“Steve Jobs once flew a pirate flag over Apple headquarters to signify his defiance toward the computer establishment and, specifically, industry leader IBM,” Will Stabley writes for Stabley Times. “Now his successor Tim Cook has struck a wide reaching deal with what’s left of IBM, which has exited the personal computer business entirely and now focuses on selling solutions to corporate enterprise customers. The move gives IBM the legitimacy of being able to sell its products for use on the popular iPhone and iPad, while it gives Apple a free ride into the enterprise space where it’s long struggled. But more importantly, it means Steve Jobs wins, because it’s the first step toward Apple acquiring IBM itself.”
“The deal essentially makes IBM the world’s most powerful third party developer of iPad and iPhone apps, and ensures that IBM can hang onto its relevant position in enterprise as corporate computing increasingly shifts from desktop and laptop PCs to tablets and smartphones,” Stabley writes. “If the partnership works out well, Apple’s next logical move will be to bring IBM entirely in house, both to ensure greater integration between hardware and software – something which Apple’s operating philosophy is based on – and in order to edge the Android based competition out of the IBM mix. That means an Apple-IBM merger at some point down the road, and based on relative market cap, it would be Apple doing the acquiring.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Specious.
Related articles:
The IBM partnership makes Apple a real enterprise player in retail – July 19, 2014
Apple + IBM: Connecting the dots – July 18, 2014
Why Apple’s deal with IBM is the biggest tech news of 2014 – July 18, 2014
Apple’s deal with IBM is a strategic strike in a larger war – July 17, 2014
What Apple gets from its new iOS partnership with IBM – July 17, 2014
The one huge thing missing in Apple’s big enterprise deal with IBM or something – July 17, 2014
Apple+IBM: Winners and losers – July 16, 2014
Cringely on Apple+IBM: Meh – July 16, 2014
Apple: Morphing into a beautiful masterpiece – July 16, 2014
Don’t fall for those who claim Apple’s new deal with IBM isn’t important — it’s huge – July 16, 2014
Apple+IBM take on the enterprise: Beleaguered Blackberry another big loser – July 16, 2014
Apple puts IBM rivalry to rest with paradigm-smashing corporate sales deal – July 16, 2014
Tim Bajarin: Apple-IBM deal is bad news for Google and Microsoft – July 16, 2014
Jim Cramer: Apple wins again – July 16, 2014
Apple’s IBM alliance kills Google in the enterprise – July 15, 2014
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
Complete nonsense! This suggestion would make Apple much weaker and less profitable.
Not sure I’ve ever read anything so stupid.
Stabley who?
Exactly. And why did MDN bother to give this knucklehead publicity by linking to him?
For that matter, why did we even bother to read such idiotic click bait?
MDN: please do better than this. Please.
Unstabley?
The Mac group flew the Jolly Roger in defiance of Apple’s core, which didn’t want to waste time and resources on the Mac. The only “computer establishment” they were showing defiance to was the Apple II group who was the firm’s cash cow at the time.
I stopped reading after that… Just going to assume the rest is complete bullish¡t as well.
Will. A stables writes for the Stabley Times. Gosh! I’m impressed? His only subscriber is his dog.
That headline is the purest form of click-bait I have ever seen.
OPs pipe dream. Must be some good stuff he’s smokin.
Ironic that Apple now makes “IBM-compatible” PCs and IBM doesn’t!
I am not so sure that this won’t happen. If thing as I think it will. IBM will come to depend solely on Apple for survival, at which time a merger will become imminent.
Stabley seems to enjoy piling assumptions on top of assumptions.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
Umm If Apple wanted to own IBM wouldn’t they just write a check?
I suspect closer to reality is, IBM is good at what they do and Apple has no interest in ‘taking them over’.
For all the crap that gets sent T. Cooks way, he is a shrewd piece of work. On paper Apple + IBM is Win(big)/Win(big), why fix what isn’t broke?
According to finance.google.com, Apple revenue/employees equals $466,152/person.
IBM comes in at $56,501.21/person.
Why would Apple want in on that drain?
IMHO it is hard to imagine an Apple-labeled mainframe
There is one already. They call it the Mac Pro.
XServe 2.0
Ha. A briefly funny idea. But Apple never buys what it can get for free, and it’s already got IBM’s most valuable asset – its name.
Standard bullshit. Again, as with most Apple M&A speculation, there is no compelling need for Apple to buy the company. They can get all the value they need from IBM without acquiring them. Then they’ll cast them aside like a used prophylactic.
Suri & Watson fused together in marriage… Artificial Intelligence supreme.
I view this as a possibility. Apple needs an enterprise sales and service team. More importantly, they need a processor road map for the future as silicon reaches it’s theoretical limits. IBM recently announced a 3 billion dollar initiative in an attempt to deliver that future. I’m not sure they’d have the kind of exclusivity they demand without owning IBM should this prove successful. http://online.wsj.com/articles/ibm-pledges-3-billion-for-chip-research-1404939606
nope
I believe this partnership is more of the tools Apple needs to push itself through business. Also IBM does have Watson, so it may be more to the deal than we know right now.
This article is pure fantasy. Apple wants nothing to do with that mess… And IBM is a house of cards.
Apple certainly could use what IBM has, product-wise – its R&D alone is a crown jewel, but when you factor in it’s hardware/software development (“Watson”), enterprise businesses, & it’s chip design & production capabilities … all of this would invariably make Apple stronger, better in practically every way. Even if Apple acquired them and then simply used the pieces to further their more consumer-focused plans (i.e. abandoning IBM’s current business interests), Apple would be leapfrogging ahead of it’s competitors in every space they currently occupy, and have an ‘in’ with quite a few they currently do not occupy.
The problem, however, is IBM’s culture. Whereas Apple is a creative hothouse of relatively libertarian-to-liberal freethinking individuals, IBM has a rep for being a much more conservative place. Not so much with the designers & builders, but with the sales and management people, who frankly run the show there. Absorbing that into Apple would be like a healthy body absorbing a cancer – it could very easily eat Apple alive from within. In less than 10 years, an IBM acquisition could turn Apple into a very ugly, unsuccessful company, that nonetheless has hundreds of millions of customers at it’s mercy due to technological ‘lock-in’ (think, Microsoft), and thus recurring income that allow it to be profitable anyway. Actually, Apple runs that risk now – all these corporate titans that are being brought in to run music, or retail, or for the board (the Blackrock person taking Campbell’s place), whatever … I wonder if Cook & company have been giving ANY thought to the personalities behind these able business skills? Any thought to what it might mean if any of them come to run the company some day? Or even just how the behind the scenes political maneuvering will be affected? All has impacts on a company’s future direction. And Apple is getting so big that the direction it takes in the future should concern us all.
Speaking of … I’d also point out that IBM has more government tentacles infiltrating it’s corporate body than any other entity Apple has purchased. Again, this should be a concern for them, as well as us. Apple has for the last few years, since Jobs death at least, been wrestling for it’s ‘better principles’ to overcome incessant government surveillance demands, in the US, UK, and China primarily. A company like IBM may have less interest in resisting such things, indeed may have a hand in bringing them about. Apple would have to contend with that in any acquisition of them.
If I were Cook, I would certainly give acquiring IBM some serious thought. The advantages would be huge. But I’d also prepare to cut out massive parts of the company and personnel before integrating them into Apple – certainly management, maybe even abandoning certain businesses that are profitable for it altogether – simply to preserve Apple’s ‘corporate health’ and integrity going forward. And I’d keep an eye on those hires & acquisitions already brought in, for the same reason.
Cook talks about Apple being a different type of company – a better company – than the rest. He needs to understand that will only be, and only last, for as long as the people running it under him, and after him, truly buy into such a program.
Based on 20th Century thinking. Do these people not realise things are changing and fast.