apple company background assignment

Introduction of Apple Company

Apple Inc, is an American multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing consumer electronics and closely-related software products. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple develops, sells, and supports a series of personal computers, portable media players, computer software, and computer hardware accessories; Apple is also currently involved in the creation of new technology concepts, such as the iPhone, Apple TV, and many features of its new, upcoming operating system, Mac OS X “Leopard”.

Apple also operates an online store for hardware and software purchases, as well as the iTunes Store, a comprehensive offering of digital downloadable music, audiobooks, games, music videos, TV shows, and movies. The company’s best-known hardware products include the Mac line of personal computers and related peripherals, the iPod line of portable media players, and the iPhone, which has a confirmed release date of June 29 2007 in the U. S. Apple’s best known software products include the Mac OS operating system and the iLife software suite, a bundle of integrated amateur creative software products. Both Mac OS and iLife are included on all Macs sold.

Additionally, Apple is also a major provider of professional (as well as “prosumer”) audio- and film-industry software products. Apple’s professional and “prosumer” applications, which run primarily on Mac computers, include Final Cut Pro, Logic Audio, Final Cut Studio, and related industry tools. Apple had worldwide annual sales in its fiscal year 2006 (ending September 30, 2006) of US$19. 3 billion. The company, first incorporated January 3, 1977, was known as Apple Computer, Inc. or its first 30 years. On January 9, 2007, The company dropped “Computer” from its corporate name to reflect that Apple, once best known for its computer products, now offers a broader array of consumer electronics products. The name change, which followed Apple’s announcement of its new iPhone smartphone and Apple TV digital video system, is representative of the company’s ongoing expansion into the consumer electronics market in addition to its traditional focus on personal computers.

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In 1977, the Apple II computer became the first personal computer to include color graphics. Steve Jobs created a sleek plastic case design for the new system having drawn his inspiration from the calculators cases he saw being produced at Hewlett Packard; previously, computer cases had been manufactured out of sheet metal. The Apple II was a major success with earnings of close to $139 million within only three years. People began to take notice of the young company.

In 1981, Steve Jobs introduced the Apple III computer. Because of a flaw in the computer’s design the first 14,000 units were recalled which in turn caused sales of the system to taper off. In 1983, with its dynamic growth, Steve Jobs figured that Apple could use a professional CEO, feeling that he did not have the necessary experience to keep the position. He personally recruited John Sculley, president of Pepsi Co. , as Apple’s new Chief Executive Officer.

The same year, Apple announced the release of the first personal computer that would be almost entirely mouse-based. This revolutionary new system would be called the Lisa. Unfortunately, the Lisa’s retail price of $9,995 made it cost prohibitive for the majority of the general public. Having been removed from the Lisa team, Steve Jobs joined the staff of a smaller project at Apple. He headed the design of a new computer system for the home market that would retail for a more price friendly $500. This proposed system was later named the Macintosh.

The emphasis on the design of the Macintosh was in simplicity; Steve Jobs wanted it to appeal to the average computer user. The Macintosh was eventually fitted with a number of the Lisa’s GUI features. Like the Lisa, the Macintosh’s operating system lacked function keys which forced users to rely on the mouse to navigate through the operating system. The Macintosh contained 128K of memory which was twice that of the equivalent PC at the time and a 32-bit microprocessor which outclassed the PC’s 16-bit microprocessor

Coca-Cola Company essay

a)      Description and History of the company

 (i) Size and scope of the company

The Coca-Cola Company owns four of the world’s top five non-alcoholic sparkling beverage brands in the world market; it has about 90,500 associates in the whole world and operates in more than two hundred countries. The company serves an estimate of 1.5 billion people (consumers) a day and has more than 2,800 products of beverage variety.

ii)   History

The company originated as a soda fountain beverage selling for five cents a glass in 1886.  A store owner in Vicksburg Mississippi was impressed by the new fountain beverage called coca cola and he began bottling it to sell using a glass bottle referred to as Hutchinson.  In 1899, young attorneys form Tennessee met with the company’s owner Griggs Candler and obtained exclusive rights to bottle the beverage across the United States for a total sum of one dollar, they were later joined by a third lawyer. The three divided the country into three territories between 1900 and 1909 and sold bottling rights to local entrepreneurs, the progress of bottling technology boosted their efforts therefore improving efficiency and product quality and by 1910, almost 400 bottling plants were in operation by family owned-businesses where some opened only during the summer when demand for beverages was high. (Tung 2).

However, a new bottle was approved in 1915 and introduced in 1916 after the bottlers worried that the straight-sided bottle for coca cola could be easily mistaken for the imitations which were beginning to hit the market. The new design ‘contour bottle’ was designed by Root Glass Company in Indiana and the unique shape remains even today.  More than 1,000 coca cola bottlers in U.S were in operation by 1920s and eventually bottle sales exceed the fountain sales by the end of 1920s.  In the 1920s and 1930s, the Coca-Cola Company began a major plan to establish the bottling operations outside United States and plants were opened in 44 countries among the Guatemala, Mexico, Spain, Australia and South Africa by the time of the World War II emergence.

64 plants were set during the war to tend troops which were involved in the fights and in 1950’s, consumers had a choice of coca cola packages, type and size due to the introduction of the same; cans were also introduced in 1960. New brands were introduced as from 1960s and as technology brought global economy, retailers who sold the beverage merged and developed into international mega chains and small and medium sized bottlers consolidated so as to be able to serve the customers in a better way.

In the 1990s, political and economic changes led to vast market openings and the company invested heavily to building plants in Eastern Europe after the fall of Berlin wall and at the close of the century, more than 1.5 billion dollars was used to start new bottling companies in the African continent. In the 21st century, the company grew up with deep roots in communities and strong local based relationships between bottlers, communities and customers are the foundation for the business growth. The business has since grown tremendously and more plans are being made to expand the market even further. (Tung 2).

b. Industry and Markets of the company.

(i) Industry in which the company operates

      The beverage industry in which coca cola operates has a fear of Coca Cola Company because they take it as a vehicle for capitalist dominance.  This is referred to as a meta-status and coca cola is one of the three or four commodities in the world markets which have reached this status.  The term itself, ‘coca cola’ comes to stand not only for a specific soft drink, but for problematic nature of commodities in general. Coca cola operates through a powerful emotive and expressive foundation making it very hard for other companies to claim its status; it is not a material culture but a symbol that stands to be debated on in terms of materiality of culture which it portrays. (Buchli 247).

      Coca-Cola Company has innovations in distribution, marketing, quality control, adaptability to change and development of human resources which have made a significant effort in solving environmental problems, it has helped in reducing solid waste and its packaging is recyclable. (Fisher 220-228).

      The company is involved in many projects in the communities and carries out its corporate social responsibility well so as to fit well in the industry and the larger community.  It operates locally, employs people and reflects people’s lifestyles and tastes.  It makes genuine connection with its consumers and creates an environment where its impossible to escape it.

ii)   Key markets of the company

      Coca cola Company brands are known all over the world and have several key markets.  These markets are found in China, Japan, Russia, Africa, East, South Asia, Pacific Rim, Europe and Latin America.

C. Chief Competitors and Positioning of the Company in the Market

(i)  Description of key competitors

      There are a number of competitors of coca cola beverage in the world’s one id Cadbury Schweppes PLC which produces soft drinks such as 7up, Canada dry, Schweppes soda and most juices.  National Beverage Corp which produces Faygo, shanta, Bigshot and spring water and juice based drinks. (Padberg, Sporleder & Davis 109).

Another key competitor is Cott corp which produces private label brands like Sam’s American choice in U.S and Great value in Canada.  The other is Jones soda company which makes and distributes now or alternative beverages like Jones soda, premium soda (Jones naturals a non-carbonated juice and tea drink) and Jones energy.  Other competitors are Pepsi beverages, soft soda in Kenya, leading brands include: and Hansen Natural corp which engages in selling and marketing alternative beverages, fruit juices and Natural sodas, Groupe Danone world water division, Nestlaters, ITOEN, LTD, Red Bull Gmbtt, Cott Corporation, Britric Plc, constellation brands international and Ocean spay Cranberries.

ii)   Position of the company

      The Coca cola Company is the largest beverage company in the world, it is the largest manufacturer, marketer and distributor of non-alcoholic beverage syrups and concentrates in the world and is the one of the United States largest Corporations.  It is best known for its coca cola product and currently offers nearly 400 brands in over 200 countries in the entire world. (Fisher, 220-228).

The coca cola company has a franchised distribution system which can be dated back to 1889 where TCCC produced syrups concentrates only and sold to several bottlers who have exclusive territories throughout the world.  The company sells its beverage products in more than 312 countries and gets approximately 4.5 billion beverage sale daily out of the 90 billion beverage servings of all types in the world.  It had gallon sales of 37% in United States, 43% in Mexico, Brazil, Japan and China and 20% in the rest of the world in 2007.

(iii) External influence on the industry and markets.

External business environment has general powerful forces that affect the entire industry, market and the economy at large.

Market analysis process by a company help to investigate the internal and external environments and their influence on the industry and market are used as decisive traits in relation to success and survival of a company such as coca cola. However, Coca cola itself has great influence on the environment and the beverage markets in the world. One of the influences it has on the market is competition; the company has a big influence on competitive factors in the beverage industry since it holds a competitive edge, due to this, other companies try to compete with it. This results to better quality products from the industry since companies will try to improve their quality to match up with Coca cola and therefore improve the quality of the industry and good competition in the markets. (Sergio, 24).

Coca-Cola maintains a local approach in its operations; it carries out several corporate social responsibilities and as a result improves the industry and the local society at large. Coca cola is also concern about safety of its employees, the environment and the entire society and due to this, other companies in the industry tend to follow suit and end up improving the community as well as the entire industry.

Coca-Cola influences consumer buying behavior; this is due to their advertisements which make consumers prefer Coca-Cola products more that other beverages and as a result the market is usually biased since they have an upper hand on the market.

Poor people in the third world countries are negatively affected by Coca-Cola brands; this is because they have neglected staple foods in preference for soft drinks such as coca cola. Cases of malnutrition of children in Zambia have been reported due to feeding of children with coke and fanta. Mothers in this country believe that the beverages are good for their children, thus led the Zambian government to ban fanta advertisements due to the negative influence on the poor people in their country. (Sergio, 24).

In conclusion, the coca cola company is one of the largest multinational companies in the world and produces and distributes all the coca cola beverage products in the world. Its branches are in many countries and employ a lot of people throughout the world. The company holds a large number of the soft drinks market in the world and is most trusted by people especially in the third world countries. The company has continued to grow significantly since its emergence in the 1980’s and it has brought many importance and significant improvement of the economy of the whole world. Read also about Ene Ticker

Bibliography

Daniel Padberg, Thomas Sporleder & Ernest Davis, mergers and the food industry structure, Texas A&M University (2000)

Fisher, the worlds most admired companies, fortune 136(8), 27th October (1997), 220-8.

Rosalie Tung, learning from world class companies, Thompson learning EMEA, ISBN: 1861526091, (2001), p 2.

Terry Murden, coke adds life to health drinks sector, Scotland on Sunday, Scotsman, January 30, 2005 retrieved on 2006-5-11.

Victor Buchi, the material culture reader, Beg publishers, ISBN: 1859735592. 2002,

Zyman Sergio, the end of marketing as we know it, New York, Harper business, (1999).

http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/ourcompany

Company Law Essay - Cavendish University Law Lecturers Notes

DEFINITION OF COMPANY: The Companies Act Cap 110 definition section states that “company” means a company formed and registered under the Act or an existing company. The companies Act does not sufficiently define what a company is but authors have developed a definition of a company. Professor David Bakibinga in his book company law in Uganda at page 2 defines a company as an artificial legal entity separate and distinct from its members or shareholders. This legal person is distinguishable from natural personality.

Natural persons are born by natural people/persons and their lives end at death, artificial persons (corporations) are created by law and their existence is ended by the law. The possession of a legal personality implies that a company is capable of enjoying rights and being subject to duties, separately from its members. As an artificial legal person, a company is capable of the following;- * It has an existence separate from that of the members and as such;- * It has its own name by which it is recognised. It can own its own property ie assets like buildings, land, bank accounts. etc * It can sue or be sued in its own name. * Even if a member or all the members die, the company will still remain in existence, in other words it has perpetual succession. * It can borrow money in its own name and use its assets as security and it will be responsible for paying back such debts.. * It can employ its own employees, including its members or shareholders. i) This principle of legal personality was first distinctly articulated in the British House of Lords Judgment in the case of Salomon Vs.

Salmon & Company Limited (1897) AC 22 At the court of first instance and appeal court, it was held That therefore the company was a legal entity capable of a separate existence and liable to pay its own debts, and Salomon was not personally liable to pay the debts of the company. ii) That a company is at law a different person altogether from the subscribers although it may be that after incorporation, the business is exactly the same as was before, the same persons are the managers, and the same hands receive the profits.

TYPES OF COMPANIES. Under the Companies Act, provision is made for two major types of registered Companies, which can be lawfully formed in Uganda. Principally these can be further divided into 2 broad categories. 1. Private company. 2. Public company. PRIVATE COMPANIES The Companies Act defines a private company as * A Company, which by its articles restricts the rights to transfer shares of the company. * Secondly, it limits the number of its members to 50 including past and present employees of the company who are shareholders. Thirdly, a private company prohibits any invitations to the public to subscribe for any shares or debentures of the company (investments in the company). * Here the required minimum number of members is 2 people. This position was laid down in the case of LUTAYA Vs. GANDESHA (1987) HCB 49 in which a man and his wife formed a private company and of the 1500 shares of the company, the wife held only 2 shares. This position was also stated in the case of Salomon Vs. Salomon & Co (1897) AC 22.

The second person needed may not be an independent person. He could be the nominee of the first person. Where a private Company does not comply with these requirements, it loses exemptions and privileges conferred on a private company. This failure can only be remedied upon showing court that it was caused by accident or inadvertence or some other sufficient cause. Under the Companies Act, Companies in Uganda can also be further divided into: * Limited by shares * Limited by guarantee * Unlimited companies (a) A company limited by shares.

This is a company where the members enjoy limited liability. This means that in case of winding up of the company if the company's assets are unable to meet the company's debts, then the members will only be liable to contribute to the debts of the company only such amounts as a member may not have paid for the shares they bought. i,e. , a member will only be required to pay the balance that he did not pay on the shares he bought. Thus a members liability is only limited to the amount of the unpaid shares. a) A Company limited by guarantee This is one where the liability of its members is limited to such amount as the members may have undertaken to contribute to the company's assets in the event of its winding up. This guarantee must be expressed in the memorandum of association. i. e. there must be an express statement/undertaking by the subscribers / members that the members guarantee that they will pay a specified amount of money if in the event of winding up of the company, if the company's assets are not sufficient to meet its debts. b) An unlimited company This is a company in which there is no limit on the liability of the members. This means that in the event of winding up, the members are liable to contribute money sufficient to cover all the company’s debts without any limitations, if the company for example has debts of millions and millions of shillings, the members have to be responsible to pay all the debts and the members personal estate/property can be encroached upon to discharge the liabilities of the company. PUBLIC COMPANIES

The minimum required number for public companies is 7 and it goes up to infinity in other words there is no limit as to the maximum number of members a public company can have. A public company should be a limited liability company. Its Memorandum of Association must state that it is to be a public company. Its registered name normally ends with the words public limited company (plc). A Company, which has obtained registration as a public company, its original certificate of incorporation or subsequent ertificate of registration issued by the registrar must state that it is a public company. Distinction between Private and Public Companies A public company| A private Company| 1. Minimum of 7 members. For such company to do business there must be a minimum of at least 7 members. Where the company continues to do business when the number of members has fallen below the legal minimum, then this is a ground for the winding up of the company. (Winding up is the process of putting the company’s existence to an end. ) 2.

No maximum limit of members. 3. There must be a minimum of two directors 4. Cannot commence business until and unless it obtains a certificate of trading/certificate of commencement of business, in addition to a certificate of incorporation. 5. Must hold a statutory meeting between l & 3 months from the date of commencement of business. Directors are required under the law to send a statutory report to every member within 14 days to the date of the meeting. Such report must also be sent the registrar of companies. 1. Minimum of two members For such company to do business there must be a minimum of at least 2 members. Where the company continues to do business when the number of members has fallen below the legal minimum, then this is a ground for the- winding up of the company. 2. The maximum number of members is 50 3. Only one director can suffice 4. Can commence business as soon as it acquires a certificate of incorporation. 5. No statutory meeting is required of such companies. | HOLDING AND SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES.

A subsidiary company is one that is controlled by another company called a holding company or its parent (or the parent company). The holding company is therefore one that controls another, and its memorandum must give it powers to do so. The most common way that control of a subsidiary is achieved, is through the ownership of majority shares in the subsidiary by the parent Examples include holding companies such as MTN (Uganda) is a subsidiary of MTN (South Africa), Stanbic Bank Uganda is a subsidiary of Standard Bank (South Africa FORMATION/ REGISTRATION PROCESS.

A company is formed by registering it with the Registrar of Companies and obtaining a certificate of incorporation. The registration process goes through the following steps;- 1. RESERVATION OF THE COMPANY NAME. The promoters must choose a name of their choice and then make an application to the registrar of companies to reserve the name for their company.

The name should not be identical with that of an existing company or so nearly resemble it as to be calculated to deceive, it should not also Contains the words “chamber of commerce” except where the nature of the company’s business so justifies it and lastly it should not suggests patronage (a connection) from government or be associated with immorality, crime or scandalous in nature. If the registrar is satisfied that the name meets the above requirements, he will approve and reserve the name, the company must then register within 60 days.

Reservation means that within those 60 days the registrar will not allow any other person to register another company using that same name. To guard against the possibility of a negative reply from the Registrar, promoters must have in mind one or more suitable alternatives. Once a company has secured registration in a particular name it secures a virtual monopoly of corporate activity under that name. In case the Registrar inadvertently approves a name which by law is not adequate, then the new company may change its name within 6 months.

A company may change its name by special resolution and with the written approval of the Registrar. ‘Where the Registrar refuses to register a name without good reason, an application for an order of mandamus to compel the registrar to perform his duty and register the company can be filed in the High Court. 2. PRESENTATION OF THE REQUIRED DOCUMENTS BEFORE THE REGISTRAR FOR REGISTRATION. Within 60 days after the reservation of the name, the promoters will then present the following documents to the registrar to have their company registered. * Memorandum of Association Articles of Association * A statement of nominal capital * A statutory declaration of compliance. * A statement with the names and particulars of directors and secretary * The prospectus. * The Memorandum of Association of the company. The memorandum of association is the most important of all the company documents because it contains the powers of the company, it describes the company and the nature of activities that the company is authorized to do or engage in. * Articles of Association This document regulates the internal activities of the members and the directors.

It contains information on, management, who will be the directors of the company, who will be the managing director, secretary, appointment of the board of directors, qualifications of directors, the chairman of the board, meetings (how meetings of the company should be called and conducted), the classes and rights of shareholders, transfer of shares , borrowing powers of the company, its properties, control of the company finance, dividends/profits and how they should be distributed auditing of books, the company seal and how it should be used etc * Declaration of compliance

This is a statement declaring that all the necessary requirements of the Companies Act with regard to the formation of the company have been duly complied with and that the directors agree to continue complying with them. * A statement of nominal capital This is a statement which shows the capital with which the company is starting with. ie the initial capital of the company. * List of names and particulars of Directors and Company Secretary This document contains the details of the names, age, addresses, occupations of the directors and company secretary of the company.

It should also contain an undertaking by the directors to take and pay for the qualification shares if any that such persons may be required to acquire. * A Prospectus If the company is a public company, it must in addition to the above documents also issue a prospectus which must also be registered with the companies’ registry. It is a document setting forth the nature and objects of a company and inviting the public to subscribe for shares in the company.

It sets out the number of the founders/management, the share qualification of directors, names, description and addresses of directors, the shares offered to the public for subscription, property acquired by the company, the auditors, etc. The purpose of the prospectus is to provide the essential information about the position of a company when it is launched so that those interested in investing in it can properly assess the risk of investment. 3. PAYMENT OF STAMP DUTY AND REGISTRATION FEES.

The registrar will then assess how much duty is to be paid on registration of that company; it is sassed basing on the capital that the company is starting with, the more the capital the greater the stamp duty. Registration fees are also paid. 4. ISSUANCE OF A CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION. After all these requirements, a certificate of registration is issued if the Registrar is satisfied. THE MEMORANDUM & ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION OF A COMPANY. The memorandum of Association

The Memorandum of Association of a company, which is required to be registered for purposes of incorporation, is regarded as the company’s most important document in the sense that it determines the powers of the company. Consequently, a company may only engage in activities and exercise powers, which have been conferred upon it expressly by the memorandum or by implication there from. Contents of the Memorandum The Memorandum of Association of a company limited by shares must state the following:- 1.

The name of the company with “Limited” as the last word. 2. The registered office of the company is situated in Uganda. 3. The objects of the company. 4. A statement as to the liability of the members. 5. A statement to the nature of the company (Whether private or public). 6. The amount of share capital and division thereof into shares of a fixed amount. In addition, the memorandum must state the names, address and descriptions of the subscribers thereof who must be at least two for a private company and seven for a public company. 1. The name.

The name of the company should be indicated and if it is a limited company, it should have the word limited at the end eg Stanbic Bank Uganda Ltd. 2. Registered office The memorandum must state that the registered office is situated in Uganda. However, the actual address must be communicated to the Registrar of Companies within 14 days of the date of incorporation or from the date it commences business by registration of a company form called Notice of situation of registered office of the company, this form will indicate the exact location of the company eg plot 8 industrial area Kampala. . The objects clause This sets out the principle activities the company has been incorporated to pursue. For example; trading in general merchandise, carrying on business of wholesalers and retail traders of all airtime cards, mobile phones and all phone accessories, carrying on the business of mobile money agents etc. The objects must be lawful and should include all the activities which the company is likely to pursue.

The objects or powers of the company as laid down in the memorandum or implied there from determine what the company can do. Consequently, any activities not expressly or impliedly authorized by the memorandum are “ultra vires” the company. The ultra vires doctrine restricts an incorporated company under the Companies Act to the purse only the objects outlined in its registered Memorandum of Association. The doctrine of ultra vires is illustrated in the case of ASHBURY RAILWAY CARRIAGE CO. LTD VS. RICH (1875).

A company which was not authorized by its memorandum of association to lend money or finance any activity made an agreement with the defendant to provide him with finance for the construction of a railway in Beligium, later on the company repudiated this agreement and did not actually provide the finances, the defendant sued the company for breach of contract, the company in its defense argued that financing railway construction was not one of the activities it was authorized to do, it was held that indeed such an act was beyond the powers of the company and such an ultra vires contract was void and un enforceable.

To evade this restrictive interpretation of the objects clause, draftsmen inserted words as “and to do all such other acts and things as the company deems incidental or conducive to the attainment of these objects or any of them. In BELL HOUSES LTD -VS-CITY WALL PROPERTIES LTD (1966) 2 QB 656, a company was formed to carry on the business of General Civil Engineering contracts and in particular to build houses. It had power to carry on any other trade and to do any other things that incidental to the above company’s objects.

The Court held that the company could lawfully contract for a fee to procure loans to other concerns, from or business whatsoever which it can in the opinion of the board of directors be advantageously carried out sources of finance which it had resorted to in the past. It further held that cementing good relations with the financiers would be valuable when the company needed finances for its activities. The Memorandum of Association spells out the main objectives and powers of the company. However, certain powers may be implied in the Memorandum of Association.

For example, in the case of FERGUSON V WILSON (1866) 2CH. A 277, a power to appoint agents and engage employees was implied in the Memorandum of Association. This is only sensible because a company as a fictitious person can only work through agents and employees; and therefore if such a power was not implied, then the company could not function at all. Similarly in GENERAL AUCTION ESTATES & MONETARY CO. V. SMITH (1891) 3CH 432, the court implied powers of borrowing money and giving security for loans. Subsequent cases have also adopted this position.

In NEWSTEAD (INSPECTION OF TAXES) V FROST (1978)1 WLR 441 AT PAGE 449, the court implied powers of entering into partnership or joint venture agreements for carrying the on the kind of business it may itself carry on i. e. intra vires. In PRESUMPTION PRICES PATENT CANDLE CO (1976), the court implied a power of paying gratuities to employees. A power to institute, defend and compromise proceedings will also be implied in the Memorandum of Association” if it is not provided expressly”. Courts at times imply powers because the particular nature of the company’s undertaking demands it.

In EVANS, (1921) I CII. 359. The court observed that a company formed to manufacture chemicals had powers to make grants to Universities and other scientific institutions to facilitate scientific research and training scientists although it may not obtain any immediate financial benefit from the venture. Therefore before the court implies powers it seems: * There must be some reasonable connection between the company’s objects and the power it seeks to exercise. It is not sufficient for it to merely show that it will benefit in some way by exercising that power. It is important to show that the company will in fact benefit in some way even though remote in the exercise of the power (see Evans, (above). However, though the Court may imply these powers in the Memorandum of Association, its better practice to expressly state them. This is only sensible because:- * The company often needs powers which the courts have not ruled that they can be implied and therefore the company can only obtain them by express provisions in the Memorandum of Association, (e. g. the power to buy a share from another company though recognized under the Act has not yet been implied). To avoid uncertainties or expenses of litigation, it is safer to insert them expressly in the memorandum of association. 4. The liability of members The memorandum of a company limited by shares or by guarantee should indicate that the liability of members is limited. With respect to a company limited shares, the liability of a member is the amount, if any, unpaid on his shares. With regard to the liability of a member of a company limited by guarantee, this is limited to the amount he undertook to contribute to the assets of the company in the event of winding up.

A company may also be registered with unlimited liability. In such a situation, the members liability is unlimited and in cases the company does not have sufficient credit to pay its creditors, then the shareholders personal property may be encroached on to pay the company’s debts.. 5. Share capital (clause) The memorandum requires that a company having a share capital must state the amount of share capital with which the company is to be registered and that such capital is divisible into shares of a fixed amount.

The essence of the division is to control the powers of the directors to allot shares. The law does not prescribe the value but they are usually small amounts to encourage people to hold as many shares as possible. The amount of capital with which a company is to be registered and the amount into which it is to be divided are matters to be decided upon by the promoters and will be determined by the needs of the company and finance available. For example if a company has its initial share capital/ startup capital of 5,000,000 it can divide this into 100 shares of 50,000 each.

So of s member subscribes for 50 shares, he will contribute 2,500,000/= . ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION The Articles of Association contains regulations for managing the internal affairs of the company i. e. the business of the company. They are applied and interpreted subject to the memorandum of association in that they cannot confer wider powers on the company than those stipulated in the memorandum. Thus, where there is a conflict or divergence between the memorandum and articles, the provisions of the memorandum must prevail. anagement, who will be the directors of the company, who will be, appointment of the board of directors, qualifications of directors, the, the classes and rights of shareholders, transfer of shares , , auditing of books, Contents of the Articles * The board of directors (management) and how they will be appointed, their qualifications, how they can resign or be removed from office. * The chairman of the board. * The managing director and how he will be appointed. * Secretary and his appointment. eetings (how meetings of the company should be called and conducted and the required quorum/ number of members that must be present to conduct a valid meeting of the company) and the different types of meeting that the company may hold from time to time voting rights of the members, the right to receive notice and to attend and vote etc. * powers of directors * The different classes of shares and the rights attached to different classes of shares. * Borrowing powers of the company. its properties, control of the company finance, its bankers, dividends/profits and how they should be distributed * appointment of auditors * the company seal and how it should be used etc The Articles must be printed in the English language, divided into paragraphs, numbered consecutively, signed by each subscriber to the memorandum in the presence of at least one witness who must attest the signature. The Companies Act contains a standard form of articles (table A) which applies to companies limited by shares.

These regulate the company unless it has its own special articles which totally or partially exclude table A. The advantages of statutory model articles are: * That legal drafting of special articles is reduced to a minimum since even special articles usually incorporate much of the text of the model. * There is flexibility since any company can adopt the model selectively or with modifications and include in its articles special articles adapted to its needs. INTERPRETATION OF ARTICLES AND MEMORANDUM OF ASSOCIATION

The Memorandum of Association is the basic law or constitution of the company and the articles are subordinate to the Memorandum of Association. It follows therefore that if there is a conflict, the Memorandum of Association prevails. In other words if there is a contradiction between the provisions of the memorandum and the provisions of the articles of association, then the provisions of the memorandum will be followed and those provisions in the articles which are contradicting the memorandum will be void and of no effect.

If there is no conflict, the Memorandum of Association and articles must be read together and any ambiguity or uncertainty in either can be removed by the other CONSEQUENCES OF INCORPORATION The fundamental attribute of corporate personality from which all other consequences flow is that “the corporation is a legal entity distinct from its members”. Hence it’s capable of enjoying rights and being subject to duties which are not the same as those enjoyed or borne by its members. In other words it has a legal personality and it is often described as an artificial person in contrast with a human being-a natural person. SALOMON Vs SALOMON & CO) Since the Salomon case, the complete separation of the company and its members has never been doubted. It is from this fundamental attribute of separate personality that most of the particular advantages of incorporation spring and these are: 1. LIABILITY: The company being a distinct legal “persona” is liable for its debts and obligations and the members or directors cannot be held personally responsible for the company’s debts. It follows that the company’s creditors can only sue the company and not the shareholders.

In in the case of Salomon V Salomon (1897), creditors of the company sought to have Solomon a managing director of the company personally liable for the debts of the company but court held that the company and Solomon were two different persons and that the company as a legal person is liable for its own debts and Solomon a managing director could not be held personally responsible for the debts of the company. In the Ugandan case of Sentamu v UCB (1983) HCB 59, it was held that individual members of the company are not liable for the company’s debts.

The liability of the members or shareholders of the company is limited to the amount remaining unpaid on the shares. For instance, where a shareholder has been allotted 50 shares at Shs. 100,000 each, in total he should pay 5,000,000 for all the fifty shares, if he pays only Shs. 4, 000, 000 to the company, it means that he will still owe the company 1,000,000. This is what is called uncalled capital. The company may call on him to pay it any time. If that does not happen, then at the time of winding up the company, he will be required to pay the Shs. 1, 000, 000.

In the case of a company limited by guarantee, each member is liable to contribute a specific amount to the assets of the company and their liability is limited to the amount they have guaranteed to contribute. If the company has unlimited liability, the members liability to contribute is unlimited and their personal property can be looked at to discharge the company creditors but that is only after utilizing the company’s money and it is not enough to pay all the debts. 2. PROPERTY: An incorporated company is able to own property separately from its members.

Thus, the members cannot claim an interest or interfere with the company property for their personal gain/benefit. Thus, one of the advantages of incorporation (corporate personality) is that it enables the property of the company to be clearly, distinguished from that of the members. In the case of MACAURA Vs NORTH ASSURANCE CO. (1925) AC (see page 3 for facts). In that case Lord Buckmaster of the House in Lords held that no shareholder has a right to any item of the property of the company, even if he holds all the shares in the company.

In the case of Hindu Dispensary Zanzibar v N. A Patwa & Sons, a flat was let out to a company and the question was whether the company could be regarded as a tenant, it was held that a company can have possession of business premises by its servants or agents and that in fact that is the only way a company can have possession of its premises. 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS: As a legal person, a company can take action to enforce its legal rights or be sued for breach of its duties in the courts of law.

If it the company being sued, then it should be sued in its registered name, if a wrong or incorrect name is used, the case will be dismissed from court for example in the case of Denis Njemanze V Shell B. P Port Harcourt, the plaintiff sued a company called Shell B. P Port Harcourt which was a non existing company, counsel for the defendant company objected that there was no such company and the suit should be dismissed, counsel for the plaintiff sought courts leave to amend and put the right part but court refused to grant the leave and dismissed the case.

In the case of Wani V Uganda Timber, 1972 HCB the plaintiff applied for a warrant of arrest against a managing director of a company instead of suing the company, chief justice Kiwanoka held that a managing director of a company is not the company and cannot be sued personally, that if there is a case against the company then the company is the right party to be sued not its managing director. 5. PERPETUAL SUCCESSION: s. 15 of the companies Act provides that a company is a legal entity with perpetual sucession.

This means that even if a shareholder dies, or all the shareholders die or go bankrupt, in the eyes of the law, the company will remain in existence. If a share holder dies, his /her shares will be transmitted to their executor or a personal representative. Also in case a shareholder no longer wants to be a shareholder in a company, he will simply transfer his shares to someone else and to company will continue to exist. The only way a company can come to an end is by winding up, striking it off the register of companies or through amalgamation and reconstruction as provided by the Companies Act.

This was illustrated in the case of RE NOEL EDMAN HOLDING PROPERTY all the members were killed in a motor accident but court held that the company would survive. Thus, this perpetual succession gives the certainty required in the commercial world even when ownership of shares changes there is no effect on the performance of the company and no disruption in the company business. 5. TRANSFER OF SHARES: A share constitutes an item of property, which is freely transferable, except in the case of private companies.

When shares are transferred, the person who transfers ceases to be a shareholder and the person to whom they are transferred becomes the shareholder. In private companies, there is a restriction on the transfer of shares for example one may not transfer his shares except to an existing member or shareholder, and not to an outsider. This is essential and is in any event desirable if such a company is to retain its character of an incorporated private company. 6. BORROWING:

A company can borrow money and provide security in the form of a floating charge. A floating charge is a security created over the assets of the company. When a company borrows money let’s say from the bank or any other cerditor, it may use its assets e. g. cars, bank accounts and other assets as security, the security/ charge will then float over those assets, in case the company defaults on payment, the charge can settle on one or all of those assets and the bank/creditor of the company can sell those assets to recover their money.

It is called a floating charge because it floats like a cloud over the whole assets of the company from time to time, it only settles/crystallizes if the company defaults on payment. So before the charge settles on the assets, the company is free to deal with those assets even to dispose them off in the usual course of business. 6. CAPACITY TO CONTRACT. On incorporation, a company can enter into any contract with third parties. In the case of Lee V Lee & Air Farming Co. Ltd (1961) A. C 12, it was held that a company was it is incorporated it has capacity to employ servants, even the shareholders.

THE ULTRA VIRES DOCTRINE. a) Meaning of ultra vires. The object clause of the memorandum of association of a company contains the object for which the company is formed. An act of a company must not be beyond the object clause otherwise it will be ultra vires. The expression ultra vires means beyond powers, therefore an act or transaction that is beyond the powers of the company as stated in the objects clause of the memorandum is an ultra vires act or transaction, such an act that is ultra vires is void and cannot be ratified by the company.

Sometimes the term ultra vires is also used to describe a situation where the directors of a company have exceeded the powers delegated to them, where a company exceeds the powers conferred upon it by its memorandum of association, it is not bound by it because it lacks the capacity to incur responsibility for that action, but when the directors of a company exceed the powers delegated to them, the company in a general meeting may choose to ratify their act or omission. b) Distinction from illegality.

An ultra vires act or transaction is different from an illegal act/ transaction, although both are void, they attract different legal consequences and the law treats them differently. An act of a company which is beyond its object clause is ultra vires and therefore void even if it is legal. Similarly an illegal act done by a company will be void even if it falls squarely within the objects of the company. c) Importance of the doctrine. The doctrine of ultra vires was developed to protect the investors and creditors of the company.

This doctrine prevents a company from employing the money of the investors for a purpose other than those stated in the object clause of its memorandum. Thus the investors of the company are assured that their money will not be employed for activities which they did not have in contemplation at the time they invested their money into the company. This doctrine also protects the creditors of the company by ensuring that the funds of the company to which they must look to for payment are not dissipated in unauthorized activities. ) Establishment of the doctrine. The doctrine was established firmly in 1875 by the House of Lords in the case of ASHBURY RAILWAY CARRIAGE CO. LTD VS. RICHE (1875). A company which was not authorized by its memorandum of association to lend money or finance any activity made an agreement with the defendant to provide him with finance for the construction of a railway in Beligium, the directors made this ultra vires contract on behalf the company but subsequently the company ratified this contract in a meeting. ater on the company repudiated this agreement and did not actually provide the finances, the defendant sued the company for breach of contract, the company in its defense argued that financing railway construction was not one of the activities it was authorized to do. It was held that indeed such an act was beyond the powers of the company and such an ultra vires contract was void and could not be enforced against the company.

Court also held that an ultra vires contract cannot even be ratified by the company and that the subsequent act of the company purporting to ratify this contract in a meeting was void, court emphasized that an ultra vires contract is void and cannot even be ratified by a unanimous decision of all the members of a company. In that case, the HOL expressed the view that a company incorporated under the Companies Act had power to do only those things which are authorized by its object clause and nything outside that is ultra vires and cannot be ratified by the company. Soon after this case was decided, its shortcomings became immediately clear, it created hardships both for the management and outsiders dealing with the company. The activities of the management of the company were subjected to strict restrictions, at every step of transacting the business of the company; management was required to ascertain whether the acts which were sought to be done were covered by the object clause of its memorandum of association.

The business men thought this unduly restricted the frequency and ease of business, if the act was not covered by the memorandum, it would mean having to alter the object clause to add that activity and alteration of the memorandum required a lengthy procedure. Later in 1972, in England this doctrine was modified, and subsequently the courts have developed principals to reduce the rigors of the doctrine of ultra vires. They include the following. 1. Powers implied by statute.

According to this principal, a company has powers to do an act or exercise a power which has been conferred on it by the companies Act or any other Act of Parliament even if such act is not covered by the object clause in the memorandum of association. 2. The principal of implied and incidental powers. This principal was established in the case of ATTORNEY GENERAL V GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY CO (1880) 5 AC 473, in this case the HOL affirmed the principal laid down in the earlier case of ASHBURY RAILWAY CARRIAGE CO. LTD VS.

RICHE (1875) but made a slight departure and held that the doctrine of ultra vires ought to be reasonably and not unreasonably understood and applied. Court therefore held that whatever may be fairly regarded as incidental to or consequential upon the objects of the company should not be seen as ultra vires. That case therefore led to a clear conclusion that that a company incorporated under the companies act has power to carry out the objects set out in its memorandum and also everything that is reasonably necessary to enable it carry out those objects. ) Ascertainment of the ultravires doctrine. An act is therefore intra vires (within the powers) the company if; * It is stated in the object clause of the memorandum of association of that company. * It is authorized by the Companies Act or by any other Act of parliament. * If it is incidental to the main objects of the company or reasonably necessary to enable it carry out those objects. In the case of ATTORNEY GENERAL V. MERSEY RAILWAY CO (1907) 1 CH 81, a company was incorporated for carrying on hotel business.

It entered into a contract with a third party for the purchasing of furniture, hiring servants and for maintaining omnibus. The purpose or object of the company was only to carry on a hotel business and it was not expressly mentioned in the objects clause in the memorandum of the company that they could purchase furniture or hire servants. The contract was challenged on the ground that this act of the directors was ultra vires. The issue before court was whether the transaction was ultra vires.

Court held that a company incorporated for carrying on a hotel business can purchase furniture or hire servants and maintain an omnibus to attend at the railway station to take or receive the intending guests to the hotel because these objects are reasonably necessary to effectuate the purpose for which the company has been incorporated, and consequently such acts are within the powers of the company, although these may not be expressly mentioned in the objects clause of the memorandum of association of that company.

However not every act that is beneficial to the company is intra vires , it is not enough that the act is beneficial to the company , the act must be reasonably necessary for the company to carry out the activities mentioned in the memorandum. f) Effect of ultra vires transactions. * Ultra vires contracts. These are void and cannot be enforced by or against the company.

In the Case of RE JON BEAUFORE (LONDON) LTD (1953) CH 131, it was held that ultra vires contracts made with the company cannot be enforced against a company. Court also held that the memorandum of association is constructive notice to the public and therefore if an act is ultra vires, it will be void and will not be binding on the company and the outsider dealing with the company cannot take a plea that he had no knowledge of the contents of the memorandum because he is deemed to know them.

In England, the European Communities Act 1972 has lessened the effect of application of the Ultra vires doctrine in this manner. In England, third parties dealing with the company in good faith are protected and can enforce an ultra vires contract against the company if the third party acted in good faith and the ultra vires contract has been decided by the directors of the company.

However in Uganda, the ultra vires doctrine has not been modified by statute or case law and there is therefore no legal provision where third parties dealing with the company in good faith are protected and can enforce an ultra vires contract against the company if the third party acted in good faith Thus in Uganda the doctrine of ultra vires is applied strictly with the effect that where the contract entered into by the third party is found to be ultra vires the company, it will be held void and cannot be ratified by the company and the company cannot enforce it against the third party and neither can a third party enforce it against the company. * Ultra vires borrowing. In Uganda a borrowing that is ultra vires is void and cannot be ratified by the company and the lender is not entitled to sue the company for the return of the loan. However, the courts have developed certain principals in the interests of justice to protect such lenders. The reliefs include; * Injunction.

If the money lent to the company has not been spent, the lender can apply to court for an injunction to prevent the company from spending the money. * Tracing. The lender can recover his money as long as it can still be found in the hands of the company in its original form. * Property acquired under ultra vires transactions. Where the funds of the company are applied in purchasing some property, the company’s right over that property will be protected even though the expenditure on such purchasing has been ultra vires. * Judgments from ultra vires transactions. Because the law considers ultra vires acts void by their very nature, the company and third parties cannot even with consent attempt to validate an ultra vires act.

In RE JON BEAUFORE (LONDON) supra, builders of a factory for purposes which were apparently ultra vires demanded for their money and by consent it was ordered that the company should pay, on winding up, the liquidator refused to pay that debt that was arising out of an ultra vires transaction, the court held that the liquidator was well entitled to reject the claim as a company cannot do what is beyond its legal powers by simply going into court and consenting. LIABILITY OF DIRECTORS ON ULTRA VIRES TRANSACTIONS . 1. Liability towards the company. It is the duty of the directors to ensure that the funds of the company are used only for legitimate purposes of the company. Consequently if the funds of the company are used for a purpose foreign to its memorandum, the directors may be held personally liable to restore to the company the funds used for such purpose. Thus a share holder can sue the directors to restore to the company funds which they employed in transactions which the company is not authorized to engage in. 2.

Liability towards third parties. The directors of a company are treated as agents of the company and therefore have a duty not to go beyond the powers that the company gives them. Where the director represents to a third party that the contract entered into by them on behalf of the company is within the powers of the company while in reality the company does not have such powers under its memorandum, the directors may be held personally liable to the third party for the loss on account of breach of warranty of authority. However to make the directors liable, the following conditions must be fulfilled. i) There must be a representation of authority by the directors.

It should be a representation of fact not law. ii) By such representation, the directors must have induced the third party to make a contract with the company in respect of a matter beyond the powers of the company. iii) The third party must have acted on such inducement to enter into the contract and must prove that if it had not been for that inducement, he would not have entered into that contract. iv) That as a result, the third party suffered loss. EXCEPTIONS TO THE ULTRA VIRES DOCTRINE. 1. Property acquired /investments made by the company using money from ultra vires transactions. 2. Activities which are not expressed by the memorandum but are implied by law. 3.

Activities which are not expressed by the memorandum but are incidental or related to or reasonably necessary for the company to carry out its express objects. 4. Ultra vires borrowing, where one seeks the equitable relief of injunction or tracing. LIFTING THE VEIL OF INCORPORATION A company once incorporated becomes a legal personality separate and distinct from its members and shareholders and capable of having its own rights, duties and obligation and can sue or be sued in its own name. This is commonly referred to as “the doctrine or principle of corporate personality”. No case illustrated the above principles better than the noted House of Lords decision in Salomon v. Salomon.

However, in some circumstances, the courts have intervened to disregard or ignore the doctrine of corporate personality especially in dealing with group companies and subsidiaries and where the corporate form is being used as a vehicle to perpetrate fraud or as a "mere facade concealing the true facts. " Upholding the abiove principal in such cases would result into and perpetuate injustice. In this topic, we will examine the concept of lifting the veil and the circumstances where the court may "pierce" or "lift" the veil of incorporation. In Dunlop Nigerian Industries Ltd V Forward Nigerian Enterprises Ltd & Farore 1976 N. CL. R 243, the HC of Lagos stated that in particular circumstances, e. where the device of incorporation is used for some illegal or improper purpose, the court may disregard the principle that a company is an independent legal entity and lift the veil of corporate identity so that if it is proved that a person used a company he controls as a cloak for an improper transaction, he may be made personally liable to a third party. The legal technique of lifting the veil is recognized under 2 heads: 1. Statutory lifting of the veil 2. Case law lifting of the veil Statutory lifting of the veil 1. Where the number of members is below legal minimum. Under S. 33 of the Companies Act if a company carries on business for more than 6 months after its membership has fallen below the statutory minimum, (2 for private companies and 7 for public companies), every member during he time the business is carried on after the 6 months and who knows that the company is carrying on business with less than the required minimum membership is individually liable for the company’s debts incurred during that time. In such a case therefore the corporate veil is lifted in order to hold those members personally liable for the company’s debts incurred during that time. 2. Where the- company is not mentioned in the Bill of Exchange. S. 34 of the Companies Act provides that a bill of exchange shall be deemed to have been signed on behalf of a company if made in the name of the company, by or on behalf of the company or on account of the company by any person acting under the company’s authority. S. 09 (4) (b) prohibits any officer of the company from signing or authorizing to be signed a bill of exchange on behalf of the company in which the company’s name is not mentioned in legible characters/ clear letters. Any officer who does this is personally liable on that bill of exchange for the money or goods for that amount unless it is duly paid by the company. Therefore in such case the corporate veil is lifted in order to hold that officer of the company personally liable. 3. Holding and subsidiary companies. Where companies are in a relationship of holding and subsidiary companies, group accounts are usually presented by the holding company in a general meeting.

In this regard, the holding and subsidiary companies are regarded as one for accounting purposes and the separate nature of the subsidiary company is ignored. S. 147 of the Companies Act requires each company to keep proper books of accounts with respect to * Money received by the company and from what source. * Money spent and what it was spent on. * All sales and purchases of goods made by the company. * The assets and liabilities of the company. These accounts are meant to give a true and fair view of the state of the company’s affairs and to explain its transactions. Directors of the company are required at least once a year to lay before the company in a general meeting a profit and loss account (or income & expenditure account for non profit making companies) plus a balance sheet.

Where at the end of each year a company has subsidiaries, then as that parent company presents its accounts, it should also present a group account dealing with the affairs of that parent company and its subsidiaries, the group account consists of a consolidated balance sheet and a consolidated profit and loss account of both the subsidiary and the parent company. 4. Reckless and Fraudulent Trading: Under sect 327, it is provided that if in the course of winding up, it appears that any business has been conducted recklessly or fraudulently, those responsible for such business may be held liable without limitation of liability for any of the company’s debts or liabilities. 5. Taxation

Under the income tax Act, the veil of incorporation may be lifted to ascertain where the control and management of the company is exercised in order to determine whether it is a Ugandan company for income tax purposes. 6. Investigation into related companies Where an inspector has been appointed by the Registrar to investigate the affairs of a company, he may if he thinks it fit also investigate into the affairs of any other related company and also report on the affairs of that other company so long as he feels that the results of his investigation of such related company are relevant to the main investigation. Lifting the Veil under case law . Where the company acts as agent of the share holders. Where the shareholders of the company use the company as an agent, they will be liable for the debts of the company. Agency is a relationship which exists whenever one person authorizes another to act on his or her behalf. The person acting is called the agent, and the one he is acting for is called the principal. Where such a relationship exists, the acts of the agent are taken to be the acts of the principal. Therefore in an agency relationship, the acts of the agent are taken to be the acts of the principal. In case of liability it is the principal who is held liable and not the agent.

This is because of the dictum that he who acts through another acts for himself. Thus where share holders employ or use the company as an agent, then those shareholders will be personally liable for the acts of the company as principals behind the agent. 2. Where there has been fraud or improper conduct. The veil of incorporation may also be lifted where the corporate personality is used as a mask for fraud or illegality. In Gilford Motor Co V. Horne [1933] Ch. 935 Home was the former employee of Gilford Motor Co. He agreed not to solicit its customers when he left employment. He then formed a company which solicited the customers. Both the company and Home were held liable for breach of the covenant not to solicit.

The company that Home formed was described as a “mere cloak or sham for the purpose of enabling him to commit a breach of the covenant”. In Jones V Lipman [1962]1 W. L. R 832 Lipman in order to avoid the completion of a sale of his house to Jones formed a company and transferred the house to the company. Court ordered him and the company to complete payment, even though the ownership of the house was no longer in his names but in that of the formed company. The company was described as a creature of Lipman, a device and a sham, a mask which he held before his face in an attempt to avoid recognition by the eyes of equity. In Re Williams Bros Ltd. (1932) 2ch. 1, a company was insolvent but the Directors continued to carry on its business and purchased its goods on credit. It was held that if a company continues to carry out business and to incur debts at a time when there is to the knowledge of the directors no reasonable prospects of the creditors ever receiving payments of these debts, it is in general a proper inference that the company is carrying on business with intent to defraud. R V Graham (1984) QB. 675 makes it clear that a person is guilty of fraudulent trading if he has no reason to believe that the company will be able to pay is creditors in full by the dates when the respective debts become due or within a short time thereafter. 3. Public interest/policy

Sometimes, courts have disregarded the separate legal personality of the company and investigated the personal qualities of its shareholders or the persons in control because there was an overriding public interest to be served by doing so. In Daimler Co Ltd Vs Continental Tyre And Rubber Co (1916) A. C 307, a Company incorporated in England whose shares except one were held by German nationals resident in Germany brought an action during the First World War. All its directors were also German nationals resident in Germany, which was an enemy country at the time. The Court disregarded the fact that the company had a British nationality by incorporation in England and rather concentrated on the control of the company’s business and where its assets lay, in determining the company’s status. 4. In determining residence of a company for tax purposes.

The court may look behind the veil of the company and its place of registration so as to determine its residence. The test for determining residence is normally the place of its central management and control. Usually, this is the place where the board of directors operate. But it can also be the place of business of the M. D where he holds a controlling interest. MANAGEMENT OF A COMPANY The control and management of a company is distributed among its principal officers and these include the auditors, accountants, Board of Directors, Managing director (if any) and any other officers of a company. There are basically two organs responsible for the management of a company. These are: - 1. The Shareholders through company meetings and 2.

The Board of Directors. The shareholders and Company Meetings The shareholders have an opportunity of influencing the company's management through the company's meetings. There are 4 types of meetings through which the shareholders can participate in the affairs of a company. 1. Statutory Meetings: These are provided for under S130 of the Companies Act which requires every public ltd company to hold such type of meeting within 30 days from the date of commencement of business. The meeting is held once in the company's life and never again. The meeting is a must hold for all public companies, private companies are not required to hold this meeting. 2.

Annual General Meeting (S. 131). Unlike the Statutory Meeting, an AGM is required of all types of companies. It must be convened by notice of not less than 21 days. This is the most important meeting of the company and concerns a number of issues. Although the companies Act does not exactly indicate the nature of the business transacted at such a meeting, the business invariably includes appointment of auditors, fixing their remuneration, declaration of dividends, consideration of the company’s profit and loss accounts and the balance sheet, consideration of the reports of the directors, auditors and election of new directors or auditors if need arises.

The purpose of the annual general meeting is important for the protection of the members because it is the one occasion when they can be sure of having an opportunity of meeting the directors and questioning them on the profit and loss accounts, on their report and on the company’s position and prospects. It is at this meeting that normally a proposition of the directors will retire, come up for re-election:- and it is at this meeting that the members can exercise their only real power over the board i. e. the power of dismissal by voting them out. Most of these things could of course be done at the extraordinary meeting but the members who want to raise these matters may not be able to insist upon the convening of such meeting, the annual general meeting is valuable to them because the directors must hold it whether they like it or not.

If the company fails to convene such a meeting, there are two consequences that occur:- i. The registrar may himself convene that meeting or order that the meeting be convened and in extreme cases he may further order that any one shareholder present in person or by proxy be deemed to constitute the meeting. ii. Every director who is in default of convening that meeting as well as the company itself are liable to a default fine not exceeding shs 200/= and every officer of the company who is in default is liable to a default fine of shs. 40/= (1981) HCB 60). Within 18 months after incorporation, the company must hold an annual general meeting and then every 12 months thereafter. 3. Extra-Ordinary General Meeting (S 132):

This is usually convened by the directors at their discretion ( art 49 table A) to deal with urgent matters which cannot wait till the next annual general meeting. However the directors must hold such meeting irrespective of any contrary provision in the articles if holders of at least 10% of the company’s paid up capital or 10% of the members carrying voting rights ask/ requisition for it. They must state the reason why they want such a meeting. If the directors do not convene the meeting within 21 days of the requisition, then the requisitionists may themselves convene the meeting and recover expenses from the company which may in turn recover the same from the defaulting directors. 4. General meeting convened under court orders (S. 135).

It provides that if for any reason it is impracticable to call a meeting of the company in any manner in which meetings of the company may be called, the court may on application of any director or member of the company who would be entitled to attend and vote at the meeting order a meeting of the company to be called, held and conducted in any manner that the court thinks fit, and court may for that matter direct that only one person present at the meeting shall constitute quorum. PROCEDURE, ATTENDANCE AND QUORUM (17. 3. 05) 1. NOTICE OF MEETINGS. s. 133 provides that any meeting of a company must be called by a notice of a period not shorter than 21 days and any provision in that articles providing for a shorter notice is void and of no effect. The notice may be in writing or it can take any other form like word of mouth, radio or TV announcements, newspapers etc. it must state the exact date time and place where the meeting will take place and what is intended to be discussed at that meeting, if the notice does not indicate the above then it is not a proper notice and if any shareholder is absent from the meeting because his notice had not fully disclosed the agenda, he can seek a court order to declare such a meeting null and void.. However a meeting may be called by a shorter notice than 21 days if all the members entitled to attend and vote at the meeting agree to such a shorter notice. 2. QUORUM. This relates to the minimum number of members that must be present at a meeting of the company for it to be a valid meeting. The company’s articles will normally provide for the required quorum but where they are silent on this, s. 134 (c) of the Act provides for the requisite quorum as 2 members present in case of a private company and in any other case three members personally present.

Quorum need not be maintained throughout the meeting though at the beginning it must be there. 3. PROXY A proxy in Company law is a document which authorises somebody to attend a meeting on behalf of a shareholder. S. 136 provides that any member of a company entitled to attend and vote at a meeting of the company is entitled to appoint another person to attend and vote instead of him of her and any notice calling for a meeting should indicate that that person is entitled to attend by proxy. 4. VOTING. S. 134 provides that every member shall have one vote in respect of each share he has and in case of a company having a share capital and in other cases every member shall have 1 vote.

Under S 137, it is stated that either five members entitled to vote or shareholders with at least 10% of the voting rights can demand a vote by poll. OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF THE COMPANY 1. Board of Directors There is no definition of a director whether in the Act or by case law. Nevertheless, S2 of the Act states that a director includes any person occupying the position of a director by whatever name called. In most private companies directors are usually share holders and in public companies , there is a requirement that directors must take up qualification shares, which is not the case in private companies unless the articles provide for it. According to S 177, a public company must have at least 2 directors. It’s an offence to have one director.

Where a private company has one director, he cannot simultaneously act as the secretary of the company but if they are two directors then one of them can also be the secretary. Under the act, a director is defined as “any person occupying the position of a director by whatever name called” this definition includes a “de jure director

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History of Apple: The story of Steve Jobs and the company he founded

In this feature we tell the story of Apple. We start with the early days, the tale of how Apple was founded, moving on through the Apple I, to the Apple II, the launch of the Macintosh and the revolution in the DTP industry… To the tech-industry behemoth that we know and love today.

So sit back as we take a stroll down memory lane. Why not brush up on what really happened before you go and watch the Steve Jobs movie , with its interesting interpretations of several important events in the company’s history?

On 1 April 1976 Apple was founded, making the company 41 years old as of the 1 April 2017 – here’s a historical breakdown of the company.

The history of Apple

Our Apple history feature includes information about The foundation of Apple and the years that followed, we look at How Jobs met Woz and Why Apple was named Apple. The Apple I and The debut of the Apple II. Apple’s visit to Xerox, and the one-button mouse. The story of The Lisa versus the Macintosh. Apple’s ‘1984’ advert, directed by Ridley Scott. The Macintosh and the DTP revolution. Read more: The Mac’s Birthday .

We go on to examine what happened between Jobs and Sculley, leading to Jobs departure from Apple, and what happened during The wilderness years: when Steve Jobs wasn’t at Apple, including Apple’s decline and IBM and Microsoft’s rise and how Apple teamed up with IBM and Motorola and eventually Microsoft. And finally, The return of Jobs to Apple.

The foundation of Apple

The history of everyone’s favourite start-up is a tech fairytale of one garage, three friends and very humble beginnings. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves…

The two Steves –  Jobs and Wozniak  – may have been Apple’s most visible founders, but were it not for their friend Ronald Wayne there might be no iPhone , iPad or iMac today. Jobs convinced him to take 10% of the company stock and act as an arbiter should he and Woz come to blows, but Wayne backed out 12 days later, selling for just $500 a holding that would have been worth $72bn 40 years later.

How Jobs met Woz

Jobs and Woz (that’s Steve Wozniak) were introduced in 1971 by a mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, who went on to become one of Apple’s earliest employees. The two Steves got along thanks to their shared love of technology and pranks.

Jobs and Wozniak joined forces, initially coming up with pranks such as rigging up a painting of a hand showing the middle-finger to be displayed during a graduaction ceremony at Jobs’ school, and a call to the Vatican that nearly got them access to the Pope.

The two friends were also using their technology know-how to build ‘blue boxes’ that made it possible to make long distance phone calls for free.

Jobs and Wozniak worked together on the Atari arcade game Breakout while Jobs was working at Atari and Wozniak was working at HP – Jobs had roped Woz into helping him reduce the number of logic chips required. Jobs managed to get a good bonus for the work on Breakout, of which he gave a small amount to Woz.

The first Apple computer

The two Steves attended the Homebrew Computer Club together; a computer hobbyist group that gathered in California’s Menlo Park from 1975. Woz had seen his first MITS Altair there – which today looks like little more than a box of lights and circuit boards – and was inspired by MITS’ build-it-yourself approach (the Altair came as a kit) to make something simpler for the rest of us. This philosophy continues to shine through in Apple’s products today.

So Woz produced the the first computer with a typewriter-like keyboard and the ability to connect to a regular TV as a screen. Later christened the Apple I, it was the archetype of every modern computer, but Wozniak wasn’t trying to change the world with what he’d produced – he just wanted to show off how much he’d managed to do with so few resources.

Speaking to NPR (National Public Radio) in 2006, Woz explained that “When I built this Apple I… the first computer to say a computer should look like a typewriter – it should have a keyboard – and the output device is a TV set, it wasn’t really to show the world [that] here is the direction [it] should go [in]. It was to really show the people around me, to boast, to be clever, to get acknowledgement for having designed a very inexpensive computer.”

Jobs and Woz

It almost didn’t happen, though. The Woz we know now has a larger-than-life personality – he’s funded rock concerts and shimmied on Dancing with the Stars – but, as he told the Sydney Morning Herald, “I was shy and felt that I knew little about the newest developments in computers.” He came close to ducking out altogether, and giving the Club a miss.

Let’s be thankful he didn’t. Jobs saw Woz’s computer, recognised its brilliance, and sold his VW microbus to help fund its production. Wozniak sold his HP calculator (which cost a bit more than calculators do today!), and together they founded Apple Computer Inc on 1 April 1976, alongside Ronald Wayne.

Why Apple was named Apple

The name Apple was to cause Apple problems in later years as it was uncomfortably similar to that of the Beatles’ publisher, Apple Corps, but its genesis was innocent enough.

Speaking to Byte magazine in December 1984 , Woz credited Jobs with the idea. “He was working from time to time in the orchards up in Oregon. I thought that it might be because there were apples in the orchard or maybe just its fructarian nature. Maybe the word just happened to occur to him. In any case, we both tried to come up with better names but neither one of us could think of anything better after Apple was mentioned.”

According to the biography of Steve Jobs, the name was conceived by Jobs after he returned from apple farm. He apparently thought the name sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating.”

The name also likely benefitted by beginning with an A, which meant it would be nearer the front of any listings.

The Apple Logo

There are other theories about the meaning behind the name Apple. The idea that it was named thus because Newton was inspired when an Apple fell out of a tree hitting him on the head, is backed up by the fact that the original Apple logo was a rather complicated illustration of Newton sitting under a tree.

Later the company settled on the bite out of an Apple design for Apple’s logo – a far simpler logo design. These logos are probably the reason for other theories about the meaning behind the name Apple, with some suggesting that the Apple logo with a chunk taken out of it is a nod at computer scientist and Enigma code-breaker, Alan Turing, who committed suicide by eating a cyanide infused apple.

However, according to Rob Janoff , the designer who created the logo, the Turing connection is simply “ a wonderful urban legend.”

Equally the bite taken out of the Apple could represent the story of Adam and Eve from the Old Testament. The idea being that the Apple represents knowledge.

Selling the Apple I

Woz built each computer by hand, and although he’d wanted to sell them for little more than the cost of their parts – at a price at that would recoup their outlay as long as they shipped 50 units – Jobs had bigger ideas.

Jobs inked a deal with the Byte Shop in Mountain View to supply it with 50 computers at $500 each. This meant that once the store had taken its cut, the Apple I sold for $666.66 – the legend is that Wozniak liked repeating numbers and was unaware of the ‘number of the beast’ conection. 

Byte Shop was going out on a limb: the Apple I didn’t exist in any great numbers, and the nascent Apple Computer Inc didn’t have the resources to fulfil the order. Neither could it get them. Atari, where Jobs worked, wanted cash for any components it sold him, a bank turned him down for a loan, and although he had an offer of $5,000 from a friend’s father, it wasn’t enough.

In the end, it was Byte Shop’s purchase order that sealed the deal. Jobs took it to Cramer Electronics and, as Walter Isaacson explains in Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography , he convinced Cramer’s manager to call Paul Terrell, owner of Byte Shop, to verify the order.

“Terrell was at a conference when he heard over a loudspeaker that he had an emergency call (Jobs had been persistent). The Cramer manager told him that two scruffy kids had just walked in waving an order from the Byte Shop. Was it real? Terrell confirmed that it was, and the store agreed to front Jobs the parts on thirty-day credit.”

An original Apple I (in a case)

Jobs was banking on producing enough working computers within that time to settle the bill out of the proceeds from selling completed units to Byte Shop. The risk involved was too great for Ronald Wayne, and it’s ultimately this that saw him duck out.

“Jobs and Woz didn’t have two nickels to rub together,”  Wayne told NextShark in 2013 . “If this thing blew up, how was that… going to be repaid? Did they have the money? No. Was I reachable? Yes.”

Family and friends were roped in to sit at a kitchen table and help solder the parts, and once they’d been tested Jobs drove them over to Byte Shop. When he unpacked them, Terrell, who had ordered finished computers, was surprised by what he found.

As Michael Moritz explains in Return to the Little Kingdom , “Some energetic intervention was required before the boards could be made to do anything. Terrell couldn’t even test the board without buying two transformers… Since the Apple I didn’t have a keyboard or a television, no data could be funnelled in or out of the computer. Once a keyboard had been hooked to the machine it still couldn’t be programmed without somebody laboriously typing in the code for BASIC since Wozniak and Jobs hadn’t provided the language on a cassette tape or in a ROM chip… finally the computer was naked. It had no case.”

An original Apple I board, from the Sydney Powerhouse Museum collection

Raspberry PI and the BBC’s Micro Bit aside, we probably wouldn’t accept such a computer today, and even Terrell was reluctant at first but, as Isaacson explains, “Jobs stared him down, and he agreed to take delivery and pay.” The gamble had paid off, and the Apple I stayed in production from April 1976 until September 1977, with a total run of around 200 units.

Their scarcity has made them collectors’ items, and Bonhams auctioned a working Apple I in October 2014 for an eye-watering $905,000. If your pockets aren’t that deep, Briel Computers’  Replica 1 Plus is a hardware clone of the Apple I, and ships at a far more affordable $199, fully built.

When you consider that only 200 were built, the Apple I was a triumph. It powered its burgeoning parent company to almost unheard-of rates of growth – so much so that the decision to build a successor can’t have caused too many sleepless nights in the Jobs and Wozniak households.

The Apple II

The success of the first Apple computer meant that Apple was able to go on to design its predecessor.

The Apple II debuted at the West Coast Computer Faire of April 1977, going head to head with big-name rivals like the Commodore PET. It was a truly groundbreaking machine, just like the Apple computer before it, with colour graphics and tape-based storage (later upgraded to 5.25in floppies). Memory ran to 64K in the top-end models and the image it sent to the NTSC display stretched to a truly impressive 280 x 192, which was then considered high resolution. Naturally there was a payoff, and pushing it to such limits meant you had to content yourself with just six colours, but dropping to a more reasonable 40 rows by 48 columns would let you enjoy as many as 16 tones at a time.

Yes, the Apple II (or apple ][ as it was styled) was a true innovation, and one that Jobs’ biographer, Walter Isaacson , credits with launching the personal computer industry.

The trouble is, the specs alone weren’t really enough to justify the $1,300 cost of the Apple II. Business users needed a reason to dip into their IT budgets and it wasn’t until some months later that the perfect excuse presented itself: the world’s first ‘killer app’.

The first app on an Apple computer: Visicalc

Dan Bricklin

Dan Bricklin was a student at Harvard Business School when he visualised  “a heads-up display, like in a fighter plane, where I could see the virtual image [of a table of numbers] hanging in the air in front of me. I could just move my mouse/keyboard calculator around on the table, punch in a few numbers, circle them to get a sum, do some calculations…”

Of course, we’d recognise that as a spreadsheet today, but back in the late 1970s, such things existed only on paper. Converting them for digital use would be no small feat, but Bricklin was unperturbed. He borrowed an Apple II from his eventual publisher and set to work, knocking out an alpha edition over the course of a weekend.

Many of the concepts he used are still familiar today – in particular, letters above each column and numbers by the rows to use as references when building formulae. (Wondering how it compares to Numbers today? Here’s our Numbers review .)

The technological limitations inherent in the hardware meant that it didn’t quite work as Bricklin had first imagined. The Apple II didn’t have an incorporated display and although the mouse had been invented it wasn’t bundled with the machine. So, the display became the regular screen, and the mouse was swapped out for the Apple II’s game paddle, which Bricklin described as being “a dial you could turn to move game objects back and forth… you could move the cursor left or right, and then push the ‘fire’ button, and then turning the paddle would move the cursor up and down.”

It was far from perfect and working this way was sluggish, so Bricklin reverted to using the left and right arrow keys, with the space bar in place of the fire button for switching between horizontal and vertical movement.

VisiCalc was unveiled in 1979 and described as “a magic sheet of paper that can perform calculations and recalculations”. We owe it a debt of gratitude for the part it played in driving sales of the Apple II and anchoring Apple within the industry.

Writing in Morgan Stanley’s Electronics Letter , shortly before its launch, analyst Benjamin M Rosen expounded his belief that VisiCalc was “so powerful, convenient, universal, simple to use and reasonably priced that it could well become one of the largest-selling personal computer programs ever… [it] could some day become the software tail that wags (and sells) the personal computer dog.”

How right he was, as Tim Barry revealed in a later InfoWorld piece in which he described an experience that would have been familiar to many:

“When I first used VisiCalc on an Apple II, I wanted to get a version that could take advantage of the larger system capabilities of my CP/M computer. Alas it was not to be… We ended up buying an Apple II just to run VisiCalc (a fairly common reason for many Apple sales, I’m told).”

Apple itself credited the app with being behind a fifth of all series IIs it sold.

Apple II success: colour graphics

So a piece of software worth a little more than $100 was selling a piece of hardware worth ten times as much. That was uncharted territory, but even with the right software the Apple II wouldn’t have been a success if it hadn’t adhered to the company’s already established high standards.

The February 1984 edition of PC Mag , looking back at the Apple II in the context of what it had taught IBM, put some of its success down to the fact that “its packaging did not make it look like a ham radio operator’s hobby. A low heat-generating switching power supply allowed the computer to be placed in a lightweight plastic case. Its sophisticated packaging differentiated it from … computers that had visible boards and wires connecting various components to the motherboard.”

More radically, though, the Apple II  “was the first of its type to provide usable colo[u]r graphics… contained expansion slots for which other hardware manufacturers could design devices that could be installed into the computer to perform functions that Apple has never even considered.”

In short, Apple had designed a computer that embodied what we came to expect of desktop machines through the 1980s, 1990s and the first few years of this century – before Apple turned things on its head again and moved increasingly towards sealed boxes without the option for internal expansion.

Almost six million series IIs were produced over 16 years, giving Apple its second big hit. Really, though, the company was still getting started, and its brightest days were still ahead.

For VisiCalc, the future wasn’t so bright, largely because its developers weren’t quick enough to address the exploding PC market. Rival Lotus stepped in and its 1-2-3 quickly became the business standard. It bought Software Arts, VisiCalc’s developer, in 1985 and remained top dog until Microsoft did to it what Lotus had done to VisiCalc – it usurped it with a rival that established a new digital order.

That rival was Excel which, like VisiCalc, appeared on an Apple machine long before it was ported to the PC.

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Apple, Xerox and the one-button mouse

Apple has never been slow to innovate – except, perhaps, where product names are concerned. We’re approaching the eighties in our trip through the company’s history and we’re at the point where it’s followed up the Apple I and II with the III. Predictable, eh?

The two Steves founded the company with a trend-bucking debut and had the gumption to target the industry’s biggest names with its two follow ups. That must have left industry watchers wondering where it might go next.

The answer, it turned out, was Palo Alto.

Xerox had established a research centre there – Xerox PARC, now simply called ‘parc’ – where it was free to explore new technologies a long way from the corporate base on the opposite side of the country. Its work helped drive forward the tech that we still use every day, such as optical media, Ethernet and laser printers (we aren’t just talking about photocopiers!) Of most interest to Mac users, though, is its revolutionary work on interface design.

The Apple I,  II and III computers were text-based machines, much like the earliest IBM PCs. But Jobs, who was working on the Lisa at the time, wanted something more intuitive. He convinced Xerox to grant three days’ access to PARC for him and a number of Apple employees. In exchange Xerox won the right to buy 100,000 Apple shares at $10 each.

To say this was a bargain would be a massive understatement. Apple has split its stock four times since then – in 1987, 2000, 2005 and 2014. Companies do this when the price of a single share starts to get too high, in an effort to stimulate further trading. So, assuming Xerox held on to those shares, it would have had 200,000 by 1987, 400,000 by 2000 and 800,000 by 2005. The split in 2014 was rated at seven to one, so Xerox’s holding would leap from 800,000 to 5.6m. Selling them at today’s prices would rake in $708m (£450m). Not bad for a three-day tour.

Jobs was bowled over by the Xerox Alto, a machine used widely throughout the park, with a portrait display and graphical interface, which was way ahead of its time. It had been knocking around for a while by then, but Xerox, which built 2000 units, hadn’t been selling it to the public. It wasn’t small – about the size of an under-counter fridge – but it was still considered a ‘personal’ machine, which was driven home by the user-centric manner in which it was used. It was the first computer to major on mouse use, with a three-button gadget used to point at and click on objects on the screen.

Jobs decreed that every computer Apple produced from that point on should adopt a similar way of working. Speaking to Walter Isaacson some years later, he described the revelation as “like a veil being lifted from my eyes. I could see what the future of computing was destined to be.”

The Lisa and the Macintosh

It kicked off a race inside Apple between the teams developing the Lisa and the Macintosh.

Jeff Raskin

The official line at the time was that Lisa stood for Local Integrated System Architecture, and the fact it was Jobs’ daughter’s name was purely coincidental. It was a high-end business machine slated to sell at close to $10,000. Convert that to today’s money and it would buy you a mid-range family car. The project was managed by John Couch, formerly of IBM.

Jeff Raskin, meanwhile, was heading up development of the Macintosh, which had smaller businesses and home users firmly in its sights, and each team wanted to be the first to ship an Apple computer with a graphical interface.

Whichever team got their first, Apple – as a company – wanted them to do it at a price that wasn’t prohibitively expensive, and that meant finding some cheaper solutions to the ones arrived at by Xerox. The Alto’s mouse, for example, had three buttons and cost $300. Jobs wanted something simpler, and capped the price at $15. The result was a one-button mouse (which maybe hasn’t stood the test of time as well as Jobs might have expected, with most of us regularly requiring that ctrl-click or right-click).

Jobs was so excited by the potential of the mouse and graphical interface that he got himself more and more involved in the Lisa’s development, to the extent that he started to bypass the management structure already in place. The caused upsets, and in 1982 matters came to a head.

The Apple Lisa had an advanced gui

Michael Scott was Apple’s president and CEO at the time, having been brought to the post by Mark Markkula (Apple employee number three, and investor to the tune of $250,000). The two men worked out a new corporate structure, which sidelined Jobs with immediate effect, and handed control of the Lisa project back to John Couch. Jobs, also stripped of responsibility for research and development within the company, was little more than a figurehead. That left him on the lookout for a new project.

Perhaps inevitably, he turned to the Macintosh.

Named in honour of Raskin’s favourite edible apple (the McIntosh ), the Macintosh had been in the works since 1979, so when Jobs joined the team it was already well advanced. That didn’t stop him making extensive changes though, including the commission of a new external design and integration the graphical operating system. Raskin left the Macintosh team when he and Jobs fell out, and Jobs assumed control for the remainder of its development.

However, this enforced switching of sides meant that Jobs – technically – ended up on the losing team. The Lisa launched in 1983, with its graphical user interface in place; the Macintosh debuted the following year. The race had been won by the Lisa.

It was a pyrrhic victory, though. The Macintosh, which we’ll be covering in more detail below, was a success, and Apple’s current computer line-up – iOS devices aside – descends directly from that first consumer machine.

You can’t say the same of the Lisa. It cost four times the price of the Macintosh, and although it had a higher resolution display and could address more memory, it wasn’t nearly as successful. Apple released seven applications for it, covering all of the usual business bases, but third party support was poor.

Nonetheless, Apple didn’t give up. The original Lisa was followed by the Lisa 2, which cost around half the price of its predecessor and used the same 3.5in disks as the Macintosh. Then, in 1985, it rebranded the hard drive-equipped Lisa 2 as the Macintosh XL and stimulated sales with a price cut.

At this point, though, the numbers didn’t add up, and the Lisa had to go. The Macintosh went on to define the company.

By 1984, Apple had proved twice over that it was a force to be reckoned with. It had taken on IBM, the biggest name in business computing, and acquitted itself admirably. The Apple I and II were resounding successes, but while the Apple III and Lisa had been remarkable machines, they hadn’t captured the public imagination to the same degree as their predecessors. Apple needed another hit, both to guarantee its future and to target the lower end of the market, which to date it had largely ignored.

That hit, we all now know, was the Macintosh: the machine that largely guaranteed the company’s future.

If you’d like a visual guide to Apple history take a look at our Apple timeline in pictures and video

All change: Jef Raskin versus Steve Jobs

The Macintosh

We’ll always remember Steve Jobs as the man who launched the Macintosh, but he only arrived on the project in 1981 – two years after Jef Raskin had started work on the low-cost computer for home and business use. Jobs quickly stamped his mark on it, and Raskin left in 1982 – before the product shipped. We must give Raskin credit for original idea and its name (his favourite kind of apple was the McIntosh, but this was tweaked to avoid infringing copyright), but otherwise the machine that eventually launched was a fair way away from the one he’d originally envisaged.

Raskin’s early prototypes had text-based displays and used function keys in place of the mouse for executing common tasks. Raskin later endorsed the mouse, but with more than the single button that shipped with the Macintosh. It was Jobs and Bud Tribble, the latter of whom is still at Apple (he is Vice President of Software Technology), that really pushed the team to implement the graphical user interface (GUI) for which it became famous.

They saw the potential of the GUI’s desktop metaphor after seeing one in use at Xerox PARC, and they’d already laid much of the groundwork for Apple’s own take on the system as part of the Lisa project. Tribble tasked the Macintosh team with doing the same for their own machine which, in hindsight, may have been the most important directive ever issued by anyone inside Apple.

If the Macintosh team had continued down the text-and-keyboard path, it’s unlikely their product would have sold as well as it did – and Apple, as we know it, might not exist today at all.

The Macintosh project: Simpler and smarter

Through several iterations, the prototype Macintosh became both more able and less complex to build. It had fewer chips, and the Apple engineers were able to push them further and faster. By the time it was ready to launch, the Macintosh incorporated the kind of graphics hardware that would have cost tens of thousands of pounds to buy in any rival machine, yet Apple was aiming to sell it at a price that would put it in reach of the better-heeled home user.

The final spec was radical for its day, with a 6MHz Motorola 68000 processor ramped up to 7.8MHz, 128KB of Ram, and a 9in black and white screen with a fixed 512 x 342 pixels. To put that into perspective, it’s not even enough to display an app icon from a retina-class iOS device at its native resolution, but it could still accommodate System Software 1.0 – Apple’s fully graphical operating system.

The Macintosh project: good looks

But it wasn’t just what went on inside the box that made it such an attractive device. The Macintosh looked just good on the outside. Sure, it was shrouded in beige plastic – but the all in one body incorporated the floppy drive and a handy carrying handle, so you could easily take it with you, wherever you needed to work. It looked friendly, too, and that made it more approachable.

There were still some limitations, though. The original Macintosh didn’t have a hard drive, so you had to boot from a floppy and could only temporarily eject the system disk when you needed to access applications and data. Apple partially fixed this shortcoming by offering an external add-on drive, which allowed users to keep the System disk in situ and delegate responsibility for apps and data to a second disk. It was an expensive add-on, though, and the external Hard Disk 20, which cost $1495 and gave just 20MB of storage, was still a year away from going on sale.

Despite it limitations, though, many of the features established on that first Macintosh are still in use today. We’ve dropped the ‘System’ monicker in favour of ‘OS’ (which stands for Operating System), but we still use the Finder name, which debuted there, and both Command and Option appeared as modifier buttons on its keyboard (the latter has since been usurped by alt, at least in the UK, but the name lives on for many users).

(You’d be surprised by how many people are confused by the fact that Apple still referrs to the Option key on the Mac keyboard even though on UK keyboards that key is known as Alt, find out more here : What is Option on a Mac?)

The Macintosh project: pixels

The hardware was only half of the story. Coder Bill Atkinson had implemented a radical system by which the Macintosh System software allowed for overlapping windows in a more efficient manner than the computers at PARC had done, and Susan Kare spent months developing a visual language in the form of on-screen icons that have since become classics.

Susan Kare and the Command logo she designed

It’s Kare that we have to thank for the on-screen wrist watch (to indicate a background process hogging resources) and the smiling Mac – among others – as well as the seemingly illogical square and circles combination she chose for the command key. (This is a common symbol in Sweden, where it’s used to denote a National Heritage site – not a campsite as has been reported.) Her paint bucket and lasso graphics are used widely in other applications, and the fonts she designed for use on the original Macintosh, which included Chiacgo, Geneva and Monaco, are still in use today – albeit in finer forms.

The Macintosh went on sale in January 1984, priced at $2,495. It wasn’t cheap, but it was good value for what you got, and that was reflected in its sales. By the beginning of May that same year, Apple had hit the landmark figure of 70,000 shipped units, which was likely helped in no small part by a remarkable piece of advertising directed by Ridley Scott.

Apple’s ‘1984’ advert

Nobody would ever deny that the original Macintosh was a work of genius. It was small, relatively inexpensive (for its day) and friendly. It brought the GUI – graphical user interface – to a mass audience and gave us all the tools we could ever need for producing graphics-rich work that would have costs many times as much on any other platform.

Yet, right from the start, it was in danger of disappointing us.

You see, Apple had built it up to be something quite astounding. It was going to change the computing world, we were told, and as launch day approached, the hype continued to grow. It was a gamble – a big one – that any other company would likely have shied away from.

But then no other company employed Steve Jobs.

Jobs understood what made the Macintosh special, and he knew that, aside from the keynote address at which he would reveal it, the diminutive machine needed a far from diminutive bit of publicity.

He put in a call to ChiatDay, Apple’s retained ad agency, and tasked them with filling sixty seconds during the third quarter break of Super Bowl XVIII.

Super Bowl ads are always special, but this was in a league of its own. Directed by Blade Runner’s Ridley Scott and filmed in Shepperton Studios in the UK, its production budget stood somewhere between $350,000 and $900,000, depending on who is telling the story.

The premise was simple enough, but the message was a gamble, pitting Apple directly against its biggest competitor, IBM.

International Business Machines dominated the workplace of the early 1980s, and the saying that ‘nobody ever got fired for buying IBM’ was a powerful monicker working in its favour. People trusted the brand, staking their careers on the simple choice of IBM or one of the others. As a result, the others often missed out, and if Apple wasn’t going to languish among them, it had to change that perception.

So the ad portrayed Apple as humanity’s only hope for the future. It dressed Anya Major, an athlete who later appeared in Elton John’s Nikita video, in a white singlet and red shorts, with a picture of the Mac on her vest. She was bright, fresh and youthful, and a stark contrast to the cold, blue, shaven-headed drones all about her. They plodded while she ran. They were brainwashed by Big Brother, who lectured them through an enormous screen, but she hurled a hammer through the screen to free them from their penury.

Even without the tagline, the inference would have been clear, but Jobs, Apple CEO John Sculley and ChiatDay turned the knife the with the memorable slogan, ‘On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like Nineteen Eighty-Four.’

It was a gutsy move, never explicitly naming IBM, and never showing the product it was promoting, but today it’s considered a masterpiece, and has topped Advertising Age ‘s list of the 50 greatest commercials ever made.

Jobs and Sculley loved it, but when Jobs played it to the board, it got a frosty reception. The board disliked it and Sculley changed his mind, suggesting that they find another agency, but not before asking ChiatDay to sell off the two ad slots they’d already booked it into.

One of these was a minor booking, slated to run on just ten local stations in Idaho, purely so the ad would qualify for the 1983 advertising awards. ChiatDay offloaded this as instructed, but hung on to the Super Bowl break and claimed that it was unsellable.

As Jobs’ biographer, Walter Isaacson, explains, “Sculley, perhaps to avoid a showdown with either the board or Jobs, decided to let Bill Campbell, the head of marketing, figure out what to do. Campbell, a former football coach, decided to throw the long bomb. ‘I think we ought to go for it,’ he told his team.”

Thank goodness they did.

There are two ways to judge an ad. One is how well it markets your brand, and the other is how much money is makes you. The 1984 promotion was a success on both fronts. Ninety-six million people watched its debut during the Super Bowl, and countless others caught a replay as television stations right across the country re-ran it later that evening, and over the following days.

Fifty local stations included a story on it in their new bulletins, which massively diluted the $800,000 cost of the original slot. Apple couldn’t have booked itself a cheaper ad break if it had tried.

The revenue speaks for itself. The ad, combined with Jobs’ now legendary keynote, secured the company’s future, and kicked off a line of computers that’s still with us today – albeit in a very different configuration.

It’s perhaps no surprise that following the success of the 1984 advert, Apple booked another Super Bowl slot the following year for a strikingly similar production, this time filmed by Ridley Scott’s brother, Tony.

‘Lemmings’ once again depicted a stream of drones plodding across the screen. The colours were muted, the soundtrack was downbeat, and the drones were blindfolded, so it was only by keeping a hand on the drone ahead of them that they could tell where they were headed. Only when the penultimate drone dropped off the cliff over which they were marching did the last in line realise that a change of course was called for – and a switch to Macintosh Office.

It wasn’t a great success. As sterndesign’s Apple Matters explains, the advert “left viewers with the feeling that they were inferior for not using the Mac. Turns out that insulting the very people you are trying to sell merchandise to is not the best idea.”

Wired put it succinctly: “Apple fell flat on its face… People found it offensive, and when it was shown on the big screen at Stanford Stadium during the Super Bowl, there was dead silence – something very different from the cheers that greeted ‘1984’ a year earlier.”

The Macintosh and the DTP revolution

The Macintosh got off to a good start, thanks to Jobs’ spectacular unveiling, its innovative design, and the iconic ‘1984’ advert, but it still needed a killer application, like VisiCalc had been on the Apple ][, if it was really going to thrive. It found it in the shape of PageMaker, backed up by the revolutionary Apple LaserWriter printer.

The $6,995 LaserWriter, introduced in March 1985 – just over a year after the Macintosh – was the first mass-market laser printer. It had a fixed 1.5MB internal memory for spooling pages and a Motorola 68000 processor under the hood – the same as the brain of both the Lisa and the Macintosh – running at 12MHz to put out eight 300dpi pages a minute.

It wasn’t the first laser printer – just as the Macintosh wasn’t the first desktop machine and the iPod wasn’t the first digital music player – but, in true Apple style, it was different , and that’s what mattered. Functionally, it was very similar to the first HP Laserjet, which used the same Canon CX engine as the LaserWriter and had shipped a year earlier at half the price. However, while HP had chosen to use its own in-house control language, Apple opted for Adobe’s PostScript, which remains a cornerstone of desktop publishing to this day.

It was a neat fit for Adobe, which had been founded by John Warnock when he left Xerox with the intention of building a laser printer driven by the PostScript language. Jobs convinced him to work with Apple on building the LaserWriter, and sealed the deal shortly before the Macintosh launched.

As a key part of the Apple Office concept, introduced through 1985’s less popular Lemmings Super Bowl ad, the LaserWriter was network-ready out of the box, courtesy of AppleTalk, so system admins could string together a whole series of Macs in a chain and share the printer between them, thus reducing the average per-seat cost of the device. This made it immediately more competitive when stood beside its rivals and, as InfoWorld reported in its issue of February 11, 1985, “Apple claims a maximum of 31 users [can be attached] to each LaserWriter but its own departments at its Cupertino, California headquarters hook up 40 users per printer.”

So, everything was in place on the hardware side. What was missing – so far – was the software.

Paul Brainerd, who is credited with inventing the term ‘Desktop Publishing’, heard of Apple’s intention to build a laser printer and realised that the Mac’s graphical interface and the printer’s high quality output were missing the one crucial part that would help both of them fly: the intermediary application. Thus, he founded Aldus and began work on PageMaker.

The process took 16 months to complete, and when it shipped in July 1985, for $495, PageMaker proved to be the piece that completed the DTP jigsaw. The publishing industry was about to undergo a revolution, the like of which it wouldn’t see again until we all started reading online.

Although it was later available on Windows and VAX terminals, PageMaker started out on the Mac, and firmly established the platform as the first choice for digital creative work – which is perhaps why it’s favoured by so many designers today. It’s hard to believe, in an age where we’re used to 27in or larger displays, that the Macintosh’s 9in screen, with a resolution smaller than the pixel count of an iOS app icon, was ever considered a viable environment for laying out graphically-rich documents, but it was.

By March 1987, less than two years from launch, PageMaker’s annual sales had reached $18.4m – an increase of 100% over the previous year, according to Funding Universe .

PageMaker versus QuarkXPress

But good things don’t last forever, and eventually PageMaker lost a lot of its sales to QuarkXPress, which launched in 1987, undercut its high-end rivals and by the late 1990s had captured the professional market. In 1999 Forbes reported that at one point 87% of the 18,000 magazines published in the US were being laid out using XPress (including Forbes itself).

Adobe and Aldus merged in 1994, retained the Adobe brand and transitioned products away from the Aldus moniker. It was a very logical pairing when you consider that PageMaker was conceived to take advantage of the graphics capabilities of an Apple laser printer, which in turn were served up by an Adobe-coded control language.

Quark was going from strength to strength at the time of the merger, and four years later – in summer 1998 – Quark Chief Executive Fred Ebrahimi, in Forbes’ words, ‘announced his intention to buy Adobe Systems of San Jose… a public company with three times Quark’s revenues’.

Quark versus InDesign

Of course, the acquisition didn’t go ahead, and what followed is now a familiar story to anyone in publishing. Adobe was already working on InDesign under the codename K2, using code that had come across with the Aldus merger. InDesign shipped in 1999 and after a few years of InDesign and PageMaker running side by side, the latter was retired.

PageMaker’s last major release was version 7, which shipped in 2001 and ran on both Windows and OS 9 or OS X, although only in Classic mode on the latter. It’s no doubt still in use on some computers and lives on in the shape of the archived pages on Adobe’s site here .

InDesign was out in the wild by then and Adobe was keen to push users down a more professional path. We think that’s a shame as there’s still space in the market for a tool like PageMaker to act as an entry ramp to InDesign further down the line.

Business users may now turn to Pages, with its accomplished layout tools and help from dynamic guides, but a fully-fledged consumer and small business-friendly tool like PageMaker would still find a home in many an open-plan workspace.

Jobs vs Sculley

It’s all been good news so far in our story of Apple’s founding and early development. We’re still in the mid-eighties. The company is still young, but going from strength to strength, and it’s offering up some serious competition for its larger, longer-established rivals. Few would have guessed that trouble was just around the corner.

To explain what happened next, we need to step back a few months and look at the company structure.

Steve Jobs may have been Apple’s most public face, and the co-founder of the company, but he wasn’t its CEO in the mid-1980s. He hadn’t yet turned 30, and many on the board considered him too inexperienced for the role, so they first hired Michael Scott, and later Mark Markkula, who had retired at 32 on the back of stock options he’d acquired at Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. Markkula was one of Apple’s initial investors, but he didn’t want to run the company long term.

When he announced his desire to head back to retirement, the company set out to find a replacement. It settled on John Sculley, whom Jobs famously lured to Apple from Pepsi by asking ‘Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?’

Walter Isaacson, in his biography of Steve Jobs, quotes one of Sculley’s reminiscences: ‘I was taken by this young, impetuous genius and thought it would be fun to get to know him a little better.’

That’s exactly what he did, and during the honeymoon period everything seemed to be going swimmingly. As Michael Moritz writes in Return to the Little Kingdom, ‘At Apple, Sculley was greeted like an archangel and, for a time, could do no wrong. He and Jobs were quoted as saying that they could finish each others’ sentences.’

Their management styles were wildly different, though, and it’s perhaps inevitable that this led to some conflicts between the two men. Sculley didn’t like the way that Jobs treated other staff members, and the two came to blows over more practical matters, including the pricing of the Macintosh.

From the moment of its inception, the Macintosh was always supposed to be a computer for the rest of us, keenly priced so that it would sell in large numbers. The aim was to put out a $1000 machine, but over the years of gestation – as the project became more ambitious – this almost doubled.

Shortly before its launch it was slated to go on sale at $1,995, but Sculley could see that even this wasn’t enough and he decreed that it would have to be hiked by another $500. Jobs disagreed, but Sculley prevailed and the Macintosh 128K hit the shelves at $2,495.

That was just the start of the friction between the two men, which wasn’t helped by a downturn in the company’s fortunes. Sales of the Macintosh started to tail off, the Lisa was discontinued and Jobs didn’t hide the fact that his initial respect for Sculley had cooled. The board urged Sculley to reign him in.

That’s exactly what he did, but not until March 1985 – just shy of two years after arriving at the company. Sculley visited Jobs in his office and told him that he was taking away his responsibility for running the Macintosh team.

Talking to the BBC in 2012 , Sculley explained what went on inside the company at the time: “When the Macintosh Office [Apple’s office-wide computing environment including networked Macintosh computers, file server, and a laser printer] was introduced in 1985 and failed Steve went into a very deep funk. He was depressed, and he and I had a major disagreement where he wanted to cut the price of the Macintosh and I wanted to focus on the Apple II because we were a public company. We had to have the profits of the Apple II and we couldn’t afford to cut the price of the Macintosh because we needed the profits from the Apple II to show our earnings – not just to cover the Mac’s problems. That’s what led to the disagreement and the showdown between me and Steve and eventually the board investigated it and agreed that my position was the one they wanted to support.”

But Jobs wasn’t ready to go without a fight.

Sculley had to leave the country on business that May, and Jobs saw this as the perfect opportunity to wrest back control of the company. He confided in the senior members of his own team, which at the time included Jean-Louis Gassée, who was being lined up to take over from Jobs on the Macintosh team. Gassée told Sculley what was happening, and Sculley cancelled his trip.

The following morning, Sculley confronted Jobs in front of the whole board, asking if the rumours were true. Jobs said they were, and Sculley once again asked the board to choose between the two of them – him or Jobs. Again, they sided with Sculley, and Jobs’ fate was sealed.

Jobs leaves Apple

Scully reorganised the company, installed Gassée at the head of the computer division and made Jobs Apple’s chairman. That might sound like a plum job – indeed, a promotion – but in reality it was a largely ceremonial role that took the co-founder away from the day-to-day running of the company.

This wasn’t Jobs’ style. He felt the need to move on and do something else and, a few months later, that’s what he did. He resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a company that would design and build high end workstations for use in academia, taking several key Apple staff with him.

If this had happened in the 2000s, when Apple was riding high on the back of the iPod and iPhone and was prepping the world for the launch of the iPad, it could have had catastrophic consequences. In the 1980s, though, the outcome was somewhat different.

DeWitt Robbeloth, editor of II Computing magazine, wrote in the October 1985 issue , “Most industry savants agree the move was good for Apple, or even crucial. Why? There were serious differences between the two about what Apple products should be like, how they should be marketed, and how the company should be run.”

So, Sculley was in control and could run Apple as he saw fit. Now we’ll see exactly where that takes the company over the following months. Read next: 12 Apple execs you need to know

Jean-Louis Gassée takes over from Steve Jobs

The most recent stop of our tour through the history of Apple saw Jobs leave the company after falling out with the board. It wasn’t entirely unexpected – and the news wasn’t greeted with the same kind of dread as the announcement of his cancer many years later. Indeed, Wall Street responded positively to Jobs’ departure, and the price of Apple stock went up.

Jean-Louis Gassée, who had been Apple’s Director of European Operations since 1981, was appointed by CEO John Sculley to take over from Jobs and head up Macintosh development. Fewer positions could have been more prestigious in a company that owed its very existence to that single iconic product line – particularly at a time when the company’s focus and ethos was about to undergo a significant change.

Apple post-Jobs (the first time)

In the months leading up to his departure, Jobs had been focused on consumer-friendly price points, initially wanting to sell the Macintosh for $1,000 or less into as many homes and businesses as possible. In the event, that never came to fruition, as the final spec simply couldn’t be built, marketed and shipped at that price while still turning a profit.

However, with Jobs now busy elsewhere, the board was free to re-think what Apple was about and the kind of machines it would produce. It was already appealing to creative business users thanks to the prevalence of Macs in design and layout offices so, logically enough, it made the decision to target the high-end market with more powerful, and thus more expensive Macs. Although the company would sell fewer units, each one should – in theory – deliver similar or higher profits.

The policy had its own nickname, ’55 or die’, which was a nod to Gassée’s dictat that the Macintosh II should deliver at least 55% profit per machine, perhaps explains why it was so expensive. A basic system with a 20MB hard drive (insufficient to hold an average Photoshop file today) started at $5500, but bumping up the spec, with a colour display, more memory and larger hard drive, could easily see the price double.

When stood against their PC counterparts, then, Apple’s new computers looked pretty expensive, but they had several benefits that kept their users loyal – in particular, the user interface. It’s important to remember that although Windows may be ubiquitous today, that wasn’t always the case.

When the Macintosh II first appeared in 1987, Windows was less than two years old, still at version 1.04, and still an add-on to DOS rather than a full-blown, stand-alone operating system.

Once the designers of the mid-1980s had got used to working visually, they didn’t want to go back to using a text-based computer, so until Windows hit the big time, which happened with Windows 3 at the end of the 1980s, Apple had the graphical market pretty much to itself.

Apple gets colourful: the Machintosh II ships with a colour display

This would be enough to encourage complacency in some companies, but not Apple, which continued to innovate in a way that would at least partially justify the high prices. The Machintosh II, for instance, wasn’t simply a spec-boost of the original Macintosh. It looked completely different, being housed in a horizontal case that the end user (or an engineer) could open themselves to upgrade the memory, drives and so on. This was a major break from Apple’s established way of doing things, where all previous computers, with the exception of the build-it-yourself Apple I, had been shipped in closed boxes, largely because Jobs saw this as a way of making them more friendly and less threatening.

It was also the first Macintosh to ship with a colour display, and although it’s difficult to imagine what a difference that would make today, we only need to think back to early, mono iPods and compare them to the iPod touch to understand the impact it must have had.

Aside from heading up the development of conventional computers, Gassée also oversaw a lot of Apple’s behind-the-scenes development, where designers were dreaming up new products that would one day drive the company to new heights. Two of the fruits of those labours, the Newton MessagePad and the eMate, were particularly prescient, as they pointed towards Apple’s later dominance of lightweight computing through the iPad and iPhone, but they didn’t see the light of day before Gassée’s own departure from Apple.

His tenure ran from 1981 until the end of the decade, which was the point the focus on highly-priced premium products started to falter. IBM clones were getting cheaper, and with the uptake of Windows and inexpensive desktop publishing applications, even some of Apple’s most loyal customers were tempted to jump ship.

What Gassée did after Apple

The fourth quarter of 1989 marked the first time Apple had seen a drop in sales. The stock market got edgy, Apple’s shares lost a fifth of its value, and despite having once been tipped to one day head up the company, Gassée left the following year. Like Jobs, he went on to found another radical computer company – in this case, Be Incorporated, which developed the BeOS operating system.

As we’ll see in a later episode, his work with BeOS would come close to bringing Gassée back to the company. For now, though, Apple was focused on trying to win back some of the less wealthy customers by introducing a range of lower-priced computers, including the Macintosh Classic (8MHz processor, integrated mono display, $999), Macintosh LC (16MHz processor, pizza box case, colour capable; the initials stood for LC, but it cost $999 without a display), and Macintosh IIsi (20MHz processor, large desktop case, $2999 without a display).

Today, amongst other things, Gassée writes a blog, here . 

Unsurprisingly, after so many years of waiting, Apple customers lapped up these new, affordable machines, and the company enjoyed a revival. Indeed, by returning to basics, almost literally, Apple was back on the up, and about to wow the world with two of its most radical products ever, as we’ll discover below.

Apple’s decline and IBM and Microsoft’s rise

So Steve Jobs has gone, and so has Jean-Louis Gassée, his successor as head of product development. All in all, the future isn’t looking so bright for Apple at this point in its story. Despite initially being quite successful in chasing high profits with wide margins, its market is starting to shrink and, with it, so did its retained income. For the first time in the company’s history, its year-end results showed its cash balances to be rising more slowly than they had the year before.

That wasn’t its only problem, though. IBM had been out-earning Apple since the mid-1980s, when it established itself as the dominant force in office computing. There was little indicating that this would change any time soon and, to make matters worse, Apple’s key differentiator was about to be dealt a close-to-lethal blow: Microsoft was gearing up for Windows 3 – a direct competitor to the all-graphical OS, System.

Windows had been a slow burner until this point. Versions 1 and 2 came and went without bothering Apple to much, but Windows 3 was a different story entirely. The interface was more accomplished, which for the first time supported 256 colours, and it was more stable thanks to a new protected mode. The graphical design language had been implemented from end to end, with icons in place of program names in Windows Explorer, its equivalent of the Mac’s Finder.

It could also run MS DOS applications in a Windows window, so it felt more like the unified graphical OS experience we know today – and which was already a hallmark of Apple’s GUI underpinnings. In short, more people than ever before could happily spend their whole day in a Windows environment, which would have left them asking why they would buy a Mac when there were so many PCs to choose from.

Apple’s Quadra and Performa

Apple needed to up its game, which it did by developing a whole new line of computers that we now might think of as classics of their time: chiefly the Quadra and Performa, but also the less well-known Centris (which, as its name suggested, sat at the ‘centre’ of the line-up).

The Performa line was, in effect, a case of Apple rebranding its existing stock, but bundling them with consumer-friendly software like ClarisWorks and Grolier Encyclopedia so they would appeal to the home user. The idea was to make them a viable stock item for department stores and other lifestyle outlets, as to date Apple’s computers had only been available through authorised dealers and mail order (there was no such thing as the Apple Store back then).

It was a sound theory, and one that would have exposed the Apple brand to a whole new audience, but it didn’t quite work as might have been expected. In part that was because the enormous range of slightly different models was confusing – so confusing that Apple went to the expense of producing a 30-minute infomercial showing a regular family choosing and buying a Performa. You can still find it online, in six linked parts .

It’s unlike the kind of short and snappy advertising we’re used to these days, devoid of catchphrases, and it spends a lot of time explaining not only why a Performa is the right choice, but also why Windows is difficult to use. It’s hypnotic – and it’s hard to argue with its message, too, if you can devote enough time to it.

Macintosh Performa 6300

You can see a full list of the various Performa machines, and the original Macintosh models from which each one was derived on Wikipedia , and its clear from the minor differentiations between them that some of the simplicity on which Apple was founded – and to which it has since returned – had by now been lost.

Having so many computers to market and ship also meant the company had to try and predict which machines would sell best and build enough of each one to satisfy demand. That didn’t always happen, and with Windows-based computers approaching ubiquity, Apple realised it was going to have to team up with one of its long time rivals, IBM, if it was going to take a lead.

The AIM Alliance: Apple teams up with IBM and Motorola

Together, Apple, IBM and Motorola founded the AIM Alliance in October 1991 (the name is their initials), to build a brand new hardware and software combo called PReP – the PowerPC Reference Platform. This ambitious project would go head to head against the existing Windows / Intel hegemony by running a next-generation operating system (from Apple) on top of brand new RISC-based processors (from IBM and Motorola).

Apple’s nascent operating system was codenamed Pink, and not without good reason. Much of the code was rolled into Copland, the aborted OS that we’ve encountered once before in our tour of the archives, and it came about following an extraordinary meeting in which all of the company’s future projects were written down on blue and pink card. Those that made it onto blue paper were comparatively easy and could be implemented in the short term.

Those written on pink would require more effort, and a longer timeframe. The next generation OS, was naturally noted on one of the latter.

AIM Alliance’s plans never came to fruition on the software side, and there were problems on the hardware front, too. When you bring together three notable players like Apple, IBM and Motorola, it’s to be expected that they’d each have their own ideas about the best way to do things so, perhaps it was inevitable that their differing views on the reference platform’s make-up didn’t always align.

If it had worked out, PReP might indeed have changed the face of computing. It didn’t, of course, but it did result in a change of direction for Apple. PReP’s legacy was the PowerPC processor, which went on to form the bedrock of its computer line-up for years to come.

The PowerPC years

If you bought a new Apple computer any time between 1994 and 2006, you’ll have taken home a PowerPC-based device, the genesis of which we explored above. The fruit of a productive collaboration between Apple, IBM (yes IBM) and Motorola – the AIM Alliance – it was, for a while, one of the most advanced platforms on the planet. Indeed, it proved versatile enough to sit at the heart of everything from the lowly iBook, right up to the mightiest enterprise-focused Xserve.

PowerPC 601 Processor Prototype

The name is an acronym for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC-Performance Computing, and its core technology was based on IBM’s POWER instruction set, so even though it was an innovation of the early-1990s it wasn’t an entirely alien platform for developers coding for the Mac.

This helped make PowerPC a viable alternative to the x86-based processors being shipped by Intel and AMD, which were then dominating the computing market. Even Microsoft shipped a version of Windows NT for PowerPC before scaling back to focus solely on x86 and, later, Freescale.

The first PowerPC-based Macintosh (pre-Mac) was 1994’s Power Macintosh 6100 which, as its name suggests, was based on the 601 processor, running at 60MHz and developed using code that was already familiar to engineers from both Motorola and Apple. As the Quadra’s successor, it was the first machine able to run Mac OS 9, which would likely have been a big enough sales point on its own.

However, perhaps hedging its bets (platform transitions are nerve-wracking projects, after all) it also released a DOS-compatible version, which instead used an Intel 486 processor and allowed Windows and Mac OS to be run simultaneously, effectively doing what VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop do today, and VirtualPC did in the PowerPC line’s latter years.

Power Macintosh 6100

The 6100 was released in concert with the beefier Power Macintosh 7100, which had been developed under the internal codename ‘Carl Sagan’. It was a convoluted choice, based on the belief that the computer was so brilliant it would make the company ‘Billions and Billions’, which just happened to be the name of a book written by astronomer Carl Sagan, who used to stress the letter ‘B’ when saying the word ‘billions’ so people wouldn’t confuse it with millions.

Although it was never used to market the 7100, Sagan claimed that customers might have considered the codename, which was revealed in a magazine, to imply that he endorsed the product. He wrote to the magazine, asking them to make it clear that he did not, at which point Apple’s development team re-named the computer BHA, for Butt-Head Astronomer. Sagan sued for libel and lost, with the court ruling that “one does not seriously attack the expertise of a scientist using the undefined phrase ‘butt-head'” .

Eventually the two parties settled out of court, at which point the 7100 was again renamed, this time to LAW, or Lawyers Are Wimps.

The PowerPC line enjoyed a good innings, but by the middle of this century’s first decade (we’re jumping ahead a bit here to tie-up the PowerPC story), fractures were starting to appear in the alliance and the platform wasn’t evolving quickly enough to keep consumers happy. Apple’s high-end notebook, the PowerBook, was starting to look a little underpowered, and in an effort to push the processor in the Power Mac G5 beyond its native rating, it produced three special editions that employed a sophisticated water cooling system that allowed it to overclock the processor without it overheating.

PowerPC 970FX processor, as used in one of the last Power Mac G5s

Those in the know began talking about parallel teams working inside Apple HQ on a version of OS X that would run on Intel processors. The gossip was never confirmed, but the fact it had even been mooted meant Jobs’ 2005 announcement that the company would shift its entire line-up to Intel hardware was less of a shock than it might have been.

Jumping ship just four years after the introduction of OS X would have been too big a move for many CEOs, who might have been afraid that they’d frighten away their customers. As Macworld wrote, ‘It was a big gamble for a company that had relied on PowerPC processors since 1994, but Jobs argued that it was a move Apple had to make to keep its computers ahead of the competition. “As we look ahead… we may have great products right now, and we’ve got some great PowerPC product[s] still yet to come,” Jobs told the audience at the 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference. “[But] we can envision some amazing products we want to build for you and we don’t know how to build them with the future PowerPC road map.”‘

You might have expected developers to be up in arms: after decades of honing their code to run smoothly on PowerPC architecture, they’d have to throw it away and start from scratch, but Apple gave them a crutch, at least in the interim. Rather than cut off support for legacy code from day one, it built a runtime layer into OS X Tiger (10.4), called Rosetta, a name inspired by the Rosetta Stone, the multi-lingual engravings on which were the key to understanding hieroglyphics.

This interim layer intercepted Power G3, G4 and AltiVec instructions and converted them, on the fly, to Intel-compatible code. There would have been a slight performance hit, naturally, but it was an impressive stopgap, and one that Apple maintained until it shipped Lion. (Although Snow Leopard , the last iteration to support it and the first for which there was no PowerPC release, didn’t install it by default – you had to add it manually.)

PowerPC lives on, not only in the countless legacy Macs that are still putting in good service, but in consumer devices like the Wii U, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, as well as in faceless computing applications where it’s a popular choice for embedded processing.

Of course, during the 12 years of PowerPC’s dominance, many other things were going on behind the scenes. Apple was working on the Newton MessagePad, chipping away at a revolutionary operating system that never shipped and, as a result, bought Steve Jobs’ company NeXT and, with it, Jobs himself, ensuring Apple’s survival.

Apple and Microsoft

If IT was a soap opera, Apple and Microsoft’s on-off relationship would put EastEnders to shame. Today, you’d never guess there had ever been anything wrong, and that’s probably down to the fact that their relationship has never been more symbiotic.

IDC figures released in summer 2015 showed Mac sales to have climbed by 16% over the previous quarter. At the same time, though, the overall PC market for machines running Windows had dipped by 11.8%. So, with ever more of Microsoft’s revenue coming from Office 365, it needs to push its subscription-based productivity service onto as many platforms as it can – including Android, iOS and, of course, the Mac.

Apple, on the other hand, needs Office. It has its own productivity apps in the shape of Pages, Numbers and Keynote, but Word, Excel and Powerpoint remain more or less industry standards, so if it’s going to be taken seriously in the business world, Apple needs Microsoft Office onboard.

So, a peace has broken out – and a long-lasting one at that, which despite some sniping from either side, stretches right back to Jobs’ return to Apple after his time at NeXT. We’ll come to that later, but suffice it to say at this point that it shouldn’t really surprise us: the rivalry between the two camps often seems overblown.

Microsoft developed many of the Office apps for the Mac before porting them to the PC and, in the early days at least, Bill Gates had good things to say about the company. “To create a new standard, it takes something that’s not just a little bit different,” he said in 1984, “it takes something that’s really new, and really captures people’s imagination. And the Macintosh – of all the machines I’ve seen – is the only one that meets that standard.”

That’s pretty flattering, but there’s a saying about flattery: imitation is its sincerest form. Apple apparently didn’t see it that way when Microsoft, in Apple’s eyes, went on to imitate its products a little too faithfully.

As we already know, Apple had been inspired by certain elements of an operating system it saw at Xerox PARC when it was developing the Macintosh and Lisa. Xerox’s implementation used the desktop metaphor now familiar to OS X, Windows and many Linux users, and when Microsoft was developing Windows 1.0, Apple licensed some of its fundamentals to the company that Jobs latterly took to calling “our friends up north”.

That was fine when Windows was just starting out, but when version 2 hit the shelves, with significant amendments, Apple was no longer so happy to share and share alike.

Microsoft Windows 1.0

Most significantly, Microsoft had implemented one of the features of which Apple was proudest: the ability to overlap live application windows. This is more complex as it sounds, as it requires some advanced calculations to determine which parts sit beneath others, not to mention how they should behave when repositioned.

However, Apple’s primary argument was that, taken as a whole, the generic look and feel of a graphical operating system – such as its resizable, movable windows, title bars and so on – should be subject to copyright protection, rather than each of the specific parts. Looking back on it now, it’s easy to see that this would be akin to Ford copyrighting the idea of a car, rather than a specific engine implementation or means of heating the windscreen, but back then, the GUI was such an innovation that you can understand why Apple would have wanted to protect it.

The court didn’t buy into the idea of look and feel, and asked Apple to come back with a more specific complaint, highlighting the parts of its own operating system that it believed Microsoft had stolen. So, Apple made a list of 189 points, of which all but 10 were thrown out by the court as having been covered by the licensing agreement drawn up between the two parties with respect to Windows 1.0. That left Apple with just 10 points on which to build its case.

Microsoft Windows 2.0

However, over at PARC, Xerox could see that if Apple won it might be able to claim the rights to those elements itself, even though they’d been dreamed up following on from Jobs et al’s tour of its labs. Xerox had no choice but to mount a claim itself, against Apple, stating that the operating environments on the Macintosh and Lisa infringed its own copyrights.

Ultimately, Xerox’s act of self-defence was unnecessary as the court ruled against Apple, deciding that while their specific implementation was important, the general idea of using office-like elements, such as folders and a desktop, was too generic to protect.

Apple appealed, but to no avail. However, it did at least avoid losing to Xerox, as the Palo Alto company’s claim was thrown out.

Of course, Apple and Microsoft patched things up eventually, and for that we should all be grateful. If they hadn’t, it’s possible there might be no Mac today. Why? Because when he came back to Apple and set about returning it to greatness, Jobs realised that he couldn’t do it alone. He might have a streamlined hardware line-up waiting in the wings, headlined by the groundbreaking iMac, but he knew that without the software to back them up they’d never attain their full potential.

Business users wouldn’t switch to a platform that didn’t support industry standard document formats, like those produced by Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and that remains true today. While home users and small teams will be happy to use Pages, Numbers and Keynote, IT departments – particularly those in mixed-platform offices – often still rely on Microsoft Office formats.

So, Steve Jobs put in a personal call to Bill Gates , who was then Microsoft’s CEO, and convinced him to keep developing Office for Mac for at least the next five years. Gates did just that, and at the same time Microsoft bought $150m worth of non-voting Apple stock, thereby securing its future.

In return, Apple unseated Netscape as the Mac’s default browser and installed Internet Explorer in its place, which was actively developed right up until 2003, when in the face rumours that Apple was working on its own browser in house – Safari – Microsoft scaled back its work on IE for Mac to the point where, today, it no longer runs on OS X.

Apple in the 1990s

Apple was a very different company in the 1990s to the one we know today. It had a lot of products and a lot of stock, but not enough customers. There’s only so long a company can survive like that.

Looking back on it now, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was losing its way. Alongside its computer range, it was producing digital cameras (where it was ahead of most of the big-name players that now dominate photography), video consoles, TV appliances and CD players. It had also invested heavily in the Newton platform to produce the MessagePad and eMate lines.

In many respects, to use a well-worn cliche, it was running before it could walk. Almost all of these products have equivalents in Apple’s current line-up where they form the basis of the iPhone camera, Apple TV, iPad and so on, but in the 1990s there was no way to link them all together. They were, to all intents and purposes, disparate and largely disconnected products; there was no overarching storyline to what Apple was producing the way there is now, where the Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV and iOS devices can all share data courtesy of iCloud.

To make matters worse, the decision to license a lot of its technologies was only making it harder for Apple to succeed in each marketplace, as it was enabling its rivals to produce cheaper cloned versions of its top-line products. Even the Newton platform wasn’t immune, with Motorola, Siemens and Sharp, among others, using the operating system and hardware spec to build their own products.

Cloning remains a contentious issue in Apple history. Aside from being bad news from Apple’s in-house hardware development, many consumers would say it was actually good for the end user, as it encouraged competition and, as a result, lowered prices. That brought more people to the platform than Apple would have managed to attract on its own, which in turn ensured continued support from application developers, including key names like Adobe and Microsoft, without whom the computer line-up may well have collapsed.

But something had to give – and a decision had to be made, which turned out to be one of the most momentous decisions in the company’s history.

Jobs returns to Apple

Apple was still on the look out for a new operating system, as its in-house efforts weren’t going as well as it had hoped. By 1996 it had shortlisted two possible suppliers: BeOS and NeXTSTEP, each of which had a historical connection to Apple itself.

BeOS was developed by Be Inc, a company founded by former Apple executive, Jean-Louis Gassée. He had been appointed as Apple’s director of European operations in 1981 and, four years later, was responsible for informing Apple’s board of Jobs’ intention to oust CEO John Sculley – the act that led to Jobs’ departure from the company.

NeXTSTEP, on the other hand, came from NeXT – the company that Jobs founded upon leaving Apple. Although NeXT’s hardware didn’t go on to sell in the quantities that Apple was shipping, it was highly thought of and is perhaps best known as the platform on which Tim Berners Lee developed the World Wide Web while working at Cern.

The stakes couldn’t have been higher for either man – or either company – but in the end Apple chose NeXTSTEP.

If it had been a simple licensing deal that wouldn’t have been so remarkable, but in truth it was far more than that. Apple purchased NeXT itself – not just its operating system – for $429m in cash, plus 1.5 million shares of Apple stock, effectively buying back Steve Jobs in the process.

The man who had co-founded the company was returning to it after 12 years away.

Making changes

Buying NeXT wasn’t enough to fix Apple’s ongoing woes on its own. Its share price was declining, and over the next six months it fell still further, to a 12-year low.

Jobs convinced the board of directors that the company’s CEO, Gil Amelio, had to go and, when it agreed, it installed Jobs in his place as interim CEO. At that point, Apple began a remarkable period of restructuring that leads directly to the successful organisation it is today.

Jobs recognised that if Apple was going to survive it needed to concentrate on a narrower selection of products. He slimmed down the range of computers to just four – two for consumers and two for businesses – and closed down a lot of supplementary divisions, including the one working on the Newton.

At the same time, he saw that the licensing deals it had signed weren’t doing it any favours, and he brought them to an end. The immediate effect wasn’t good, as it saw the market share of new computers running Apple’s operating system dropping from 10% to just 3% – but at least 100% of them were being built by Apple itself.

The strategy paid off in the long run, though, and Apple’s computers and operating system are holding their own in a world where rivals are seeing year on year stagnation or – worse – decline.

Not everyone was convinced, though. When asked what he would do to fix the broken Apple Computer Inc, Michael Dell, who founded the Windows-based rival that carries his name, told a Gartner Symposium, ‘What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.’

Dell was riding high at the time, but over the years the two companies’ relative positions have changed, and in 2006 Jobs mocked his rival in an email he sent to Apple staff.

“Team,” the email read. “It turned out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future. Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today.”

And were things “different tomorrow”?

Maybe not tomorrow, but certainly in the long run they were very different indeed. Apple grew to become the most valuable company in the world when measured by market capitalisation, while Dell went back to private ownership, as Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners bought out the existing shareholders.

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• 5. INTRODUCTIONOF THE COMPANY
• 6. Apple is an American multinational technology company.Headqutered in Cupartino, California,that designs,develops, and sells consumer electronics,computer software, Online services,and personal computers.Its bestknown hardware products are the Mac line of computers,the iPod media player ,the iPhone smartphone,the iPad tablet Computer,and the Apple watch smartwatch.Its online services include iCloud,the iTunes Store,and the App Store.Apple’s consumer software includes the OS X and IOS operating Systems.Apple is the world’s second largest information technology company by revenue After Samsung electronics...
• 9. Name Apple Incorporation Former CEO Steve Job New CEO Tim Cook Revenue $ 182.795 billion (2014) Area served Worldwide Headquarter Apple Campus,Cupertino,California, United States. Total number of employees 72,800 Apple Inc. Current Profile
• 10. Headquarter : California,US
• 11. History 1976-1978 • Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs form the Apple Computer Company on April Fool's Day on 1976 in GARAGE. • Wozniak and Jobs finish work on a preassembled computer circuit board. It has no keyboard, case, sound or graphics. They call it the Apple® I….The Apple I board is released for sale to hobbyists and electronics enthusiasts at the price of $666.66. • Apple's first formal business plan sets a goal for sales to grow to $500 million in ten years. As it turns out, the company will pass that mark in half the time. • Apple I computer boards are sold through 10 retail stores in the U.S. • Apple moves from Jobs' garage to a building on Stevens Creek in Cupertino, California. • The new Apple® II is unveiled at the first West Coast Computer Fair. It is the first personal computer able to generate color graphics and includes a keyboard, power supply and attractive case . • Regis McKenna Advertising launches its first ad campaign for Apple. Although advertising is initially aimed at electronics enthusiasts, Apple will soon become the first company to advertise personal computers in consumer magazines. • Monthly orders reach a $1 million annual sales rate.
• 12. LOGO OF APPLE
• 13. It had 1st floppy disk drive
• 14. Today Products Of apple
• 15. Leadership Timothy Cook COO o1998 – Present •CEO(2011-present) •Previously VP Corporate Materials for Compaq Computer Corp. • COO for Intelligent Electronics
• 16. • Frontrunner in the PC revolution • Transformed PC industry with 1st Mac • Expansion in consumer technology • Continued innovation in tech industry
• 17. Mission Statement "Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings."
• 18. Vision Statement We are “committed” in producing high quality products and providing high quality service thus setting high industry standards for other competitors.
• 19. Financial Analysis • 2014: Apple announced 2014results: - Revenue of US$ 182.795 billion - Operating Income US$ 52.503 billion - Net income US$ 39.510 billion
• 20. Global Market Share
• 21. SWOT ANALYSIS
• 22. SWOT Analysis 1. Faithful customers 2. Apple is a leading innovator in mobile device technology 3. Strong financial performance ($10,000,000,000 cash, 4. Brand reputation
• 23. 1.High price 2.Decreasing market share 3.Further Change in management
• 24. 1.High demand of iPad mini and iPhone 5 2.iTV launch 3.Growth of tablet and smartphone markets 4.Strong growth of mobile advertising market
• 25. • Huge Competitors •Lack of new technology
• 26. In smart phones industry In iPad industry
• 27. Apple has many competitors in computers…
• 28. Latest News •Apple to Invest €1.7 Billion in New European Data Centres: - CORK, Ireland—2015—Apple announced a €1.7 billion plan to build and operate two data centres in Europe, each powered by 100 percent renewable energy. The facilities, located in County Galway, Ireland, and Denmark’s central Jutland, will power Apple’s online services including the iTunes Store, the App Store, iMessage, Maps and Siri for customers across Europe.
• 29. Apple are working for the Apple Car, iCar, or whatever Cupertino decides to name its upcoming automobile.

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Learn more about our commitment to doing business ethically and in full compliance with the law.

Business Conduct

The Business Conduct Policy provides the foundational guide for how we interact with customers, with third parties, and with each other.

Business Conduct Policy

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Apple Anti-Corruption Policy

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Apple Trade Compliance

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Apple’s Global Whistleblowing Policy applies to all current and former employees, directors and officers, contractors and subcontractors of Apple and its subsidiaries, and sets out Apple’s approach to protecting and supporting individuals who report potential misconduct.

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Apple sets out the legal and ethical standards required of businesses that associate themselves with our brand.

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Apple engages in policy discussions where they matter to our business and customers. This policy defines our position on corporate political contributions and describes how Apple participates in public debate in the United States through direct and indirect advocacy.

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International HRM Case Study: Apple Inc.

Apple hrm case study: abstract.

International human resource management has become a necessary undertaking in many multinational corporations. Globalization, a major driver of international trade, is one of the factors behind this development. Success in international ventures is significantly driven by the input of expatriates or international assignees.

In this paper, some issues relating to these assignees were highlighted. They include such issues as the various aspects of pre-departure training, recruitment, and selection criteria. Staffing strategies were also reviewed in this study. The author of this paper proposed a system of measuring return on international assignments.

The topics mentioned above were analyzed in the context of Apple Inc., a top ranking multinational corporation. The success of this organization is one of the reasons why it was selected for this study.

Key words: International human resource management, international assignees, multinational corporations, Apple Inc.

Apple’s HRM

In the recent past, there has been an increase in the number of multinational corporations operating in the world. Such companies are heavily investing in the global market. A number of factors have influenced the growth of these organizations.

They include dynamics of international trade, amalgamation of the financial markets, and human migration. Other factors include speedy movement of capital as a result of globalization. All these factors have facilitated trade on the international arena.

Human resource management entails the activities carried out by organizations to effectively utilize their human resource. Consequently, effective human resource management at the global level is a major determinant of success in international trade.

Human resource development at the international level has largely focused on the formulation of effective and highly skilled workforce. By doing this, individual employees and the organization at large can realize their ultimate goals of serving customers.

Apple Inc. is a competitive global company in the communications and electronics industry. It is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of communications and media devices.

It is also involved in the manufacture and distribution of digital music players and portable computers. The company has operations in different parts of the world. It has an elaborate international human resource management system.

The current study addresses the element of international human resource management with regards to Apple Inc. Various aspects related to management of personnel in this organization are reviewed.

They include, among others, training of employees, deployment across the world, and return on investment. The author of this paper holds that effective management of human resource at Apple Inc. has contributed to the success of the organization.

Apple’s Experience in International HRM: Case Study

Components of pre-departure training.

Overview. According to Avril and Magnini (2007), pre-departure training provides expatriates with the knowledge and skills required to survive following their immediate arrival at the destined country of work. Essentially, employees going to work in another country require information on various aspects of the host nation before they leave home.

Some of the things they need to know include the culture and customs of the host country. They also need to be aware of the language and dress code appropriate to the new environment. In addition, international assignees need information on business etiquette in the new country (Avril & Magnini, 2007).

Information on verbal and non-verbal communication, taboos, rules, decision-making techniques, and business management structures should be provided to international employees during pre-departure training.

Culture and customs of the new country. Training on host country’s customs is essential in ensuring that the expatriates adapt to the local culture. It is noted that business operations would be negatively affected if the behavior patterns of the new employees conflict with the cultural expectations in the host country.

For instance, a US citizen working for Apple Inc. may be deployed to Saudi Arabia. Such an employee should be aware of how Saudi nationals regard alcohol. In addition, female employees would be expected to conform to the societal expectations with regards to their dress code.

Language. Language is an essential component of communication in international business. Expatriates and inpatriates require more than just basic knowledge on the host country’s language for effective execution of their assignments. In addition, they should be aware of non-verbal communication techniques. Such awareness would facilitate communication in foreign countries.

Business etiquette in the new environment. Business etiquette may vary between countries. In some parts of the world, governments regulate business policies. For instance, such elements as tax policies, power distance, and human resource management may differ from one country to the other (Katz & Seifer, 1996).

An expatriate manager at Apple Inc. would be required to understand the variation of such policies. Failure to comply with the new rules and regulations would most likely jeopardize the operations of the corporation in the host market.

Business management structures and decision-making techniques. Different countries adopt different approaches in relation to business structures and decision-making techniques. For instance, decision making in high-power distance cultures differs with that in low-power distance communities.

As such, a manager working for Apple’s branch in Korea should be aware of the best approach to adopt in directing employees. The same applies to a German employee working in Africa, where decisions usually come from the top management.

Rationale for Utilizing the Pre-Departure Training Components

Managers are expected to effectively handle employees from different cultural backgrounds. The ability of such managers as far as the employees are concerned affects the profitability of the company. People from different countries express their nationality and dress codes differently.

The approach used by international assignees when dealing with certain problems may also differ. Such issues as the need to interpret actions and comments, predict behaviors, and resolve conflicts may arise. As a result, focusing on the various components of pre-departure training would harmonize Apple’s operations with the reality in the host country.

Performance Assessment among Expatriates

Introducing assessment. Assessing the performance of expatriates is a major element in international human resource management. The performance can be reviewed using a number of criteria. Such criteria include determining strategy implementation and attainment of competitive advantage.

According to Caligiuri (1997), there are three criteria commonly used in evaluating expatriates. They include completion of foreign assignments, performance on the foreign assignment, and cross-cultural adjustment. The criteria apply to all employees irrespective of the operations of a particular organization.

Completion of foreign assignments. It is an important behavioral measurement. It is used in reviewing the results of tasks assigned to foreign employees. Success under this criterion is determined by the ability of the employee to complete their assignment without seeking for transfer to another country (Caligiuri, 1997).

Premature termination translates to failure in relation to the performance of the expatriate. In most cases, premature termination occurs when the expatriate requests for transfer to home country before completion of the assignment. The assignee may also be requested to return home before they have completed their work.

Cross-cultural adjustment. Adjustment to foreign culture also determines the success of the assignee (Caligiuri, 1997). Inability to adjust to the host country means failure in the assignment. Successful adjustment indicates that the employee is psychologically comfortable working and living in the new country.

Adjusted assignees are comfortable with the local culture. On their part, maladjusted employees find it hard to survive in the new environment. The failed employees may prematurely terminate their assignments (Suutari & Brewster, 2000).

Performance on the foreign assignment. Multinational corporations expect their employees to adjust culturally and remain in their foreign posts. In addition, the expatriates are expected to successfully execute their assignments. According to Caligiuri (1997), a large number of maladjusted foreign employees fail to achieve the envisaged outcomes in their work.

There are various measures of performance with regards to foreign assignments. They include establishing working relationships with the locals. Others include transfer of information and the language and cultural proficiency of the foreign employee (Caligiuri, 1997). The measures are in relation to the benefits of expatriates to the multinational corporation.

Recruitment and Selection Strategy for Apple Inc.’s International Assignments

According to Suutari and Brewster (2000), international assignments entail three discrete phases. The first is the pre-assignment stage. It involves the selection and preparation of employees for deployment.

The second is the ‘actual’ assignment. It involves the ‘actual’ stay of the expatriate in the new country. The last is the post-assignment stage. It is also commonly known as repatriation.

Recruitment and selection of expatriates is a multifaceted process. It takes into account both personal characteristics and interpersonal skills. Caligiuri (1997) postulates that most international organizations use knowledge of company systems and technical competencies in the selection process.

The strategy is the most suitable recruitment and selection criteria for Apple Inc. It is noted that measuring relevant cross-cultural and interpersonal abilities is a difficult task for many organizations. In addition, most expatriate postings rely on personal recommendations.

Such recommendations are derived from either line managers or specialist personnel (Suutari & Brewster, 2000). As such, Apple should rely on the proposed recruitment and selection policy. The strategy would reduce chances of failure in the assigned job.

Staffing Alternatives for Foreign Operations

There are several approaches used in resolving the issue of human resource in relation to international assignments. The strategies include ethnocentric and polycentric staffing approaches. Others are regiocentric and geocentric staffing strategies (Dowling, Welch & Schuler, 2004).

The ethnocentric approach involves filling all the key positions in the organization with local experts. The polycentric approach, on the other hand, proposes the use of host country’s nationals in managing subsidiaries. However, in this approach, key positions in the corporation’s headquarters are held by nationals of the parent country (Dowling et al., 2004).

The regiocentric approach is a mixed staffing strategy. Here, executives are transferred between regions. Operations of the company are divided according to geographical regions.

Apple should adopt the geocentric policy to address its staffing needs. The approach disregards the nationality and location of the candidate. It is appropriate for Apple Inc. since the corporation has a vast international experience and a global structure that is well developed.

Importance of a High Quality Mentoring System for International Assignees

Mentorship refers to a form of developmental relationship. In this case, an experienced employed assists less experienced members of staff in performing their tasks. The mentors can function as guides in the exploration of career interests. They provide support to international assignees deployed by multinational organizations.

Mentoring systems for expatriates can be formal or informal. The former describes established procedures and specified targets. The latter, on the other hand, is initiated whenever the assignees seek advice from their superiors or from external professionals.

A high quality mentoring system is very important to any multinational organization. It determines the success or failure of foreign employees. In most cases, the programs provide the management with an opportunity to support the assignees.

The support is especially important during departure or repatriation phases of the assignment. As such, the programs are powerful means of strategically retaining valuable employees with international experience.

High quality mentoring programs also help the employees to adjust to their new environment. It improves their productivity and overall performance in their new posts.

In addition, the programs provide continuous communication on changes in the company and the state of affairs back at home. As a result, the expatriates can effectively cope with transfers, expatriation, and repatriation.

The current global economic meltdown has led to cost constraints in most organizations. As such, it is important for organizations to have the right people at the right place. High quality mentorship programs are very essential in the management of talent and employees.

To this end, Apple Inc. employees should always have a mentor irrespective of their position in the foreign country. The mentors should supervise the assignee with a view to support their development.

They should assist the new employee for a given period of time. Prior to the assignment, the employee must undergo an extensive pre-departure training. The training will help them settle down in the host country.

Measuring Return on Investment in International Assignments

Every business undertaking requires a mechanism to determine its subsequent return on investment. The same applies to international assignments in multinational organizations. The companies should analyze the profitability or importance of international assignments to the parent organization.

Studies conducted with the aim of measuring return on investment with regards to international human resource have focused on numerical results of foreign deployments. In most cases, the costs and returns associated with the investment are used to determine its profitability (Caligiuri, 1997).

To determine Apple Inc.’s return on investment, one should take into consideration a number of factors. The various aspects of international human resource management would help in assessing the profitability of foreign employees. The factors include identification of the assignment’s purposes, cross-cultural training costs (Dowling et al., 2004), and compensation.

In addition, performance management and repatriation outcomes should be factored in. Calculation of return on investment would eventually be ascertained by analyzing the financial and non-financial costs and benefits of the venture. The costs and benefits are then linked to the expenditure incurred with regards to the assignment.

Apple Human Resource Management: Conclusion

International human resource management differs with domestic management of employees in several ways. Managing employees at the international level is characterized by different labor markets, varying management practices, and dynamic labor laws. Economic and other cultural barriers make international management of human resource a complex affair.

Managing international employees may differ from one organization to the other. However, according to this author, the underlying principles are similar in all organizations. As a result, effective management of assignees and their related assignments is a major determinant of the success of these international ventures.

Avril, A., & Magnini, V. (2007). A holistic approach to expatriate successes. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 19 (1), 53-64.

Caligiuri, P. (1997). Assessing expatriate success: Beyond just “being there”. New Approaches to Employee Management, 4 (1), 117-140.

Dowling, P., Welch, D., & Schuler, R. (2004). International human resource management: Managing people in a multicultural context (4th ed.). Cincinnati, OH: Southwestern College Publishing.

Katz, J., & Seifer, D. (1996). It is a different world out there: Planning for expatriate success through selection, pre-departure training, and on-site socialization. Human Resource Planning, 19 (2), 32-47.

Suutari, V., & Brewster, C. (2000). Making their own way: International experience through self-initiated foreign assignments. Journal of World Business, 35 (4), 417-436.

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IvyPanda. (2023, February 18). International HRM Case Study: Apple Inc. https://ivypanda.com/essays/international-hrm-a-case-study-of-apple-inc-essay/

"International HRM Case Study: Apple Inc." IvyPanda , 18 Feb. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/international-hrm-a-case-study-of-apple-inc-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'International HRM Case Study: Apple Inc'. 18 February.

IvyPanda . 2023. "International HRM Case Study: Apple Inc." February 18, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/international-hrm-a-case-study-of-apple-inc-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "International HRM Case Study: Apple Inc." February 18, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/international-hrm-a-case-study-of-apple-inc-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "International HRM Case Study: Apple Inc." February 18, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/international-hrm-a-case-study-of-apple-inc-essay/.

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