Planned Obsolescence: Undermining Apple`s Commitment to Sustainability?

Apple was established on April 1, 1976, and incorporated on January 3, 1977. The company was initially called Apple Computers Inc. and was a maker of personal computers. By 1980, it had annual revenue of US$ 100 million and 1,000 employees. The company went public in December 1980. In 1980, Apple started facing stiff competition from other leading players in the market like International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Apple could not withstand the competition from IBM when the latter launched its own personal computers powered by MS-DOS (Microsoft disk operating system) and a revolutionary spreadsheet application called Lotus 1-2-3. However, Apple bounced back with the launch of its Lisa and Macintosh brand of personal computers in the years 1983 and 1984 respectively. With these computers, it introduced the Graphical User Interface (GUI), which became a milestone in the computing industry. GUI made computing user friendly and induced a lot more people to buy personal computers. However, despite the groundbreaking features and ease of functionality they offered, the Lisa and Macintosh computers were a commercial flop in the market....