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ooth sailing on more than just one frontier for the parent company. It is also interesting how Apple has diversified its portfolio of solutions that it takes to the market place. As a company, much of its success can be attributed to its flexibility and willingness to change and adapt tithe different demands of the customers.

Today, it can no longer be called a computer company in the literal sense of the word. It is a diversified business that is adapting to market needs and is being driven by demand. Its product portfolio ranges from computers to software, music to online entertainment and music stores, networking for its product range and entertainment products etc. It can almost be called a retailer of sorts providing a variety or product and service deliverables. In order to encourage this retail growth, Apple has introduced to the market, 100 ‘Apple Stores’ that encompass the unique Apple experience showcasing the entire range of its products.

Where will all this diversification finally take Apple? To the layman, it appears that staying ahead of the competition through technological innovation and advances is the way forward. Steve Jobs however disagrees during his interview with Slender. He states that it is next to impossible for a company to stay ahead of its competition purely on ensuring that it has the most advanced technology that it can introduce to the marketplace. It is imperative that the driving force behind a company lies in a core competency that its simpler and more basic. In keeping with the same, Jobs says that Apple’s main strength lies in its development of software for multivariate products.

In the future, he sees Apple providing software as a solution to integrate various applications and ensures connectivity and homogeneity across products. He highlights by taking the example of iTunes. As we know, it provides the software for converting all audio files into downloadable files onto the PC or Mac and finally the iPod. What is interesting is that 62 per cent of all music downloads on the Internet today is through the iTunes Music Store. That is a significant proportion of total downloads where all benefits get accrued directly to Apple Inc. This is why the software is the key as Jobs is wont to say.

(Slender, Brent (2005) ‘How big can Apple get?’ Fortune; 2/21/2005, Vol. 151 Issue 4, p66)

Methodology

The study was undertaken through the collation of information through both primary and secondary means. Due to the constraint of time, the distribution of questionnaires were not an option, although it would have helped in understanding the benefits and problems that iPod users face with different models of the iPods. Instead, primary research was carried out with the help of one to one interviews with a selected few iPod users on an informal basis to gain an insight into what they believed buying an iPod did for them. As a last resort, one to one discussions were also conducted with users of iPods through forums on the Internet. However, one could not establish for certain if the sample interviewed were indeed genuine owners of the iPod. The information used from these discussions was carefully 本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。