The document provides an overview of the structure and ownership of the media sector by discussing Apple Inc. as a case study. It notes that Apple Inc. was founded in 1976 and is now a publicly owned company. It also discusses how Apple transitioned from an IT company to a media company with the introduction of iTunes. The summary then provides details on Apple's acquisitions and competitors in both computer and media markets.

1. Media Company Case
Study
Task 1 Understand the structure
and ownership of the media sector
Paige Ward

2. Apple
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer
electronics, computer software, and personal computers. Apple is a company that produce
the Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone, the MacBook, IPod Nano, and the IPod touch
and just recently they released the iPad they also began ITunes for downloading and
storing music, movies, TV shows and podcasts.

3. Apple Computer, as it was then called, was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniak, who raised the money to start the company on their own. After
early success with their first two models, the founders took the company public
in 1980 to raise the funds they needed to expand. The company is now owned
by its shareholders, or people who invested money in to the company. Bil Gates
owns 51% of the company, Apple. The apple Inc. didn’t start as a media
company it was an IT company, because one of their products is a IMac. When
ITunes was made that was what changed it to being a media company, because
it produced music etc…
Apple has purchased several companies in the past, some of these companies
are;
 Apple acquired C3 Technologies which is a 3D mapping company,
Siri Inc. which the voice activated personal assistant present in the iPhone 4S
and the new iPad.

4. In recent years, most PC manufacturers were rivals to Apple, for example;
Dell,
Alien ware,
Gateway etc.
but of course you can also factor in Microsoft as a rival to their Operating System (OS X/XP).
Recently they have branched out considerably, into online media (iTunes, Mobile Me, iPhone)
so you can factor in Napster and other legal music download sites, Hotmail and Gmail, and
Nokia, Samsung, Blackberry and alike.
Also, they rival in the server markets with
HP,
Sun,
SGI
and IBM
So, they now have a very diverse range of products, and there are many rivals that are
fighting with Apple in those markets.

5. A lot of the customers of apple Inc. tend to be people with their own business
because of the apps you can buy on them it can be good as a business
phone. Also quite a few teenagers, musicians also sometimes buy apple Inc.,
especially unsigned bands. The apps can help with certain parts of their
music.
Apple Inc. Produces, sells etc… by there self. They don’t use anyone else in
there company like Sony.

6. Apple Inc. is a global computer manufacturing company that is going through major changes in its organizational
culture and it’s organizational structure due to several events of the past few years. This is a company that grew
extremely fast in little time, that their management found themselves not being able to keep their operations and
finances under control. Apple Inc. has been forced to revaluate and redesign it’s organizational culture and
organizational structure to avoid bankruptcy.

7. Apple Inc. has received criticism for the alleged use of sweatshop
labour, environmental destruction, and unethical business practices.
Additionally, it has been criticized for its litigious legal policy of suing
before first gathering all the facts necessary to pursue a legitimate
lawsuit.

8. Bibliography
I used a variety of websites to find out information about apple, I used Wikipedia for some
points but I also included points from these website;
http://www.apple.com/uk/
http://facts.randomhistory.com/interesting-facts-about-apple-and-mac.html
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/apple_computer_in
c/index.html
http://www.mac-history.net/