Executive Summary
In this analysis of the Sun Microsystem Company I will give a situation analysis, which includes the growing economic trend in the market of the new computer technology. An analysis of the industry that states the current workstation market and its competitors, which states that the industry is an exclusive market with high entry barriers and has a constant competition with the personal computer industry. In the organizational section, a general financial analysis of the companies profitability, and the management philosophy of the current C.E.O. and the negative effects he’s caused. The marketing strategy will explain the companies target market, its market focus, the aspects of its advertising, and advertising
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Situation Analysis
Environment
The economic environment from 1982 to 1990 was the age of new technology. During this time there were many new companies emerging in the computer industry, trying to find a niche market. The economy was trending towards a large increase on economic wealth and very low unemployment rates. The culture was starting to embrace the idea of computer technology and the idea of networking.
Industry
The industry in which Sun Microsystems is competing in is computer workstations for scientists, engineers, and commercial companies. Sun’s founder’s believed there was demand for a desktop computer workstation costing between $10,000 and $20,000 in a market niche, ignored by minicomputer makers such as, IBM, Data General, Dec, and Hewlett-Packard. Sun’s executives believed that they would only have a short time in this market before the other large companies decided to enter, because it was an exclusive market with a high entry barrier, but with opportunity for extensive profitability.
The workstation market for engineers and scientists was rapidly becoming saturated. The company is now concentrating more of its efforts on airlines, banks, insurance, financial companies, and other commercial companies, trying to persuade users to utilize Sun workstations to solve new problems. Sun had to change their product design to make its machines easier to install, and improve the understandability of product manuals. As Sun
Computer technology is constantly advancing over software and hardware that is available at any one given time. These constant changes affect how long computer products can sell for a premium price but also can make it cheaper for those consumers that are not interested in the newest and latest components. Personal computers (PC), also known as desktop computers, are common place in jobs, schools and homes. The demand for personal computers is constant and revolving since components of computers gets better and more powerful with time. The target market then becomes anyone that uses a personal computer for home or work. HP uses the fact that computers are a common item in any office or home to their advantage and offers not only PC’s but other accessories pertaining to computers as well. While HP currently excels at providing a product for a decent price they are missing out on consumers that Equalus will focus
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries Science & Technology have grown-up a radical contribution to industry, and the personal computer has become a defining symbol of our age. In 1940, it was not recognized that Science & Technology would develop into an innovative way that would intensely affect business, trade, the monetary world, administration, discipline, education, communications, entertainment, and society as a whole. Today, information technology and its applications persist to go forward progressively. Computers and communication technology will become even more precious to civilization as they are ever more able to distinguish
At the time, the personal computer business was in its infancy, and the company sought to fill a niche by providing communication networks to link mainframe computers. Although the company grew rapidly, Mr. Lee felt that the real opportunities for growth lay in personal computers. In the mid-1980s, he decided to make a major switch to the production
Q1 The four major competitors in the computer work-station market are Sun Microsystems (29%), Hewlett-Packard (18.8%), IBM (16%),and Digital Equipment (11.6%) with other manufacturers holding 24.6% of the market. One year later a survey of computer workstations found 97 Sun, 86 HP, 70 IBM, 60 Digital and 82 other. Test at the 2.5% level of significance whether changes have occurred during the 1-year period.
When the personal computer first came onto the scene in the 1970s, many companies tried to jump into the new market. Some of the names involved are still familiar household names even still today, but some failed in this new market quickly after joining. One name that is still easily recognizable today is Apple. In 1976, Apple designed and released the Apple I. However, it wasn’t until 1980 that personal computers became affordable enough that they could be used at home. In that year, Commodore released a personal computer that only cost consumers $299, which was more affordable to the average consumer than previous computer prices had been. It is estimated that by the end of 1980, there were around one million personal computers in use in the US. In 1993, Apple and Microsoft had become major players in
In spite of the fact that PC innovation goes back to at any rate the 1940 's, the chip was initially presented on a wide scale in assembling in the 1970 's. It has been noticed that centralized server PCs began to be utilized as a part of business in the late 1950 's and mid-1960 's. PCs have appeared to develop all the more quickly since the time that the Apple II was conceived in 1977 and the IBM PC in 1981. PC (PCs) spread quickly in the 80 's and 90 's and have been updating from that point forward. It has been said that amid this increment in fame and utilization of PCs the work imbalance and pay contrast has been expanding also. All through this paper we will examine reasons why PCs are to be faulted and why PCs have had nothing to do with a financial increment of talented taught laborers and a decline in the requirement for incompetent and uneducated specialists.
Rivella AG is a Swiss company founded by Dr Robert Bath along the Lake Zürich in 1951. The idea of Barth was to create a healthy and natural beverage made from milk serum. The name “Rivella” comes from the Italian word “rivelazione”, wich mean revelation. Only six years after the creation of Rivella, the Swiss pioneer creates “Rivella Blue” the Europe’s first low-calorie beverage. Dr Robert focused on the twin themes Switzerland and Health for the identity of his brand .The company is sponsoring a lot of sports events in Switzerland. (Rivella AG, 2014).
HP, an international manufacturer of instrumentation, healthcare, computer and communication products, started up with initial investment of only $538 in the year 1939.It grew to more than $43B in sales and $3.1B in net profits in 1997.In 1997, HP formed Enterprise Server Group to focus on enterprise computing. ESG’s products were built based on proprietary RISC microprocessors and UNIX operating systems. ESG produced scalable, high performance computing systems, which were the backbone of corporate information networks, network servers and mainframes. Customers
Today, computers are practically everywhere. The 21st century has experienced huge leaps in the advancement of computer technology in terms of both hardware and software. These advancements are a direct result of the computer revolution that began in 1975 when the first personal computer was launched. The first personal computer was the Altair 8800. Since then different companies have gone on to assemble different computers. The computer revolution went through other phases such as the network revolution with the rise of the global internet by ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) in the 1990s. This was followed by the smartphone revolution that began in 2007 when Apple Inc. launched the first iPhone. Now computer technology is taking a course towards different fields and spheres. This paper will explore the positive effects of computer technology during the 21st century and the direction of computing in the future.
This workshop proposal submitted by Texas A&M University “Convergence HTF: From Making to Micro-Manufacture: Reimagining Work Beyond Mass Production” with the objective of discussing the future of manufacturing work by convening a reimagination of the relationship of multiple fields of inquiry from Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Economics, the Social Sciences, Industrial Engineering and Education. A two-stage strategy is proposed to establish the agenda for the workshop. First participants will engage in an online discussion over 2-3 months. This discussion will yield a more refined program of discussion and a selection of a broader team of participants for the face-to-face workshop.
And these analyses will be done with the help of Porter’s 5 forces (see appendix 1, 2, 3). This analysing toll deals with issues which are from outside the industry that impacts the nature of competition within the certain industry. Thurlby, (1998) stated “Understanding the nature of each of these forces gives organisations the necessary insights to enable them to formulate the appropriate strategies to be successful in their market”1. The analysis of the three industry are given belowPC industry (See appendix 1) This competition within the PC industry is extraordinarily high consisting with top companies like Dell, HP, Apple, Gateway and Sony. In order to gain competitive advantage, the key factors are advancement in technology, custom built PCs, reliability and standard customer service. The life cycle of PC industry can be seen as mature (See appendix 6); however the growth of PC’s has not decline. The reason is due to the globalisation trends taking place within the major firms. The barriers very high where there are already five main firms that dominate the market. Therefore, the chances of new PC companies entering the market and get significant hold of market share is very slender. The main two factors that are making the entry level high are mainly cost and distribution and the top five firms also control 70 per cent of the global personal computer market. Another factor may be is that
Olympic is an innovative company that manufactures paints, stains, resurfacers, and wood cleaners. Since 1938, the company has been producing premium products that are reliable and practical. The corporation has earned consumer’s trust by consistently creating specialized products that go above and beyond expectations. Olympic’s advertisements are known to be simplistic, which relays the message that their product can stand on its own. This specific ad poses the question, what makes this paint so special? After analyzing the ad consumers will find that the company, Olympic, creates products that are unlike any other.
With the opening of the new R&D center in 2006, the formal organization, culture, and people of Computime will need re-aligned (Tushman & O’Reilly, 1997). This is necessary because they do not fit the new vision, since all were established when Computine was a contract manufacturer (OEM), not a global leader of branded products.
In the following, the analysis of the political, economic, social and technological factors leads to a description of the macro environment of the computer industry.
In the past, computer manufacturers such as Compaq and IBM assembled computers based on what they had in their inventory. This necessitated maintaining a stock room for three to four months of computer inventory in the distribution channel - spending millions of dollars in holding cost. As computers component cost steadily decreased with significant technology changes, keeping inventory in stock over a long period became non-beneficial. This led to delays in the delivery of new product line to consumers. [1] The products sold by retailers meant more overhead cost before for the consumers.