Apple Strategic Management - Paper

Strategic management is the art and science of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its objectives. It involves the systematic identification of the firm 's objectives, nurturing policies and strategies to achieve these objectives, and acquiring and making available these resources to implement the policies and strategies to achieve the firm 's objectives. Strategic management, therefore, integrates the activities of the various functional sectors of a business, such as marketing, sales and production to achieve organisational goals. It is the highest level of managerial activity, usually

The music recording industry is in trouble. For several years now, sales of new and popular music have steadily declined and show no sign of changing. The record companies are quick to blame the growing popularity of the Internet; music is being traded in a digital form online, often anonymously, with the use of file-sharing programs such as Morpheus, KaZaA, and Imesh, to name a few. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) succeeded in disbanding the pioneer Internet file-sharing program, Napster, but is facing confrontation with similar programs that are escaping American copyright laws. While there is an obvious connection between declining popular music

Other companies such as Bose, and Sony are creating accessories such as speaker docks and car adapters that allow them to incorporate their products into the MP3 market.

In 1985 Apple Computer was forced into licensing some of their user interface elements to Microsoft, for incorporation into Windows version 1.0. This license was granted only after Microsoft threatened to discontinue development of Macintosh applications. Microsoft was the leading developer of Mac programs, and without their software, Apple would have been doomed to bankruptcy. Apple had no choice but to give in to Microsoft's demands.

Though it doesn 't receive as much attention in terms of media attention and public discourse as it earlier in the 2000s, the issue of copyrighted music and its illegal consumption over the internet still continues to be a major issue. With the advent of the internet, digital music, and mp3 players, one of the drawbacks for many of those in the music industry was the subsequent increase in pirated music that occurred. As illegal torrent sites appeared, such as Napster and Limewire, people were discovering that they could now download for free what they once paid for. Of course, as a direct result, music companies and artists both saw a significant decrease in sales in terms of the physical medium, with CD sales beginning to show sharp declines. In fact, this had a carryover effects of also closing down many of the mom and pop record stores that existed, since they did not have the financial means to withstand a restructuring process. Major chain stores were also not immune to the decline sales, as some once-prominent stores, such as the Virgin Megastore and the Wall, had to close down. Once Apple Inc. released its iPod and created the iTunes Store, the music industry was finally beginning to adapt itself to the digital realm, as Apple began signing agreements with most of the major music labels to release their songs on a digital platform as well. With songs being available individually for just $0.99 cents and whole albums able to be purchased, people now had a legal

Apple Inc. has definitely made a name for themselves in the computer and electronic industry, and because of that name, many competitors need to fight to stay in business. Apple Inc. is part of an oligopolistic market structure, where there are only a few sellers that offer similar or identical products (Mankiw, 2015). The market is compiled with businesses such as Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and PayPal. When it comes to operating systems, Microsoft and

Introduction: Apple’s iTunes launched in 2001 transformed distribution and consumption of recorded music setting the trend for the future. The proliferation of online music subscription services and other music sharing services exerted a great pressure on the conventional music distribution business model. Combined with this transformation, piracy of digital music had a profound impact on the whole industry. These worsening conditions in the market place for recorded music forced both established and upcoming new artists to experiment with new ways of selling their music.

In today’s high-tech computer savvy world, one of the largest controversies brewing on the internet is the downloading and sharing of music using various peer-to-peer programs such as Kazaa, Limewire, Audio Galaxy, and many others. These programs use software that, “rather than going through a server to request information, can make requests directly to other software. This attribute is what allows users of P2P networks to freely exchange music, movies and other types of files (Friedenberg).”

On April 28, 2003 Apple revolutionized the music industry by creating the iTunes Music Store. For the first time consumers were able to purchase digital music that was immediately ready for download onto their iPod mp3 players. However, since the start songs downloaded from iTunes have protected by a digital rights management (DRM) scheme known as fair play. Soon after Apple opened their store several other companies opened competing stores, each with their own unique DRM scheme.

Introduction: Setting the trend for the future, the distribution and consumption of recorded music transformed dramatically with the launching of Apple’s iTunes in 2001. The proliferation of online music subscription services and other music sharing services exerted a great pressure on the conventional music distribution business model. Combined with this transformation, piracy of digital music had a profound impact on the whole industry. These worsening conditions in the market place for recorded music forced both established and upcoming new artists to experiment with new ways of selling their music.

The Music Industry’s dramatic business model change from physical sales to digital downloads, how much the record labels are affected by internet piracy and how to regulate it.

The proliferation of the personal computer, the high speed internet connection and the personal listening device have all have a dramatic change on the way that consumers acquire and use music. The inception of digital media and file compression has changed the rules of music acquisition for the artist, the consumer and the retailer alike. For the consumer, the acquisition of music is now mediated by the web, which features a wide range of avenues both free and on a subscription fee basis through which consumers can acquire songs and albums. For the artist and the retailer, this has created a new and pressing demand to find ways of distributing its output while still maintaining profitability. And after a period of steady economic decline, the recording industry has seen a technology-driven shift in hierarchy, with web and computer based firms like Apple leading the charge both in terms of commercial robustness and innovation. Still, as the research conducted hereafter will show, there are yet tremendous gains to be made by new entrants in the field. With a proper emphasis on the types of technological and business processes required to compete in a constantly shifting market, a company such as the Swedish-based Spotify may be in a position to challenge the dominance of Apple's iTunes and related iPod device.

Stephen Woziniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer in 1976, which was called the Apple I, then in year 1978 just two years after, Apple II was introduced. More than 10,000 units were sold which relatively was a success, Macintosh (Mac), which dramatically change personal computer. iMac, iBook, iPod, iPad, iPhone, and other come from the lineage of Apple.

Before the present time of computers and various media player technology, trading music files on the internet was practically unheard of. Today MP3 music files have become file format that is widely “swapped” over the internet. The problem with trading MP3's is that it violates copyright laws. However, this hasn’t stopped the tens of millions of file sharing software users who continue swap MP3’s. MP3 piracy is a costly business for many companies, and the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of “P2P” file sharing. File sharing is a costly, illegal practice that hurts not only the consumers, but the artists as well.

These trends are not confined to European or American music markets. Baidu, China’s largest online search company, recently signed a deal with rights holders to license music on its website for both free download and streaming (Hille, 2011). The surge in popularity has led some to believe that the digital music market represents the recording industry’s next sustainable business model, along with diversification into live events and merchandise. However, relatively little is understood about the consumer who uses a combination of legal and illegal sources to acquire music a la carte. In the decade prior to the Internet, the music industry was relatively healthy overall with worldwide sales peaking in 1998 (Baym, 2010). Since then, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as Napster have contributed to the decline in sales of CDs. There is some disagreement about the extent to which file sharing has negatively impacted the recording; however, evidence points to copyright infringement as a significant factor. The digitalization of music effectively removed the industry’s monopoly on high-quality reproduction so that illegal copies were of equal standard to the original (May, 2007). Concomitantly, the intangible nature of digital music has resulted in new consumption practices. Efforts to counter digital piracy have primarily used legal mechanisms to dismantle P2P networks and prosecute file sharers. More