Text 1. Read this article and give Russian equivalents to the underlined expressions.

APPLE COMPUTERS

Apple Computer, Inc., major manufacturer of personal computers with headquarters in Cupertino, California. Apple designs, produces, and sells personal computer systems for use in business, education, government, and the home. Its products are sold in more than 120 countries and include personal computers, printers, monitors, scanners, software, and networking products.

Apple was formed by Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak in 1976 to market the Apple I, a computer circuit board that they had designed and built in Jobs’s garage in Los Altos, California. In 1977 Apple introduced the Apple II, a personal computer able to generate colour graphics, with its own keyboard, power supply, which gave users wide possibilities for add-on devices and software programmes. Apple established its corporate headquarters in Cupertino in 1978. The Apple III computer, introduced in 1980, sold poorly because of hardware problems and a high price. With Apple II sales soaring, in 1982 Apple became the first personal-computer company to record annual sales of $1 billion. In 1983 Apple introduced the Lisa, a personal computer designed for business use that incorporated a handheld mouse to select commands and control an on-screen cursor. The Lisa was followed in 1984 by the Macintosh personal computer, based on the 68000 microprocessor manufactured by Motorola. Apple entered the office market with the introduction of its LaserWriter printer in 1985 and Macintosh Plus computer in 1986, a combination that launched the desktop publishing revolution.

Although the company prospered in the early 1980s, Wozniak left Apple in 1985 to start acompany of his own. That same year disappointing sales and internal wrangling led to restructuring, the comp a n y’s first layoffs, and Jobs’s departure from the company. John Sculley, whom Jobs had hired in 1983 as Ap p le’s president and chief executive officer, replaced Jobs as chairman of the com p an y’s board of directors.

The late 1980s and early 1990s were times of growth and change at Apple. In the late 1980s App le’s net income increased substantially, and in 1990 Apple introduced a new line of Macintosh computers, priced at 50 percent less than previous models to attract new customers to the Macintosh. In 1991 Apple formed an alliance with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and Motorola to develop the PowerPC family of reduced instruction set computing (RISC) microprocessors. In 1992 Apple introduced the family of Macintosh PowerBook laptop computers, which offered built-in networking capabilities.

In 1993 Michael Spindler replaced John Sculley as chief executive officer of Apple. The company announced restructuring plans that included substantial layoffs, wage freezes, and changes at the executive level. In 1993 Apple discontinued its Apple II product line.

In 1994 Apple launched the Power Macintosh line of high-performance computers, the first Macintosh computers based on Motorola’s PowerPC chip. After a year of solid growth,

Ap p le’s fortunes declined again in 1995. A string of problems, including severe shortages of some computer models, led to sluggish sales and financial losses. In 1996 Gilbert F. Amelio, a business executive credited with saving the National Semiconductor Corporation from financial ruin, replaced Spindler as Apple’s chief executive officer. Later in the year,

the company paid $400 million to acquire NeXT Software, a company headed by Apple cofounder Jobs, and announced plans to release a new operating system based in part on NeXT technology. Jobs returned to Apple as a part-time consultant. Despite losing $816 million in 1996, Apple rejected a number of proposed mergers.

In 1997 the co mp a n y’s sales continued to drop due to competition with manufacturers of Macintosh clones and computers using the Windows operating system developed by Microsoft Corporation. That year Apple laid off 4100 workers, or about 30 percent of itsworkforce, as part of a sweeping reorganisation designed to return the company toprofitability. Also that year, Apple's board of directors dismissed chief executive Amelio. At the time of his dismissal, Amelio had not managed to bring about a promised reversal of the company's fortunes.

In September 1997 Apple rehired Jobs as interim chief executive officer. At the helm of Apple for the first time in 11 years, Jobs embarked on a bold plan to turn the company around. He persuaded longtime rival Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple and to develop new Macintosh versions of Microsoft Office, a suite of business applicationprogrammes. He reversed the company’s decision to license the Mac OS to other computer manufacturers, which had taken away market share from Apple.  He discontinued the Newton, Apple’s handheld computer that had never made a profit. The company also introduced a successful line of high-powered desktop and notebook computers based on the PowerPC G3 processor made by IBM and Motorola. In 1998 Apple introduced the iMac, a low-cost computer with an eye-catching design.

In May 2001, after much speculation, Apple announced the opening of the Apple retail  stores, to be located in major U.S. consumer locations. These stores were designed for two purposes: to stem the tide of Apple's declining share of the computer market and tocounter a poor record of marketing Apple products by third-party retail outlets. In October 2001 Apple introduced its first iPod portable digital audio player, a product that has proven phenomenally successful. Apple's iTunes Store was introduced soon after, offering onlinemusic downloads. The service quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 2 billion downloads by January 2007.

Apple's success that began in 1998, but accelerated between 2003 to 2005, was evident in its skyrocketing stock. Between early 2003 and January 2006, the price of a share of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from a little more than $6 per share to more than $80 per share.

In a keynote address on June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs officially announced that Apple would begin producing Intel-based Macintosh computers beginning in 2006. Jobs confirmed rumours that the company had secretly been producing versions of its current operating system Mac OS X for both PowerPC and Intel processors for the previous five years.

Apple’s announcement that it would partner with long-time rival Intel was a reaffirmation of the company’s unique aesthetic philosophy in relation to the end-user experience. ―The soul of a Mac is its operating system‖, as Jobs proclaimed during the keynote, and indeed the Intel switch demonstrated how little it matters what brand of chip lies beneath the polish.

On January 13, 2006, Apple's market cap surpassed that of Dell, whose CEO, Michael Dell, had said, "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders", when asked, on October 6, 1997, what he would do if he owned Apple. Jobs had started a war of words with Dell back then when he criticised Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes".

On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs announced at Macworld 2007 that Apple Computer Inc. would be known as Apple Inc. This Macworld also served as the venue to launch the new

iPhone and the new Apple TV product. The next day, Apple shares hit 97.80, an all timehigh.

 

 

We can describe trends in different ways. For example:

1. Verbs of change:

Profits are falling.

Unemployment is rising in many areas.

2. Prepositions:

Our business grew by 10% last year. Sales grew to $5.8 million.

3. Different nouns:

Google fails to excite on revenue surge.

The Australian market was sent into a nosedive.

Before Wednesday's tumble, the Shanghai index was up 9.5 percent.

Task 1. Complete these sentences with appropriate prepositions:

1. Sales have increased… £5 m … £7m.

2. Sales have increased … £2m.

3. There has been an increase … £2 m in our sales.

4. Sales now stand … £7 million.

5. Sales reached a peak … £7 million in July.

6. Sales reached a low point … £1 million in April.