Apple provides glimpse of manufacturing, customer support operations in Ireland

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited June 2015
Apple has given local media a rare look inside its European headquarters in Cork, Ireland, where workers assemble iMacs for the Old Continent and provide sales and support services to customers in Europe.


Jobs and Markkula inaugurate the Cork facility in 1980


The Cupertino, Calif. company now has around 4,000 workers at the Cork facility, according to the Irish Examiner. When Apple first came to Cork in 1980 --?with Steve Jobs and Mike Markkula in attendance --?it employed just 60 workers at the plant, which was then dedicated solely to manufacturing.




Today, the Cork location is the only Apple-owned factory in the world. The company shut down most of its own manufacturing facilities in the early 1990s, switching to an outsourced assembly model instead.




In addition to the iMac line, Cork-based employees handle administration for Apple operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. One photo shows a worker providing FaceTime support services to a European customer, with a Canon camera connected to a Mac Mini.




Apple's close relationship with Ireland is under scrutiny by the European Commission, which alleges that the company's customized tax agreement runs afoul of EU laws. An initial judgement was expected in June, but has been delayed as discovery proves "time consuming."

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    thewhitefalconthewhitefalcon Posts: 4,453member

    They didn't switch until later than that; in the early '90s they still had plants in Colorado (PowerBooks) and Fremont (Quadras/Power Macs), and even as late as the Quicksilver G4's were still saying "Assembled in USA". Lower end consumer models went to Singapore in the late '80s though.

     

    Do they build just the 27" iMacs there, the same as here?

  • Reply 2 of 7
    jbdragonjbdragon Posts: 2,305member
    So I guess, since the EU doesn't like the Apple Ireland deal these days. It's just so unfair, that the people in Ireland will lose most of their Jobs with Apple which will go to China and the prices on Apple hardware will go up!!! If that's whey they all, want, then that's what they will get. If there's no longer any benefit to be in Ireland, then there's no reason to stay in Ireland!!! Maybe a few Customer support jobs will stick around. That's kind of to bad. The EU is even worse then the U.S. when it comes to driving business away from your country!!! So nothing really new here.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    schlackschlack Posts: 719member
    ok, we believe it. apple DOES have offices in Ireland.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    pte applepte apple Posts: 82member

    http://************/2014/09/30/apple-ireland-tax/

    Lets hope Apple can stand up to the EU.

    European & American workers are highly employable.

  • Reply 5 of 7
    > An initial judgement was expected in June, but has been delayed as discovery proves "time consuming."

    Substitute "discovery" with "fabrication".
  • Reply 6 of 7
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    They didn't switch until later than that; in the early '90s they still had plants in Colorado (PowerBooks) and Fremont (Quadras/Power Macs), and even as late as the Quicksilver G4's were still saying "Assembled in USA". Lower end consumer models went to Singapore in the late '80s though.

    Do they build just the 27" iMacs there, the same as here?

    I visited that Cork facility as a guest of Apple around that time, maybe 1981 with a load of Apple other dealers. All the Apple ][s we took delivery of were assembled there at that time. That was when they stopped having US power cables and with an additional UK one attached to the box. I had hundreds and hundreds of US power cables as I hated throwing them out LOL.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JBDragon View Post



    So I guess, since the EU doesn't like the Apple Ireland deal these days. It's just so unfair, that the people in Ireland will lose most of their Jobs with Apple which will go to China and the prices on Apple hardware will go up!!! If that's whey they all, want, then that's what they will get. If there's no longer any benefit to be in Ireland, then there's no reason to stay in Ireland!!! Maybe a few Customer support jobs will stick around. That's kind of to bad. The EU is even worse then the U.S. when it comes to driving business away from your country!!! So nothing really new here.



    The "Apple-Ireland deal" that the EU is questioning has next to nothing to do with Apple's manufacturing in Ireland.  It is entirely to do with Apple Operations International, which is a funnel for EU and other world revenue into a near zero-tax arrangement.  Asking a corporation to pay more than zero tax and questioning the practices that would allow such a situation to arise hardly qualifies as "driving business away".

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