Text 2. Read this article and give Russian equivalents to the underlined expressions..

Crunch Time for Apple

Apple's Steve Jobs is having another go at the mass market for computers.

During the first week of the year, Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, manages to look like the hippest boss in his industry. Every January, he coolly stands aside while other industry bosses go to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. Then, in the second week, Mr Jobs mounts a stage in San Francisco at Apple's MacWorld conference. There, to oohs and aahs, he unveils Apple's latest products, all inevitably stunning in their design elegance and user-friendliness.

But this week Mr Jobs went one step further. Encouraged by the runaway success of the iPod, and by profits that were up by 368 per cent on the same quarter a year earlier, he announced what is, in effect, a new corporate strategy. Instead of settling for being a nicheplayer selling beautiful but expensive computers, the firm is returning to contest the massmarket that it long ago ceded to Microsoft, Dell and others.

That this challenge is even conceivable is due entirely to the iPod, which is going from strength to strength. The iPod's market share has grown from about one-third to two-thirds in the past year, at the expense of cheaper "flash" players.

But Mr Jobs wants to attack even that remaining third of the market and this week he unveiled an Apple flash player, the iPod Shuffle. For Mr Jobs, who has never previouslydabbled at the bottom of - nor explicitly attempted to dominate - any market, all this is unprecedented.

Even though the iPod now outsells Apple's computers by volume, most of the firm's revenues still come from the computers. So Mr Jobs still needs to fix Apple's long-standingproblem in its core business, which is that its global market share in computers seems

stuck at about 3 per cent. Using the iPod's success to convert mainstream (i.e. Microsoft Windows) computer users might be the way to do it.

This is why Mr Jobs also announced his most radical product, the Mac mini, a fully-fledged but tiny computer. The twist, in Mr Jobs's words, is that it is BYODKM, or "bring your own display, keyboard and mouse". Buyers are expected to plug in whatever monitors and peripherals they have already. Leaving out these bits makes the Mac mini Apple's first truly low cost computer, "so that people who are thinking of switching will have no excuse," says Mr Jobs.

Cutting the price tag by leaving out the peripherals is a shrewd way of minimising tworisks: it is unlikely to cannibalise the sales and profit margins of Apple's more expensive models; and it is likely to snap many Windows users out of their inertia and into making the switch.

Mr Jobs hopes that as its seamlessly integrated range of products grows further, Apple will become the most revered brand in the digital home and in consumer electronics. This is why Mr Jobs has opened 101 retail stores around the world, their locations hand-picked bya former Gap manager. It also helps that an ecosystem of accessories is blooming. That growth will continue further once Mercedes, Nissan, Volvo and Ferrari have joined BMW and started to offer iPod controls in their steering wheels, as announced by Mr Jobs this week. And it helps that Mr Jobs, also the boss of Pixar, a hugely successful animated-film studio, understands the world of entertainment better than probably any other boss in his industry.

Apple leads the market for online music with iTunes, which works only with the iPod, while Microsoft is pushing a rival software format, Windows Media, in an attempt to make it the industry standard. Mr Gates could come from behind once again. On the other hand, Mr Jobs has been more circumspect this time around - designing iTunes to work with Windows, for instance, doing marketing deals for the iPod with Hewlett-Packard and Motorola and, with this week's announcements, fighting off competition from lower costrivals. It is too early to tell which of these two generals is still fighting the last war.

 

 

Task 1. Answer the following questions:

1. What products did Apple originally sell?

2. What was the new market that Apple recently entered? How was the company’s performance affected by a range of new products?

3. What are the main reasons that Apple does not have a large share of the PC market?

4. What new corporate strategy for the PC market was announced by Mr.Jobs? Do you think it will be successful?

5. How does the Mac mini differ from other Apple computers?

6. How is the company planning to distribute its products to a wider market?

7. What company is Apple’s principal competitor? How is Apple trying to deal with it?

 

 

Task 2. Fill in the blanks with suitable expressions from Text 2 (see the list below):

to fight off competition; profits; market share; to dominate the market; niche player; chief executive; to outsell; global market share; to unveil; low cost computer; to lead the market; a range of products

1. HP                

                         with $287 million in sales, with IBM in

second at $219 million and Dell third at $185 million

2. The Chinese unit of French retail giant Carrefour has started to sell snakes in its supermarkets  in  a  bid  to  meet  consumer  demand  and                

                .

3. Apple continues to                                                     for MP3 players, particularly in the US.

4. Are you a keen astronomer? We have        

              that will help

you explore the night sky for yourself – all recommended by Royal Observatory astronomers.

5. Automakers from around the world are about to                  an array of brand new production and concept vehicles.

6. India's first                             is priced at $225 and includes all the basic features required for a first-time user.

7. We've got a very small share of the Chicago market, and that will always be the case because we're a                                 .

8. It's the first time that notebooks have                  desktops in the U.S.

9. Apple                     Steve Jobs was questioned by federal investigators last week regarding the company's stock options backdating, according several published reports.

10. While  U.S.  high-technology  industry  struggled  to  maintain               

during  the  1980s,  the  Asian                    technology industries followed a path of steady gains.

                         in  high-

11. A  year  of  record-high  oil  prices  brought  record-high                  companies.

for  many  oil