“After inking a deal with Apple to push iOS devices and enterprise apps to its customers, IBM today started offering employees Macs for the first time,” Jordan Kahn reports for 9to5Mac. “We’ve seen the official IBM notice, and several IBM employees on Twitter are praising the decision after years of PC hell.”
“In a memo to employees, IBM notes that starting today employees can pick from a MacBook Pro, Macbook Air, or a PC when setting up a new or refreshed workstation,” Kahn reports. “IBM notes that it currently has around 15,000 Macs deployed through its BYOD program, but plans to deploy around 50,000 Macbooks by the end of the year. That, according to the memo, would make IBM the biggest ‘Mac shop’ around, and the company said it’s sharing what it learns through the new deployment with Apple as Apple assists through its device enrollment program.”
MacDailyNews Take:
Benefits of #IBM #Apple partnership. Employees can now choose between MAC or PC. #betterwaytowork
— John Collins (@johncollins2014) May 28, 2015
@9to5mac IBM send email to employee to ask them change to Mac from Thinkpad.
— smoothdvd (@smoothdvd) May 28, 2015
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, folks, we’ve now pretty much seen it all! That’s it. 12 years, 8 months, and 18 days. 51,387 posts. The End. Thanks for coming! 😉
As we have always said, even as many short-sightedly waved (and continue to wave) the white flag, the war is not over. And, yes, we shall prevail… – MacDailyNews Take, January 10, 2005
With this news, we know some old-time IBM employees, now retired, whose heads are in serious danger of popping off like dandelions right now. Be careful, guys!
Of course, before we sign off, we’d be remiss if we didn’t end on this for old times’ sake:
Congrats to Ginny and Tim…..finally…………
Welcome aboard IBM……!!
holy mother of mercy
MDN: Are you serious, this is your last post? If that is the case, that would totally suck. I have been visiting your site almost daily, since 2007.
Since its inception! This can’t be true, please say it aint so Harry! Its gotten me through the very, very down years with always insightful. and usually hilarious MDN Take! But, if so, then the very best to you and yours.
I think it’s a nicely tongue-in-cheek goodbye, meaning that it must be the end of the world. IBM goes Apple. There is nothing left to be done here on planet Earth. We shall now ascend to our various forms of eternal rest or whatever. I’m going to Valhalla! So long Erda! I’ll wave from the rainbow bridge.
MDN is dusting off its hands, but there’s a new mission: finish off Google.
I just hope that the cooperative agreement doesn’t make IBM and WinPC rub off on Apple. Here’s hoping Apple rubs off on IBM and Apple stays true to their strengths while shoring up their week spots.
Agreed. So far so good with Apple ignoring pressures from the moribund bad biznizz bozoz.
“…the company said it’s sharing what it learns through the new deployment with Apple…”
And soon it will be sharing what its learned with its customers.
Man! Why couldn’t they have done this when I was there? Anyhoot, great news!
It may not be what it was in that regard but one of the great pillars of the Microsoft edifice just had a sign saying unsafe structure keep your instance attached.
This is really BIG. The trickle-down effect will be monstrous.
I agree — that’ trickle sound is a flush, in slow motion, but huge and unstoppable. (pun intended)
For many of these employees, their first exposure to OS X will be Yosemite. In some ways, that’s a good thing. They were spared having to witness the mess OS X has steadily become since the days of Snow Leopard.
…IBM might want to toss in either Parallels or VMWare and move over the old Windows licenses. In the Enterprise there tend to be Windows odds and ends that don’t do Mac, sad to say. Perhaps this will provide further incentive to developers to get off the rancid MS teat.
What’s also funny is that Intel may be a close #2, if not #1 in terms of Apple adoption. They’re a pioneer in BYOD, and iPhone and iPads are used by almost everyone I see there.
Please photoshop the finger into an OK. I’m pretty sure SJ will be okay with that. 😊
What am I saying!!! Pixlemate it no Photosap! lol
Good thing you caught yourself, as many folks around these parts don’t cotton to no Adobe sympathizers. ‘Cept for ChrissyOne.
I hope this happens when we finally become HP Enterprise.
This has to be a result of the recent Apple-IBM partnership for enterprise applications. How can IBM push Mac/iOS solutions if it does not walk the walk itself?
Expect to see more Macs, iPads, iPhones, and Apple Watches at IBM and happier IBM employees as a result. Hopefully this flows outward from IBM to the rest of industry.
ROFL at the MDN take!
Too bad you can’t give five stars to MDN’s Take, that was one of their best!
This is the triumph of the workers “just wanting to get work done” as opposed to dealing with their computers or it staff.
In one sentence: my iMac automatically does the computer stuff in the background (updates, backups,security and “handoff” between devices) while I do my work in the foreground. The second sentence is that you don’t really realize how valuable a thin, nearly silent, cool computer with a big crisp clear monitor is until you have one. 🙂
If this is the end of MacDailyNews – thanks for being a part of our lives. It was certainly a fun trip but the world moves on.
Why not iMac ??
This is great. On top of all the other good effects having a large enterprise partner like this should bring some stability to OS X.
Might I suggest that this corresponds with the end of the period of “lock-in” from the sale of the IBM PC business to Lenovo and therefore they no longer have to continue the purchase of Lenovo business.
Smart guess, as it has been ten years, a nice round number favored by acquisition brokers.
I can hear SJ grin!
I Bought Macintosh
IBM employees will still be in pain if they have to use Lotus Notes. That is the real crime.