September 25, 2017
Professor Kim
Apple Inc. in 2012 Case Write Up
Define the PC industry in terms of products, players, and geography.
The PC industry started off with creating personal and portable computers for consumers worldwide. The two main players in the PC industry are Apple and IBM. Apple and IBM took two different approaches to manufacturing their PC’s: Apple relies on horizontal and vertical integration to create their own designs and does not want to outsource their hardware to third parties while IBM uses an “open” system from Microsoft and Intel. The four main PC manufactures include HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer. Exhibit 5 shows the breakdown of PC’s Manufactures gross margins percentage. Apple has consistently getting higher percentages over the years ending in 2011 with over 20% higher gross margins than both Dell and HP. As the competition between Apple and IBM became more intense, both companies needed to develop more products to capture the majority of the PC market. The creation of IPad made tablets relevant in the market forcing other companies to compete such as the Microsoft based tablets. The PC industry network reaches worldwide-based consumers. The consumers were put into five categories, which included the home, small and medium-sized business, corporate, education and government. Some of the players in the industry also decided to outsource to …show more content…
The rise of the technological age has made the PC industry a powerful and relevant one. Apple and IBM are the leading companies to create the new products that satisfy the demands of consumers who are influenced by the technological wave. Apple and IBM are influenced by the sociocultural factor by trying to capture this demographic of people who want to be experienced in the technology world. The PC industry is also shaped by legal factors ranging from lawsuits of patents to labor conflicts and