“Apple and IBM jointly released a statement about their new plan this evening,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “If you want to read it, you can take a look here. Indeed, if you are involved in enterprise IT at any level you really should.”
“What’s interesting is the enterprise focus. Apple has always known it is not an enterprise company, but by teaming with IBM it is making the strongest bid yet for enterprise users,” Evans writes. “That’s not to say Apple is in a position of weakness in this partnership: its mobile devices are already in use at thousands of enterprise firms worldwide; its mobile devices are the most secure devices you can get and it is only Apple (of Apple and Android) that offers an operating system that’s suitably secure for enterprise users. (The only military grade Android distribution available was Samsung Knox, which has been discontinued and sold to Google).”
Evans writes, “There’s a couple of ways to see this: 1. Apple has advantages, IBM knows and wants as it prepares to combat Microsoft in enterprise infrastructure markets. Loser: Microsoft. 2. Apple and IBM will now offer a jointly-maintained platform for mobile enterprise users that Microsoft’s cloud-based services and solutions will be able to happily — and securely — play on. Loser: Google/Android.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This deal is positively thermonuclear. 🙂
Google will rue the day they decided to get greedy by working against Apple instead of with them. – MacDailyNews, August 3, 2011
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “MotivDev” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple CEO Tim Cook’s memo to employees: IBM deal builds on Apple’s incredible momentum in the enterprise – July 15, 2014
Apple, with IBM, aims to transform and dominate enterprise computing – July 15, 2014
Apple and IBM forge global partnership to transform enterprise mobility – July 15, 2014
Microsoft to begin axing thousands of employees as soon as this week – July 15, 2014
I think the Halo effect should also be big.
Handoff and Continuity in iOS 8 and Yosemite will make Macs very attractive to all these iPhone/iPad users.
Continuity in the enterprise folks!
Apple launches enterprise search!
I love the smell of well cooked google in the mornings.
Two words: Paradigm shift
The corporate world will never be the same.
Thousands of hours in the courtroom didn’t work to Apple’s advantage and Google and Android got off scott-free. It appears as though going through the enterprise is the only way to go thermonuclear on Android. Now picture a world where Apple gets its own search engine for mobile devices and Google gets shut out completely in the enterprise. There’s not a damn thing Google could do about it. They’d end up swimming in an empty pool.
Now all Apple needs is a fantastic Search service to further draw the lifeblood out of Google. Maybe at WWDC 2015? I think there’s far greater satisfaction destroying your enemies THIS way than through the courts.
Siri, meet Watson.
My favourite of the seven was always Lee, played by the redoubtable Robert Vaughn.
Other than Yul Brynner, I’d have to go with Britt, played by James Coburn. Then again, it’s hard to dismiss the baddie Calvera played by Eli Wallach. I loved that guy.
Charles Bronson.
Archetypal screen tough guy with weatherbeaten features and coal miner roots.
Cast as half Irish/half Mexican gunslinger Bernardo O’Reilly, he uttered arguably the most famous the line about the responsibilities of parenthood he was afraid to shoulder.
The poor village kids put themselves in the line of fire because they admired and loved him … sigh.
I’ll give you one word:
Boom
Talk about condemned from his own foul mouth, this is too easy. And don’t you just Love the smell of scared Fandroids in the morning.
There’s another aspect to this, which occurred to me after reading the press release: both companies have been stung by Microsoft as it made its ascendancy in the 90s: IBM’s OS/2 for Windows 3.1, and Apple for Windows 95. The Public may have forgotten, but I’m sure both companies haven’t. I’m sure they have long institutional memories of being betrayed by a former partner, and while they may or may not be enjoying some schadenfreude right now, more likely they will be forging a partnership that they hope will become the dominant standard for the next decade, and relegate Microsoft to second-class (at best) or shrivel to become a minor player in the Enterprise.
Eric S_h_it deserves some credit where credit is due for pushing Apple away from Google.
With the economy and job cuts and other ways of saving money Apple needs to drop the current iMac line by $300 on each model to be anywhere near competitive. I’m dealing with this now where we can buy a Xeon based PC package from Lenovo that will out run any iMac for $900. A decent model of the iMac costs roughly $1500.
Apple doesn’t need to do anything of the sort unless Mercedes-Benz and Porsche also start dropping their prices for the unemployed.
Or get a mac mini for $600 + monitor.
And/or learn about “total cost of ownership”. Speaking on average for a Winblows computer, how much lost production time are you going to have due to crashes? How much greater maintenance cost? And how much inefficiency, due to so many things taking another step or two? It doesn’t take very long before you lose MUCH more money by operating day by day on Windows.
The problems you state is was is keeping IT ‘professionals’ employed. Why would they want to obsolete themselves?
As I have often related I estimate I have probably saved thousands by my investment in Macs since 1988. That is confirmed when I have to suffer my bleating partner going on about another problem with her HP laptop or friends updating their PC’s every few years or ones that didn’t having to literally wait for about 5 minutes before the machine was ready to use (relatively speaking) after stoking up the furnace. In all that 24 years I have had 5 machines of which 2 are current and only one failure needing a replacement. In all I have been without an active machine for no more than 7 days in all that time. My partners machine can barely match that in a year.
Here is just one thing that always bows my mind about Mac’s that you may want to consider…….
Sold my 2009 iMac 27 inch for $700. It cost me around $1400 five years ago.
So that’s around $140 a year. TOTAL.
No need to spend any money on antivirus (a per year cost). No need to pay for any service or support. No need to buy any Photography, Office, movie, fax or encryption software.
EXACTLY. I’ve made those same arguments to those around me and it doesn’t seem to register as I think it should. They still come back to thinking they can just pick up a POS PC at $450 vs MBAir at $1200 or so.
I don’t bother arguing it anymore
Ok. Buy the Lenovo Xeon. Oh yeah, don’t forget to buy all the necessary virus protection and malware protection, and, I dunno, how do you put a cost on the many hours needed to scrub all the preinstalled crapware.
Good luck.
Plus reinstall the OS once a year to clear out the Registry, DLL and other bats in the Windows belfry slowing ‘er down.
Let’s see if Microsoft continues to say that Apple devices are toys that aren’t meant to be used in the corporate world. Obviously IBM sees it much differently. I’m fairly certain that way of thinking is going to fall by the wayside when Apple faces Microsoft head on and beats them at their own game.
By that logic, then why does Microsoft continue to make MS Office for OSX & iOS devices?
For iOS, they were forced to by pure economics. Their Surface tablets aren’t selling, holding only 6% of the global market. MS may be clueless when it comes to user experience but they’re not entirely stupid when it comes to making money.
Doing a wee “happy jig”. Fantastic.
As I said in another thread on this site: I’m cautiously optimistic.
I’m just hoping it’s not another Taligent type venture.
The sweet & sour music played by Jonny Evans — Loser: Microsoft; Loser: Google/Android. What dreams may come?
I would love to believe what this person says, but it is simply not true. As an IBM employee, I can tell you that this gives Apple a head start, but there are many companies that will try to replicate the offering with Google, HP, Oracle and many others come to mind. On paper, this makes a lot of sense. Now it is all about execution.
“There comes a time when all the cosmic tumblers fall into place…” Field Of Dreams movie.
Some thoughts from reading between the lines:
The title uses “Forge” instead of more common “form” describing making this “exclusive partnership”
Translation: We had to hammer this out. Others are not going to be able to imitate, and certainly not quickly. And not with the cachet of the IBM name.
This will “transform enterprise mobility” like iPod transformed personal music, iPhone transformed the notion & practice of the smartphone, iPad transformed truly personal computing. A “New class of made-for-business apps” is going to unleash on business the kind of explosion seen in personal computing since the App Store opened. We’re not talking peanuts. They are firing the heaviest of guns. And – leaky new Apple, my ass – nary a rumor word of this development.
Something called “Enterprise Mobility” (perhaps) exists today, but it is about to be radically transformed, so much so that it will not be recognizable at the end (again look to iPod/iPhone/iPad). Some may claim that the smartphone wars are over, but true mobility is just being formed, and we will dominate. Mobility will be labelled as a niche initially, but in the end it will be the norm. Think how corporate & office arrangements changed with the PC. Now imagine how they’ll change with mobility. And it will happen fast – 5 years to critical mass. This is the “new IT model” (freed from stagnation of Microsoft hegemony).
Tucked away a bit: there will be a “productivity suite for all IBM MobileFirst for iOS solutions”. This is a direct shot at Microsoft Office. Only one name could have the strength to do this, IBM. “You already trust IBM. Now trust them to replace Microsoft Office and manage your Apple devices at fleet-scale, on-site, 24/7, with leasing options (for acct).”
Apple has just bought IBM’s greatest asset for a lot less than $190b (IBM market cap).
Excellent take, and I like this solid observation, Nathan — ‘nary a rumour’ of this partnership. That may be less a testament to Apple’s secrecy, though, than to the incompetence of journalists today: I doubt that visits between Apple and IBM execs were conducted Watergate-style, with disguises and code names and midnight meetings in an underground parking garage. It really is a crying shame that press releases have become breaking news, whilst reporters dawdle over regurgitated rumours like poodles with their chew toys.
Thanks for your kind words. I may have gone overboard on positive reading, but I entertained myself for a couple hours. Apple is not usually long on hyperbole, or at least, false hype. But they’ve had their failures, so we’ll just have to let time tell on this one.
I usually can’t resist making a turn in words, so i can read your phrase as “regurgitating dawdling rumors”
IBM= I believe in Mac.
The timing of this is perfect because enterprise needs solutions and Microsoft has significantly fumbled the ball recently: Windows 8 is less than stellar, they discontinued support for XP, their CEO can’t articulate a clear and concise direction, they angered their partners by marketing their own hardware and they lost mobile, which is clearly the future. IBM and Apple hardware, services and support is the solution enterprise has been waiting for. This partnership is a game changer.
I’m guessing the paid Google/Samsung comment feeders are running out of oxygen now they’re reduced to that kind of offensive B.S.
Always knew they were stupid.
The market seems to embrace this effort in the enterprise; AAPL up $2.04 in pre-market trading.
The only way this can work is if IBM actually makes great end user software.
That is one tall order for IBM.
Forgive me if I’m not excited in the leaat.
going through a miserable windows outlook migration. It is costing as much per user as a new mac mini or iPad Air, but they get to keep their lousy old PCs… a lose, lose situation. And this is just because they have years of email and windows can’t handle it… there’s a guy fanning that email server and patching it with chicken wire and duct tape.
Mircosoft is such a horrible drain on humanity… Apple/IBM will slay them.
Google and Enterprise = failed experiment. Their offerings were perpetually buggy and support was lacking. Hidden control panels in google and bad interface = very mirosoftian.
Correcting the bad link in the article summary above:
If you want to read it, you can take a look here