A Discussion on the Solution for the Problem of Apple's Security System

Apple Inc. is a company primarily focused in the technology sector, such as computers, software, and smartphones. It is arguably one of the most well-known companies when it comes to technology that is on the cutting edge and has quite a large following of loyal customers. Despite their limited product line, Apple Inc. does remarkably well as of late, even when the economy in the United States was beginning to decline.

Apple Inc. was originally started out as “Apple Computer” in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, whenever they launched their first computer, the Apple I.

Many people are fascinated due to the fact both men were college dropouts and that they were actually viewed as outcasts in schools and other places that they were in. However, what seemed to really intrigue people about Apple Inc. was that was not started in a normal office building or a factory, but in a basement or a garage.

Up until the 1990’s hit, Apple was known to have some of the best pcs that were on the market, such as the Macintosh and the Power Mac.

However, competition began to increase in the sector and the company had to decide what direction to take to improve their sales. 2001 brought about significant changes for Apple Inc, as they released the iPod, which was currently a product very new and innovative to the market and was a big success.

Currently, Apple Inc. is still extremely competitive and well known in the industry and does remarkably well.

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They are well known all over the world for their brand, and people don’t mind paying a higher price for Apple’s products. With the development and release of the Macbook Pro, iMac, and iPhone, Apple has steadily kept up with advancements and products that the customers appreciate and enjoy. Apple Inc. has been considered the most successful electronics company in the world.

The definition of Porter’s Five Forces Model is that it helps to analyze and identify the five competitive forces that mold every industry and helps to identify an industry’s strengths and weaknesses (Porter’s n.d).

Competition in the industry. Apple Inc. has a few different companies that work in different sectors of the industry, but can be classified as competition. In regards to Apple’s smartphone industry, there are companies such as Samsung or Nokia (Arnold 2013). When it comes to computer hardware, Apple has a few more competitors that include companies such as Dell, Asus, Acer, and HP. Because all of Apple’s products rely on Apple’s own operating system, there is also the completion between Microsoft’s Windows operating system and Apple’s OSX, along with Microsoft’s recent OneDrive cloud service which also offers many of the same features that Apple’s iCloud system does (Whitney 2014).

Threat of new entrants. There is currently a very low threat of new entrants into the industry that Apple is in. Apple has been called the most successful retailer in the world (Forbes). I think that there are a variety of factors that prevent new entrants into the market, but the biggest factor is that Apple is an extremely well-known and recognizable brand. Apple is very much a leading force in the industry and therefore the copyrights for new technology and even keeping up with Apple’s technology design would be terribly difficult for new entrants.

Bargaining power of suppliers. The bargaining power of suppliers when it comes to Apple Inc. is extremely low. There are suppliers out there that would kill to obtain an exclusive contract with them just because of their well-known brand and for that reason, the control lies with Apple Inc.

Bargaining power of buyers. The bargaining power of buyers is currently medium-low in my opinion. I think that buyers are essentially more loyal to the Apple Inc. brand more than anything, and want to remain loyal. There is also an extreme time sink and expense if a buyer was switching to a PC due to compatibility issues. For a business, this would be an extreme headache. However, there are tons of compatibility issues with software in regards to Apple’s operating system, so PCs do currently dominate the market and industry.

Threat of substitute products or services. In regards to Porter’s Five Force Model, I think that there is a medium threat of substitute products or services currently. The main substitute product when it comes to Apple Inc. is that PCs have a lot more customization features, such as changing the configurations, building them piece by piece, performance, and definitely different price ranges. Apple has extremely limited options in a market that likes to customize what they buy. However, there is no Mac operating system clone or anything that competes with the Mac operating system in the computer industry.

In regards to supply chain management systems, enterprises resource planning systems, customer relationship management systems, database management systems and a database warehouse, Apple has remained extremely innovative in their approach with these systems already.

Supply Chain Management Systems. Apple Inc. has run its supply chain management systems very much the same as it has its product line; extremely famous for being innovative and design. It has also been ranked as the best supply chain in the world by Gartner (Peltea 2014). The way Apple runs its supply chain system is that it purchases materials and components from its’ various suppliers, then ships them to its’ manufacturing plant in China, and then once the products are complete, they are shipped to the consumers directly (Peltea 2014).

Data Warehouse. Apple Inc. currently operates on a “multiple-petabyte Teradata system” (Harris 2013). They use their huge data warehouse, currently marked as one of the biggest data warehouses in existence, to grasp an understanding of its customers across all of its’ different product categories. It also keeps up with all the iTunes data that comes in, along with the iCloud service.

Agent Based Technologies. When thinking of agent-based technology, Apple’s Siri system comes to mind. It is an artificial intelligence system that helps the user with a variety of tasks such as getting directions, looking up a word, or even finding out a restaurants times of operation (Levy 2014). Siri is quite remarkable and is a standard feature in many of Apple’s product lines such as its iPhones.

I would classify Apple Inc. as more of a B2C and a B2B e-commerce business model. There is the more B2C aspect in that there is its’ web store that sells all of its products (to an extent) and makes them available to individuals, and there is the iTunes and App store for its operating system users to use. This would make sense that they were using a very fixed B2C e- commerce model. However, Apple Inc. also uses a B2b e-commerce business model in that they sell a lot of their products to businesses as well.

For example, Apple’s iPhone is sold through cell phone carriers such as AT&T or Verizon, because they also rely on the cellular service to activate the phones and contracts and such for the users. I think that as long as they keep this balance in check, this model will work out the best for them and be able to have them target all the consumers that they can.

The systems development life cycle, or SDLC, is defined (DuPaul n.d) as “essentially a series of steps, or phases, that provide a model for the development and lifecycle management of an application or piece of software”. I think that implementation of using the systems development life cycle could potentially be beneficial for certain aspects into Apple Inc’s projects. The fact that this process allows everyone to become involved would probably help and create a positive end result.

However, I think that this cycle could be useful on some of the newer aspects of technology and software that Apple is producing, but I think it would be probably a waste of time on the other already implemented software and systems. As long as the development teams already have an established process on how they would handle the SDLC system and how each team is ready to handle each step, the end result should be quite positive for Apple.

Apple Inc. is a lead example on how they have planned their business continuity plan for if something goes wrong. They currently report all their risk factors and threat factors to the SEC when they submit their quarterly 10-Q filings. I think that this helps them publicize that they know all of their risks and have a clear plan in motion in case anything might occur. They outsource many different operations to third-parties, such as suppliers and manufacturing factories. I think that this could be a potential hazard, as if something arises with the third-party issues, their whole operations system could be in risk.

Apple, as previously mentioned, is extremely competitive in the industry. The major factor that makes Apple Inc. different from their competitors is that they have a unique operating system for all their products that is only for their products. This makes it hard to compete with for its’ competition, as consumers that like the OSX of Apple Inc. will stay loyal to the brand.

Competitors also have to rely only on Windows, aka Microsoft, for their operating systems, while Apple Inc. only has to rely on itself since they produce and use their own operating system. This is a very unique competitive edge that Apple Inc. has over its competition. The fact that Apple has its own operating system makes it so that they have to be extremely competitive with the emerging trends in their industry. If not, it could ruin Apple Inc. and the brand.

Apple also has adapted and led the way for many different products in the industry. Apple’s iPhones were really the start of the whole smartphone movement, along with the development and implementation of Siri as well.

Currently, there has been a very public event that led to many people doubting the security of Apple Inc. products and the iCloud service. This allowed people to hack into many celebrities accounts and access very personal material that was then publicized on the internet. I think that this event uncovered many of the SSL issues that were present in Apple’s OSX systems and will help them ensure information is protected and free from security vulnerabilities. Apple has recently come out and stated that their new security program on their iOS systems would encrypt everything behind the user password or thumbprint, and make it so that nothing, not even them, could access the data without it (Brustein 2014).