رنگین کمون
رنگین کمونرنگین کمون
رنگین کمونAPPLE INDUSTRIAL COMPANY ( part 3 )
from wikipedia:
Marketing
Apple' brand and brand community. Apple's brand's loyalty is considered unusual for any product. At one time, Apple evangelistswere actively engaged by the company, but this was after the phenomenon was already firmly established. Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki has called the brand fanaticism "something that was stumbled upon".[150] Apple has, however, supported the continuing existence of a network of Mac User Groups in most major and many minor centers of population where Mac computers are available.
Mac users would meet at the European Apple Expo and the San Francisco Macworld Conference & Expo trade shows where Apple traditionally introduced new products each year to the industry and public until Apple pulled out of both events. While the conferences continue, Apple does not have official representation there. Mac developers, in turn, continue to gather at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.
Apple Store openings can draw crowds of thousands, with some waiting in line as much as a day before the opening or flying in from other countries for the event.[151] The New York City Fifth Avenue "Cube" store had a line as long as half a mile; a few Mac fans took the opportunity of the setting to propose marriage.[152] The Ginza opening in Tokyo was estimated in the thousands with a line exceeding eight city blocks.[153]
John Sculley told The Guardian newspaper in 1997: "People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company. It was the marketing company of the decade."[154]
Research in 2002 by NetRatings indicate that the average Apple consumer was usually more affluent and better educated than other PC company consumers. The research indicated that this correlation could stem from the fact that on average Apple Inc. products are more expensive than other PC products.[155][156]
Name
According to Steve Jobs, Apple was so named because Jobs was coming back from an apple farm, and he was on a fruitarian diet. He thought the name was "fun, spirited and not intimidating".[157]
Logos
Apple's first logo, designed by Ron Wayne, depicts Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree.
Almost immediately, though, this was replaced by Rob Janoff's "rainbow Apple", the now-familiar rainbow-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it. Janoff presented Jobs with several different monochromatic themes for the "bitten" logo, and Jobs immediately took a liking to it. While Jobs liked the logo, he insisted it be in color to humanize the company.[158][159] The Apple logo was designed with a bite so that it would not be recognized as another fruit. The colored stripes were conceived to make the logo more accessible, and to represent the fact the Apple II could generate graphics in color.[160]
This logo is often erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide.[161][162] Both the designer of the logo and the company deny that there is any homage to Turing in the design of the logo.[160][163]
In 1998, with the roll-out of the new iMac, Apple discontinued the rainbow theme and began to use monochromatic themes, nearly identical in shape to its previous rainbow incarnation, on various products, packaging and advertising. AnAqua-themed version of the monochrome logo was used from 2001–2003, and a Glass-themed version has been used since 2003.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were Beatles fans,[164][165] but Apple Inc. had trademark issues with Apple Corps Ltd., a multimedia company started by The Beatles in 1967, involving their name and logo. This resulted in a series of lawsuits and tension between the two companies. These issues ended with settling of their most recent lawsuit in 2007.
Slogans
Apple's first slogan, "Byte into an Apple", was coined in the late 1970s.[166] From 1997–2002, Apple used the slogan "Think Different" in advertising campaigns. Although the slogan has been retired, it is still closely associated with Apple.[167] Apple also has slogans for specific product lines — for example, "iThink, therefore iMac" was used in 1998 to promote the iMac,[168] and "Say hello to iPhone" has been used in iPhone advertisements.[169] "Hello" was also used to introduce the original Macintosh, Newton, iMac ("hello (again)"), and iPod.[170]
Advertising
Since the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984 with the 1984 Super Bowl commercial to the more modern 'Get a Mac' adverts, Apple has been recognized in the past for its efforts towards effective advertising and marketing for its products, though its advertising has been criticized for the claims of some more recent campaigns, particularly 2005 Power Mac ads[171][172][173] and iPhone ads in Britain.
Apple's product commercials gained fame for launching musicians into stardom as a result of their eye-popping graphics and catchy tunes.[174] First, the company popularized Canadian singer Feist's "1234" song in its ad campaign.[174] Later, Apple used the song "New Soul" by French-Israeli singer-songwriter Yael Naïm to promote the MacBook Air.[174] The debut single shot to the top of the charts and sold hundreds of thousands of copies in a span of weeks.[174]
During the Mac's early history Apple generally refused to adopt prevailing industry standards for hardware, instead creating their own.[175] This trend was largely reversed in the late 1990s beginning with Apple's adoption of the PCI bus in the 7500/8500/9500 Power Macs. Apple has since adopted USB, AGP, HyperTransport,Wi-Fi, and other industry standards in its computers and was in some cases a leader in the adoption of standards such as USB.[176] FireWire is an Apple-originated standard that has seen widespread industry adoption after it was standardized as IEEE 1394.[177]
Ever since the first Apple Store opened, Apple has sold third party accessories.[178] For instance, at one point Nikon and Canon digital cameras were sold inside the store. Adobe, one of Apple's oldest software partners,[179] also sells its Mac-compatible software, as does Microsoft, who sells Microsoft Office for the Mac. Books from John Wiley & Sons, who publishes the For Dummies series of instructional books, are a notable exception, however. The publisher's line of books were banned from Apple Stores in 2005 because Steve Jobs disagreed with their decision to publish an unauthorized Jobs biography, iCon.[180] After the launch of theiBookstore, Apple stopped selling physical books, both online and at the Apple Retail Stores.
Headquarters
Worldwide
Apple Inc.'s world corporate headquarters are located in the middle of Silicon Valley, at 1–6 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California. This Apple campus has six buildings that total 850,000 square feet (79,000 m2) and was built in 1993 by Sobrato Development Cos.[181]
Apple created subsidiaries in low-tax places such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands to cut the taxes it pays around the world. According to the New York Times, Apple was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed the company to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes. Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the "Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich," which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean.[182]
In 2006, Apple announced its intention to build a second campus on 50 acres (200,000 m2) assembled from various contiguous plots (east of N Wolfe Road between Pruneridge Avenue and Vallco Parkway). Later acquisitions increased this to 175 acres. The new campus, also in Cupertino, will be about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the current campus.[183] The new campus building will be designed by Norman Foster.[184]
On June 7, 2011, Steve Jobs gave a presentation to Cupertino City Council, detailing the architectural design of the new building and its environs. The new campus is planned to house up to 13,000 employees in one central four-storied circular building (with a café for 3,000 sitting people integrated) surrounded by extensive landscape (with parking mainly underground and the rest centralized in a parking structure). There will be additional buildings such as an auditorium, R&D facilities, a fitness center and a dedicated generating plant as primary source of electricity (powered by natural gas and other more environmentally sound means).
Headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa
Apple's headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are located in Cork in the south of Ireland.[185][186][187][188][189][190][191] The facility, which opened in 1980, was Apple's first location outside of the United States.[192] Apple Sales International, which deals with all of Apple's international sales outside of the USA, is located at Apple's campus in Cork[193] along with Apple Distribution International, which similarly deals with Apple's international distribution network.[194]
On April 20, 2012, Apple announced the addition of 500 new jobs to its European headquarters. This will bring the total workforce from around 2,800 to 3,300 employees.[185][186][195] The company will build a new office block on its Hollyhill Campus to accommodate the additional staff.[196]
Corporate culture
Apple was one of several highly successful companies founded in the 1970s that bucked the traditional notions of what a corporate culture should look like in organizational hierarchy (flat versus tall, casual versus formal attire, etc.). Other highly successful firms with similar cultural aspects from the same period includeSouthwest Airlines and Microsoft. Originally, the company stood in opposition to staid competitors like IBM by default, thanks to the influence of its founders; Steve Jobs often walked around the office barefoot even after Apple was a Fortune 500 company. By the time of the "1984" TV ad, this trait had become a key way the company attempted to differentiate itself from its competitors.[197]
As the company has grown and been led by a series of chief executives, each with his own idea of what Apple should be, some of its original character has arguably been lost, but Apple still has a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence that reliably draws talented people into its employ, especially after Jobs' return. To recognize the best of its employees, Apple created the Apple Fellows program, awarding individuals who made extraordinary technical or leadership contributions topersonal computing while at the company. The Apple Fellowship has so far been awarded to a few individuals including Bill Atkinson,[198] Steve Capps,[199] Rod Holt,[198] Alan Kay,[200][201] Guy Kawasaki,[200][202] Al Alcorn,[203] Don Norman,[200] Rich Page,[198] and Steve Wozniak.[198]
Numerous employees of Apple have cited that projects without Jobs' involvement often take longer than projects with his involvement.[204] Another presents the image of Jobs "wandering the hall with a flame thrower in hand, asking random people 'do you work on MobileMe?'".[205]
At Apple, employees are specialists who are not exposed to functions outside their area of expertise. Jobs saw this as a means of having best-in-class employees in every role. For instance, Ron Johnson who was Senior Vice President of Retail Operations until November 1, 2011, was responsible for site selection, in-store service, and store layout, yet he had no control of the inventory in his stores (which is done company wide by then-COO and now CEO Tim Cook who has a background in supply-chain management). This is the opposite of General Electric's corporate culture which has created well-rounded managers.[206] [206]
Under the leadership of Tim Cook who joined the company in 1998 and ascended to his present position as CEO, Apple has developed an extremely efficient and effective supply chain which has been ranked as the world's best for the four years 2007–2010[citation needed]. The company's manufacturing, procurement and logistics enables it to execute massive product launches without having to maintain large, profit-sapping inventories; Apple's profit margins have been 40 percent compared with 10–20 percent for most other hardware companies in 2011. Cook's catchphrase to describe his focus on the company's operational edge is “Nobody wants to buy sour milk”. [109] [207] The company previously advertised its products as being made in America up to the late 1990s, however as a result of outsourcing initiatives in the 2000s almost all of its manufacturing is now done abroad. According to a report by the New York Times, Apple insiders "believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products".[208]
Finance
In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple Inc. hit new heights financially with $108 billion in revenues (increased significantly from $65 billion in 2010) and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves. Apple achieved these results while losing market share in certain product categories.[209]
On March 19, 2012, Apple announced plans for a $2.65 per share dividend beginning in fourth quarter of 2012, per approval by their board of directors.[210]
Environmental record
Greenpeace has campaigned against Apple on various environmental issues, including a global end-of-life take-back plan, non-recyclable hardware components and toxins within iPhone hardware.[211][212] Since 2003 Greenpeace has campaigned against Apple's use of particular chemicals in its products, more specifically, the inclusion of PVC and BFRs in their products.[211] On May 2, 2007, Steve Jobs released a report announcing plans to eliminate PVC and BFRs by the end of 2008.[213][214] Apple has since eliminated PVC and BFRs across its product range,[215] becoming the first laptop maker to do so.[216]
In the first edition, released in August 2006, Apple scored 2.7/10.[217]
The Environmental Protection Agency rates Apple highest amongst producers of notebook computers, and fairly well compared to producers of desktop computers and LCD displays.[218][219]
In June 2007, Apple upgraded the MacBook Pro, replacing cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCD displays with mercury-free LED backlit LCD displays and arsenic-free glass,[220] and has since done this for all notebooks. Apple has also phased out BFRs and PVCs from various internal components.[213][221][222]Apple offers information about the emissions, materials, and electrical usage of each product.[223]
In June 2009, Apple's iPhone 3GS was free of PVC, arsenic, BFRs and had an efficient power adapter.[220]
In October 2009, Apple upgraded the iMac and MacBook, replacing the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCD displays with mercury-free LED backlit LCD displays and arsenic-free glass.[224] This means all Apple computers have mercury free LED backlit displays, arsenic-free glass and are without PVC cables. All Apple computers also have EPEAT Gold status.[220]
In 2010, Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to directing consumers toward the greenest companies, gave Apple a score of 52 points out of a possible 100, which puts Apple in their top category "Striding".[225] This was an increase from May 2008, when Climate Counts only gave Apple 11 points out of 100, which placed the company last among electronics companies, at which time Climate Counts also labeled Apple with a "stuck icon", adding that Apple at the time was "a choice to avoid for the climate conscious consumer".[17]
In October 2011 Chinese authorities have ordered an Apple supplier to close part of its plant in Suzhou after residents living nearby raised significant environmental concerns.[226]
In November 2011 Apple featured in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics that ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy and how green their products are. The company ranked 4th out of 15 electronics companies (moving up five places from the previous year) with a score of 4.6/10 down from 4.9.[227] Greenpeace praises Apple's sustainability, noting that the company exceeded its 70% global recycling goal in 2010. It continues to score well on the products rating with all Apple products now being free of PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants. However, the guide criticizes Apple on the Energy criteria for not seeking external verification of its greenhouse gas emissions data and for not setting out any targets to reduce emissions.[227]
In January 2012, Apple announced plans and requested that their cable maker Volex begin producing halogen-free USB and power cables.[228]
In June 2012 Apple Inc. withdrew its products from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) certification system.[229][230]
Labor practices
In 2006, the Mail on Sunday reported on working conditions existed at factories in China where the contract manufacturers Foxconn and Inventec produced the iPod.[231] The article stated that one complex of factories that assembles the iPod (among other items) had over 200,000 workers that lived and worked in the factory, with employees regularly working more than 60 hours per week. The article also reported that workers made around $100 per month and were required to live pay for rent and food from the company, which generally amounted to a little over half of workers' earnings.[16][232][233][234]
Apple immediately launched an investigation and worked with their manufacturers to ensure acceptable working conditions.[235] In 2007, Apple started yearly audits of all its suppliers regarding worker's rights, slowly raising standards and pruning suppliers that did not comply. Yearly progress reports have been published since 2008.[236] In 2010, workers in China planned to sue iPhone contractors over poisoning by a cleaner used to clean LCD screens. One worker claimed that he and his coworkers had not been informed of possible occupational illnesses.[237] After a spate of suicides in a Foxconn facility in China making iPads and iPhones, albeit at a lower rate than in China as a whole,[238] workers were forced to sign a legally binding document guaranteeing that they would not kill themselves.[239] In 2011 Apple admitted that its suppliers' child labor practices in China had worsened.[240]
Workers in factories producing Apple products have also been exposed to n-Hexane, a neurotoxin that is a cheaper alternative than alcohol for cleaning the products.[241][242][243]
