Apple Computer Glimpse at Apple\'s

Apple Computer

Glimpse at Apple's Corporate Culture

Apple Computer has always had one of the strongest work ethics in the Silicon Valley, with it being commonplace to find product design and software engineers working well past 9pm each night, having to be literally prodded to go home. The messianic vision of Apple transforming the world one desktop at a time, and the ability of the culture to translate this strategic vision into something intensively personal that could be so readily transformed into a passion is the fuel that kept Apple alive throughout the early 1990s and during its transition from hard-working renegade to a force in several key markets the company helped discover in the first place. Despite the image the company projects of being very hip, there is a very strong work ethic and a commitment to deadlines that isn't common across other high tech companies globally.

The company attracts workaholics looking for a cause to completely commit themselves to. As a result of this dynamic and the fact that in many of the company's years it has been thinly staffed, there is almost always more work to be done than people to do it. As the company has at times fought for its survival and had to rely on unconventional approaches to getting work done, it has earned as reputation for being nonconformist. As the brand thrives on this image the fact is that Apple is one of the hardest working and most driven PC companies in the world, an attribute that is responsible for their survival as others have fallen. A sixty or seventy hour work week is average for the typical Apple employee, and the higher the position the greater the commitment required. Guy Kawasaki (1990), head of Software Evangelism, writes in his book The Macintosh Way, of the hours that he would invest in planning software developer visits to convince them to write applications for the Apple Macintosh. Kawasaki was a big reason the Apple Macintosh succeeded as he created a very strong and reliable group of software developers that provided Apple with the necessary software applications to make the Macintosh usable. The company would eventually adopt an Open Source platform approach to software development and greatly increase the options for its loyal customers in the process

As all cultures change over time, so has the one inside Apple. This is most prevalent in their perception of customers. Seen literally for decades as consumers, hobbyists, educators and in short one of the most rabidly passionate customer bases for PCs on the planet, Apple has had to continually learn what it means to support an enterprise customer. It is common for enterprise-level customers to get an 800 number and be asked to bring their systems into a store for support. When a corporation has literally thousands of them this is clearly not feasible, and it has only been recently that Apple has addressed this with an enterprise-level support plan.

The bottom line is that Apple still attracts those workaholics looking for a cause to fully commit themselves to, and despite the shortcomings of scaling to the enterprise area, their introduction of iTunes and iPods have revolutionized personal digital entertainment, and continue to propel the company to the highest levels of financial performance it has ever attained both in terms of p[profitability and sales performance.

Apple's Financial Position in 2006

As of November, 2006 Apple's financial performance is exemplary for the sector it competes in, and appears to be ready to move away from the purely digital entertainment positioning it had been pursuing with the iPod and iTunes back to a core Macintosh focus. This is being driven by the latest quarter's 56% growth of the Intel-based Macintosh, fuelling a 30% growth in total Macintosh Sales. In addition, iPod Sales in 4Q06 were 8.7 million units, reaccelerating to a 35% year-over-year growth rate. As a result of these developments, Apple appears to be capable of delivering close to an $18B year by many analyst's estimates, outpacing their per-segment growth as shown in the table, Segment Business Analysis below.