The multinational tech giant has taken a new turn and is now focusing on the enterprise market; it is still to early to say whether the greatest tech company will be able to take that market as well.
Apple, Inc., on Wednesday released its iPad Pro for sale. This is the tech giant’s most expensive as well as largest tablet that has been released since the initiation of the multinational technology company. The chief executive officer Tim Cook has high hopes and ambitions for the newly released device, the fact that the investors find it rather modest, it give further hope to not only the CEO but also the company itself.
Launching the new Apple iPad Pro is a first for the American tech giant as well since the device is designed specifically for business users. Apple has always kept its focus on a more youngster outlook rather than aiming at the business niche market more like that of Blackberry’s. The business user has never been Apple’s ultimate user. As per the recent earnings call made by Tim Cook the revenue generation from the enterprise market or popularly the “business market” in a trial time span of one year touched a $25 billion mark. This revenue generation accounted for 11% of the sales that were made in that period.
The tech giant has always kept its focus on diversifying especially when it comes to its iPhones since they account for at least two third of the multinational company’s total revenue. The executive now is making an entrance into the enterprise market which he has had an eye on for a while now. This interest of Mr. Cook’s has been evident from the recent partnerships that he has gotten into in the past year. In order to grow its business and further be better able to market its products to bigger companies, the company decided to indulge in such partnerships with Cisco System as well as International Business Machines.
Additionally, this new strategy of Cook’s becomes extra clear when we get to know that the company has not just put its iPad against other tablets in the market but instead is being marketed against laptops. This is not quite as easy as it might sound since it has already been witnessed in the tech company’s history. Initially when the first iPad was launched back in 2010 it was a popular belief that it would go against laptops but thanks to the sales of its own Apple MacBook line, this thought failed to work out.
In Fiscal Year 2013, the number of units of iPads that were sold was 71 million which was the highest it has even gone to and since then the sales have declined. In the recent fiscal year 2015, the sales of the tech giant’s tablets dropped down to 55 million units which was a drop of 19%. The new iPad Pro has been priced at $799 for a 32-GB device and goes up to $1,217 for a 128 GB model.
Apple has decided to block Apple News due to the censorship laws in China.
Apple Inc. has discontinued the use of its News App in the Chinese market as reported by New York Times who cited a source that is closely associated with this venture.
The Apple News application that caters to stories and other digital content produced by multiple sources is so far only accessible to the company’s clientele within the United States. Moreover, testing is also being done in other regions like Australia and Britain. Those users who already have the application installed on Apple products can use it whilst traveling. However, the only constraint is that the app cannot be used in China claims New York Times.
As per the report, when any user launches the News app in China, the top banner that usually shows the current news, depicts a message that claims, "Can't refresh right now. News isn't supported in your current region."
This scenario has created a rough situation for Apple since it always portrays itself like a progressive firm whose primary focus is to advocate innovation and human rights. This creates havoc since China is the largest Internet market across the globe that has very strict rules in terms of censorship.
All Internet based companies are liable to comply with strict censorship rules as per their law. Along with that, they also have to come up with the firewall mechanism that tends to lower or, in most cases, block international web based services. Previously, Google also stopped its search engine related services in China once a dispute happened with the local government over censorship.
China is said to be the second largest market for Apple where during the third quarter a record was touched with sales worth $13 billion reports the New York Times. Mr. Xi Jinping who is the President of China, visited the United States last month where the chief executive officer of the iPhone making company, Mr. Tim Cook met the authority.
The reason why Apple might have banned the app in China can be the time that it will have to spend to filter out content. This, instead it chose to completely disable the app within the region. However, some users are not content with the move, who believe that the company is not just restricting Internet access but also stopping users from previewing the articles that are saved already on the devices.
The move is blunt but the censorship laws in China are relatively absurd to comply too.
