Litigation over innovation

It is no secret that the iPhone 5 was released within the last few weeks. It is all people could talk about for weeks, sowing just how much people love their Apple products. They expect a lot from their products and for the most part Apple has delivered in the past. After the release of the newest iPhone, many consumers have not been happy with the product. There are multiple issues and dissatisfaction of features. This is worrying many people that Apple just is not living up to their name anymore, which is concerning since they have spend the last decade building up their followers.

Apple is currently engaged in multiple litigations. They are not perfect; they have flaws and make mistakes. Apple has a reputation for its innovativeness and excellent product quality, but what happens when they no longer deliver up to the consumers’ expectations? The mistakes of the iPhone 5 left business strategists wondering whether they are due to poor judgment or a change in priorities for the company. Their business model has been to develop and market high quality innovative products. In the last decade, Apple has really stepped up their game; bringing out products like the MacBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad, blowing consumers away. However, recently it seems like they are spending their time and resources in legal battles.

 

Apple Picture

Once companies start spending a lot of time defending their products in courtrooms, that’s when business strategists become concerned. Companies such as MCI and Microsoft spent a great deal of their time defending their products in courtrooms and in return fell from the top, being quickly replaced by companies whose head were in the marketplace. The main reasons for this concern are; “legal battles divert leadership from looking after the basic corporate functions”, “legal victories create a sense of complacency,” and “litigation may hurt the company’s image among users.” Experts say that Apple’s priorities are off and they need to set them straight. They need to place innovation ahead of litigation and stay focused on what is most important; the consumers. Once the consumers start to get disappointed, they will slowly start to lose their following and fall from the top.

This goes along with our topic in class of project management. In every project, the most important aspects must be addressed and accomplished. In the Key Success Factors, top-down commitment is the most important and it may seem from the article that Apple is not focused on that and that might be why is may lose its success. Consumers are still buying the products, however from the recent drop of Apple’s stock price, it is obvious that they are slowly losing their followers, which will only continue if they fail to please time and time again.

Do you believe that Apple has lost sight of what is really important? And therefore that is why the iPhone5 was such a letdown to so many people? Consumers have forgiven and forgotten the mistakes made by Apple in the past, but how many more mistakes do you they can make before  they start to lose a great deal of followers?

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2012/10/01/is-apple-spending-more-time-on-litigation-than-innovation/

 

2 thoughts on “Litigation over innovation

  1. I don’t believe that Apple has lost sight of what the customer’s want and have grown accustomed to, but I do believe that they made a couple mistakes. The iPhone 5 may have had a few mix ups with the maps application, but besides that I can’t think of anything that would make Apple users lose faith in the brand. They delivered on a bigger screen and a lighter product. Even with a couple mistakes, Apple still stands out as an industry leader and creates products using the best technology available. Although Apple may be going through litigation, I don’t think that customers will stop using products. However, there is a possibility that this litigation window will allow competitors to a chance to sway customers.

    1. they always have a market for people who don’t actually know how to use a computer, or ever care to learn how to do more than edit edit video and surf the web

Leave a Reply to dr blais Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *