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Apple's Competitive Advantage

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Apple's Competitive Advantage
1.) What historically have been apple’s competitive advantages?
Apple has been in the news since its inception in 1976 for various reasons from its second computer APPLE ll which ran on the legendary Mcintosh operating system to Apple’s co-founder and ‘soul’ Steve Job’s ouster in 1985 to its dramatic turn around in the new millennium
To compete in the oversaturated PC industry Apple had to come up with ground breaking innovations in its devices from time to time.while most players in the industry tried to standardise operations and products Apple stressed on differentiating itself from the others by manufacturing almost everything on their own. One important point to be noted was that most of the PC manufacturers manufactured PCs around one operating system that is the Microsoft windows which had a market share of about 90% at one point of time which gave the consumers less choices because the hardware used by most computer manufacturers were the same
Other than this there is whole lot of things that made Apple outstanding. The extreme focus on user interface, simplicity and design made Apple more than just another company or product in the consumers mind. Apple’s differentiating points starts from the fact that it develops its products in utmost secrecy. Contrary to its size Apple had one of the most narrowest product lines. Jobs believed in extreme practices of secrecy, including a closed door policy where employees can access some areas of the company through key cards. Most companies used Windows operating system and microprocessors from Intel and a relatively open system that other producers could clone. Apple on the other hand practiced horizontal and vertical integration which gave it the dual advantage of significant reduction in costs as well as its creating its qwn proprietary

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