Apple - Publications - Faculty & Research

02 Mar 2016
What Do You Think?

Is Apple’s Real Privacy Challenge Technology Innovation Itself?

Is the Discussion of Infotech Security versus Privacy a Waste of Time? Summing Up Discussion of this month’s question devolved into a debate about the usual issues: privacy versus security, Apple versus the FBI, citizens versus their... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology

20 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

When CEOs Become Activists

cancel company events that would have required customers or employees to travel to Indiana. And Apple CEO Tim Cook authored an op-ed in The Washington Post to oppose the legislation. The public outcry against the RFRA seemed to make an... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology; Publishing

06 Apr 2016
What Do You Think?

As Tim Cook, How Would You Tackle Apple's Next Challenge?

Kinney expressed the view that the Government’s recent success in employing hackers to break the phone’s code “relieves Apple of a somewhat alienating position. The time that it took to do it (and one might add the cost of more than $1.3... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Computer

19 Feb 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Amazoned: Is Any Industry Safe?

it cheaper for startups to stand up an enterprise. One result: VCs could suddenly fund more companies. Apple and Amazon Are ’Frenemies’ When It Comes To eReaders Why sometimes it's better for fierce competitors like View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

19 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Funding Innovation: Is Your Firm Doing it Wrong?

Here's a cautionary tale of innovation woe: Nokia has consistently outspent Apple on phone-related research and development over the past decade, especially in the years leading up to the launch of Apple's iPhone. Between 2004 and 2007,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

14 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

How to Profit from Scarcity

illusion that supplies would be limited. In fact, there were very few supply shortages. In both cases, the marketers anticipated demand levels pretty well. As the mountains of press coverage and strong opening day sales attest, the scarcity illusion strategy paid off... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products; Advertising

11 Dec 2006
Research & Ideas

Fixing Price Tag Confusion

tend to process as many product dimensions as the number of prices shown to them. All-inclusive pricing focuses consumers on the core component of the transaction. Partitioned pricing, in contrast, triggers separate processing of the offered benefits. For example, if... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

08 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

The Critical Computer Science Principles Every Strategic Leader Needs to Know

says. “Generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT and the motion gestures control in the Apple Vision Pro continue to expand who can use a computer and what you can use it for.” Wu shares how his father, who studied computer science in college... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Technology; Information Technology

09 Dec 2015
Research Event

When Hosts Attack: The Competitive Threat of Online Platforms

In the online marketplace, oodles of retailers and developers rely on “platforms” such as Amazon.com, the Apple App Store, Facebook, and Twitter to get their products and services into the hands of users. Retailers, for example, sell... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Technology; Web Services

02 Nov 2020
What Do You Think?

Is Antitrust Just a Quaint Notion in the Digital Age?

SUMMING UP Is antitrust just a quaint notion in the internet/Cloud age? What do you think? The lack of response to November’s column sends me a message: There appears to be less interest in antitrust issues regarding technology platforms such as Google and View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail; Technology; Telecommunications; Communications; Consumer Products; Service

23 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 23, 2015

Chrissie No abstract available. Purchase this case: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/315059-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 715-456 Apple Inc. in 2015 At the end of 2014, Apple Inc. recorded the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

How Software Platforms Revolutionize Business

access to many diverse transactions through a single device, be it a mobile phone, a videogame system, an iPod, a car navigation system, etc. Q: Software platforms naturally lead to multi-sided business but Apple seems to be the outlier... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Video Game; Web Services

06 May 2008
First Look

First Look: May 6, 2008

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-099.pdf Cases & Course MaterialsApple Inc., 2008 Harvard Business School Case 708-480 In January 2007, three decades after its incorporation, Apple Computer shed the second word in its name and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

30 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

Tracks of My Tears: Reconstructing Digital Music

At the dawn of the digital music era, record labels went along with a pricing scheme devised by Apple that they are still paying for today. The idea to "unbundle" albums into separate tracks sold for 99 cents each suddenly... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Music

February 1998
Case

Creating the International Trade Organization

By: David A. Moss, George R. Appling and Andrew D Archer

In the late 1940s, officials at the U.S. State Department began campaigning for the creation of an International Trade Organization (ITO). This new organization would oversee global negotiations on trade liberalization, foreign direct investment, cartels, and commodity... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Trade; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Globalized Economies and Regions; Agreements and Arrangements; Foreign Direct Investment; Economic Systems; International Relations

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29 Oct 2014
Research & Ideas

Inventing Products is Less Valuable Than Inventing Ideas

not commercialize the innovations. It was Steve Jobs and his Apple team that saw the possibilities during visits in 1979 and made them the cornerstone of the Macintosh. In other words, while Xerox may have invented many wonderful things,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

23 Jul 2014
Lessons from the Classroom

Innovation Is Magic. Really

the question is as important as the answer," Thomke says. When Apple Buys Your Company In teaching a case study about Apple, Thomke asks a thought-provoking question to conclude the discussion: Imagine that View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products

19 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Digital Technology’s Profound Game Change for Marketers

are becoming the rock stars of customer engagement—employing algorithms and analytics along with artistic creativity to win market share. In much the way Apple disrupted the music and phone industries with smart industrial design and... View Details

Keywords: by Jeffrey Bussgang; Advertising; Technology

27 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

The ‘Promotion’ That Makes You Feel Bad

Companies change strategy, operational processes, and policies all the time, each shift creating a new group of winners and losers. When Steve Jobs became CEO of Apple for the second time, the culture shifted, with designers enjoying... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

20 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Activist CEOs Are Rising Up—and Their Customers Are Listening

designed to determine whether Apple CEO Tim Cook’s vocal opposition to Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 2015, which he saw as discriminatory against LGBTQ individuals, would influence public opinion on the new law.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

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