, in fact, the market leader in the provision of computers and related accessories as well as computer software. Currently, Apple has an employee base of 60,400 and 357 retail stores all over the world. This has provided them with a market influence greater than its competitors like The Microsoft Company which it has since surpassed despite having been in the market way before Apple. As a result, Apple has a large equity base of $76.615 billion with a turnover of $108.249 billion as reported in 2011. The result has been that the company is highly profitable with the profits standing at US$ 25.922 billion as at 2011. The legal environment in which Apple operates is dominated by requirements to protect the environment, labour laws as well as state requirements such as tax compliances, employee working conditions and benefits. Apple Inc. has been on the fore front in com plying with such legal requirements. It has undertaken social responsibility to protect its employees and the society at large from the dangerous emissions that result from its operations. Although Apple emits green house gases and therefore a contributor to environmental degradation, it has taken measures to recycle its products so as to relieve the environment of such heavy carbon burden. More recycling centers have been set up in most countries of operation, approximately 95% of all those countries in places of high computer usage. The company achieved and surpassed the target of recycling 50% of their total hardware input by 1997. Economically, Apple has successfully waded off competition as it captures a wider market proportion. Competition has majorly been witnessed from other computer appliances and software design firms like MYSQL, Microsoft and Oracle. The company has continued to design more efficient software and improved on its hardware over the years even though this ha s at times made their products fairly expensive due to high costs of production, research and development which have in some circumstances delinked them from consumers. The most important aspect however, is that they have learnt from previous experiences and are presently at an equilibrium in production costs and consumer attitudes in the design and marketing of their products. With the growing world population and an influx of computer users, the economic future of Apple is without doubt very bright. Over the years, the management and top decision making of Apple Inc. had always been on the CEO who was either one of the founders until Wayne sold off his shares. Steve Jobs as a result became the company’s longest serving CEO before his death in October 2011. The top management has in the past been responsible for the products in the market, research and sales which have together given the company its current market status of