AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
The who mastered ibm chinese4/29/2023 ![]() And CEO Tim Cook tends to give vague answers when he's challenged about China's human rights record like he does here in a 2020 interview with The Atlantic. As geopolitical tensions rise over issues including spying, the suppression of human rights and the country's threats against Taiwan, Apple is worried about its footprint in China. And that was sort of the brilliance of the system.ĪLLYN: But now the brilliance of the system in China has come to represent something else to Apple - a huge risk. Apple engineers were embedded there to keep an eye on quality control.ĭOUG GUTHRIE: If you knew how to navigate that market really well, which Tim Cook and Apple did, you could really find the best partner who would make the best component for the cheapest price. He says China set up industrial clusters where little components for Apple products were made and then quickly moved to a final assembly plant run by the company Foxconn. Doug Guthrie is another former Apple employee who focused on China. If Apple needed another airport in China, it happened and it happened fast. KATE WHITEHEAD: I was around when they called up the local city and asked them to build another airport because we needed a larger airport to ship out more goods.ĪLLYN: That's right. Kate Whitehead helped oversee Apple's operations in China. The government poured billions of dollars into new infrastructure for Apple - building factories, paving new roads, constructing housing for Apple workers. In 2001, Apple brokered a partnership with China. ![]() The country had a massive, low-wage labor force and had developed manufacturing and engineering expertise. STEVE JOBS: Well, Apple was about 90 days away from going bankrupt back then in the early days, and it was much worse than I thought.ĪLLYN: Apple's turnaround had many factors - Steve Jobs, the introduction of products like the iPod and, very importantly, China. Here's former Apple CEO Steve Jobs recalling this period in a 2010 interview. It was having a really hard time competing with PCs, which were cheaper and quickly becoming the de facto computer in offices and households. Microsoft and IBM were doing laps around the company. ![]() NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn examines what's at stake.īOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: In the late 1990s, Apple was in trouble. ![]() Now Apple is reckoning with its dependence on China. Apple is the world's most valuable tech company, in large part because of China. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |