25 Facts Partners Should Know About Apple
Apple was founded on April Fools Day in 1976.
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Its first slogan was "Byte into an Apple."
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The first product the company sold was just a computer kit, Apple I, which came with a motherboard, CPU and RAM.
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The Apple IIe spent the longest time on shelf among all other Apple models, lasting on the market for almost 11 years.
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Before Apple hit it out of the park with the Macintosh brand, it crashed and burned with the Apple III and Apple Lisa–both were regarded as important technological advancements for the company but neither took off with buyers.
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Lisa was the first PC to use a GUI. For years, Apple locked horns with Microsoft in the courts with what many regard as a well-founded claim that the company stole Lisa’s ‘look and feel’ for Windows.
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Apple’s rise as a marketing super power first started with its landmark Macintosh launch commercial during the 1984 Super Bowl, a stylistic video directed by Ridley Scott.
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After being dominated by Wintel computers for much of the 1990s, Apple revamped its image with the iMac in 1998, which helped make the year the first profitable one in three years.
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Many Apple fanboys may not know it, but in 1997 Microsoft helped float Apple during some of its darkest days with a $150 million investment.
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Today Apple has more than 34,000 employees.
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In 2009 Apple brought in $42.91 billion in revenue.
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At the end of May, 2010, Apple’s market capitalization was measured at $222.12 billion.
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That market cap measurement was significant, as Apple beat out Microsoft’s $219.18 billion–proof to many that Apple is now more valuable than Microsoft.
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Apple has the most valuable brand and repurchase loyalty of any computer manufacturer, according to J.D. Power.
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There are currently over 200,000 applications available through the Apple Apps Store.
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In its first month on the market, iPad shipped out to 1 million users.
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In addition to its resellers and Apple Store distribution channels, the company chose to partner with Best Buy to push out the iPad.
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Apple has long had an on-again-off-again with channel partners, particularly since the unveiling of the first Apple Store in 2001.
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Three years after that first store opened, a number of Apple resellers filed suit against the company claiming that it offered the official stores bigger discounts and a more reliable product pipeline than to independent dealers.
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Apple eventually settled with the plaintiffs with that suit, but rumors still persist amongst partners that the practices still exist.
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Some Apple partners believe that the launch of the iPad may actually have started a new era in opportunities for those in the channel who can help businesses to integrate the device into enterprises.
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Apple may be looking to reconnect with the channel–it recently launched a new channel site that offers greater transparency into its channel ecosystem and what roles the company sees various partner types taking with customers.
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In concert with its sleek marketing legacy, Apple has also kept a tight reign over product prototypes and pre-release announcements.
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However, this spring the company suffered a big black eye when an Apple engineer left a prototype 4G iPhone on a beer garden barstool.
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When the man who found it sold it to tech news outlet Gizmodo, Apple may have made matters worse from a PR perspective when it pushed to have the home of the Gizmodo’s newsman in charge searched and his computer belongings seized.