Essay #4 Patrick Bedics Apple

    Apple is a company that has been working hard to sidestep the stigma of Americanization.  It is this conscious effort to avoid this dominant title that has allowed them the room for success in the global market.  With an estimated income of $70 million in the international sales alone, I think they have proven to be successful in avoiding being placed into that category (Johnson, Petrecca, & Halliday, 1997, p3).  Apple?s mentality seems to match that of Arjun Appadurai as he feels that critics seem to forget that as things are ?brought into new societies they tend to become indigenized in one or other way? (1990, p295).  It is that very idea that is established to push away from the idea that Americanization is something that is easily achieved.
    The threat of local countries becoming a dominant factor is much more real to certain countries, than is the thought of Western culture being forced (Appadurai, 1990, p295).  This illustrates that even though it is not necessarily simple to create a force deserving of the title of Americanization, but companies can still go into business with all intentions of avoiding even the hint of it.  Apple was once considered the runt of the business world, but quickly changed its status with the outbreak of iPods.  As mentioned in previous essays, this is a product of Apple that crosses a lot of geographical boundaries.  How does that piece of Apple not carry the idea of Americanization?
    A situation Massey describes, is that people feel like they knew a certain street but now there are different shops and restaurants that occupy this space and that creates a distance from that person to what they once knew (1993, p1). This cannot be said in the present anymore.  The population today is not phased anymore by the idea of foreign objects, media, or people that come into their native country.  We are not phased, because it happens all too often whether you are accepting or rejecting of it.  Because we know that there is inevitably going to be the presence of other countries within our own nowadays, the finger is not able to be strongly pointed at one country or another.  That fact has allowed Apple to spread their products, namely the iPod, to other countries without coming off as a dominating American force. 
    Working with, instead of against another countries enables Apple to push themselves product by product into the corners of the globe without being seen as an evil force.  Apple, of course, is out to collect profits but they are also bringing the products to people that they want and that is what has built credibility with consumers globally.  Daniel Altman wrote in a blog in the International Herald Tribune, ?How can you tell when a company?s feeling powerful?  One way is when its boss believes that he can give away a moneymaker, change the way a global industry operates, and still come out on top.  And that?d what has happened at Apple? (2007, p1).

  REFERENCES

Altman, D.  (2007).  Is copy protection obsolete?  International Herald Tribune.  Retrieved on June 13, 2007, from http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/business/globalization/?p=351

Appadurai, A.  (1990).  Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy.  Public Culture 2(2):1-24

Johnson, B., Petrecca, L., & Halliday, J.  (1997).  Reunited: Jobs, clow aim to rebuild apple ?very quickly.?  Advertising Age, 68(32): 3-26

Massey, D.  (1993).  ?Power-geometry and a progressive sense of place.?  Ch. 4 in Bird, John, et al.  Mapping in the futures: Local cultures, global change.  Pp 59-69 

Posted at 09:09AM Jun 15, 2007 by BEDICS, PATRICK in General  |  Comments[2]