Apple recently “announced a partnership with IBM to extend its reach into the enterprise mobility market through IBM’s MobileFirst for iOS solutions,” Price Point writes for Seeking Alpha. “I think that the enterprise partnership between the two tech titans will have significant impacts on many areas of the market. While the partnership would be a severe setback for some of the companies, such as BlackBerry and Microsoft, for BlackBerry in particular it is a match made in hell.”
“In the partnership, IBM would develop more than 100 iOS industry specific apps in addition to providing IBM cloud services, such as device management, analytics, security and mobile integration, which would be specifically optimized for iOS. The deal will integrate Apple’s cutting edge iPad and iPhone hardware with IBM’s services such as big data, cloud storage and security infrastructure,” Price Point writes. “I think the deal is a win-win for both companies, as Apple would benefit from IBM’s huge sales force and support organization to sell its smartphones and iPads in enterprise, an opportunity that still seems nascent. IBM, on the other hand, would now be able to provide its enterprise customers with a more secure and safer way to access their data and provide business solutions in a more creative way.”
“For BlackBerry, this partnership is anything but a win,” Price Point writes. “The IBM-Apple partnership has vastly negative implications for BlackBerry’s new business plan to grow into an enterprise software vendor supplying Mobile Device Management or Mobile Application Management. Commenting on the partnership, Ross Gerber, CEO of wealth management firm Gerber Kawasaki, said, ‘Apple just took a sword and just stabbed it right in the heart of BlackBerry and said ‘you’re done.””
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Bloodbath.
Dead Company Walking. – MacDailyNews Take, August 5, 2010
It’s kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers… But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it. – RIM Half-CEO Jim Balsillie remarking on Apple’s newly unveiled iPhone, February 2007
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]