“IBM Corp’s recent move to partner with Apple Inc to sell iPhones and iPads loaded with corporate applications has excited investors in both companies, but two rivals say they are unperturbed for now,” Euan Rocha and Alastair Sharp report for Reuters.
“Top executives at Dell and BlackBerry Ltd scoffed at the threat posed by the alliance this week, arguing the tie-up is unlikely to derail the efforts of their own companies to re-invent themselves,” Rocha and Sharp report. “‘I do not think that we take the Apple-IBM tie-up terribly seriously. I think it just made a good press release,’ John Swainson, who heads Dell’s global software business, said in an interview with Reuters in Toronto on Thursday.”
“PC maker Dell and smartphone maker BlackBerry are in the midst of reshaping their companies around software and services, as the needs of their big corporate clients morph,” Rocha and Sharp report. “BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen similarly downplayed the threat of the alliance in an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday, likening the tie-up to when ‘two elephants start dancing.'”
“Chen told the Financial Times that BlackBerry was in early discussions with some companies about working together in parts of the enterprise market, but did not name them,” Rocha and Sharp report. “Whether a BlackBerry-Dell partnership will materialize is unclear for now.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What is it about Apple’s hapless roadkill that compels them to repeatedly insert their feet into their mouths? Beleaguered Dell has nothing and smooshed BlackBerry has even less.
Apple+IBM vs. Dell-BlackBerry would be like all-stars from the Red Sox+Yankees vs. the Kansas City Blues-Houston Buffaloes, two defunct minor league teams.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Stereotype” for the heads up.]
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Apple+IBM: Winners and losers – July 16, 2014
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Tim Bajarin: Apple-IBM deal is bad news for Google and Microsoft – July 16, 2014
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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
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$500………….$500
Fully subsidised, with a plan?
whistling past the graveyard perhaps?
Yes, but they fell in a hole and are whistling while reeding R.I.P. Dell and RIMM.
Remember the Dodo birds. They saw no problems either. Just kept sticking their heads up to see what was there. Boom!
“Whistling”; hey they stupidly opened their mouths.
Let’s see now, Compaq, Nokia, Dell, Palm, Win Phone, RIM/RIP & who else?
Oh dr. sparemachinery, you BUM! *snap* You beat me to it. My personal elaboration below…
I was just going to post that. I envision a Gahan Wilson cartoon with a well dressed couple nervously whistling past a graveyard with a couple of unspeakably hideous monsters walking behind them on the verge of a snack.
Finally a baseball analogy from MDN
How about a hockey analogy based on one of Steve Job’s favourite quotes: Apple-IBM are skating to where the puck is going while DELL-BBRY are moving toward where it has been
Or to the penalty box, where they belong?
“scoffed at the threat posed by the alliance this week”..
They never learn.
If they fell treat or not they should keep it to them self because if it turns out Apple-IBM alliance does derail their business, they are going to look like idiots just like when Microsoft, Motorola, Palm and RIM laughter about the iPhone.
Practically anything Apple does that has to do with business is laughed at by the industry. The incumbent parties are fairly certain there’s no immediate danger from the Apple/IBM alliance to their current enterprise businesses. It’s not as though things are going to change overnight. Apple/IBM are now out there but those corporations make changes at glacial speeds. I’d hardly think they’re going to throw out all their old devices and buy iPads. Those corporate types don’t think like that. IT needs to be conservative when making changes. It will be trial after trial done a little bit at a time. Maybe in a couple of years we’ll see some results.
IBM/Apple alliance is no different from many business deals that IBM consummates. The deal allows for IBM to manage classes of applications that access IBM’s big data resources. By allowing IBM to access private APIs, Apple is endorsing the idea that it’s good to have IBM in its camp. but, the deal matters little to Dell and Blackberry. Dell isn’t a mobile player, blackberry will rely more and more on its messaging service deployed to other platforms (and may or may not survive because of it). The IBM/Apple deal has nothing to do with these companies
The IBM/Apple deal has nothing to do with these companies because they are now both completely irrelevant. In spite of thinking otherwise.
Dell and BB should worry more about what their customers think of them, rather than Apple-IBM. That is, if they have any customers left.
“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent enterprise products,” he said. “Apple and IBM are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
First quote that came to mind.
Dell and Blackberry remind me of the Python’s Black Knight – “It’s just a flesh wound!”
The problem for Blackberry and Dell is the fact that they will be under the elephants when they start dancing.
Ah, a frenzy of denial.
It is like 2 deer in the headlights. “Top executives at Dell and BlackBerry Ltd scoffed at the threat posed by the alliance …” They have no vision and can’t see anything coming.
iRoadKill for sure.
Ancient Hindi saying: When elephants dance in your fields you will be hungry.
Hahaha…
Hahahahahaha!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like a boxer in trouble- laughing it off. Blackberry in particular is breathing its last. Dell has always been synonymous with cheap crap, dependent upon Microsoft. If Apple didn’t exist, these two companies would still be on the bottom of my list- they can’t compete in even their own turf.
Heard this all before. more than once.
I had no idea the powers that be at Dell and RIM were such gifted comedians.
Is there no beginning to their talent?
=:~)
“They never learn.”
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
“You can lead an idiot to water but you can’t make him drink it.”
(actually a horse but idiot seemed more appropriate)
“Two elephants start dancing” squashing two clueless near extinct dodos in between them.
They can’t show fear but to give the old “meh, it doesn’t concern me” is stupid. It doesn’t show any confidence, it shows delusion. If you don’t see anything to be concerned about you’re not paying the least bit of attention.
You can say “The Apple/IBM deal is pretty interesting but I think we’ve got some things coming down the pipe that will keep us competitive”. It’s bullshit too but it doesn’t smell as bad.
I love articles like this. It’s pure click-bat at its finest. But such vehement denials by competitors tells me how worried they must be. Based on that, we might conclude that the Apple-IBM partnership has great potential.
MacDailyNews Take: What is it about Apple’s hapless roadkill that compels them to repeatedly insert their feet into their mouths?
Obvious really. If you stick your hoof far enough down your own gullet…you can kick your own butt!!
Punch drunk behaviour.
How many so called iPhone/iPod/iPad killers from these companies did Apple killed?
These guys are doing exactly just like Ballmer when he scoffed at the iPhone when it launched. But they are scared to death.
It’s bluff. And the last words before the fall.
Gotta fool the stockholders somehow!
Oops.
Dell already fooled the stockholders, permanently.
I do not think that we take the Apple-IBM tie-up terribly seriously.</i? – Some Dell Dummy.
♪♪ Whistling past the graveyard. ♫
♪ Hum-dee-dum-dum. ♪♪
See you there soon, Dell and Blackberry! 😉
After my coffee:
I do not think that we take the Apple-IBM tie-up terribly seriously. –Some Dell Dummy.
♪♪ Whistling past the graveyard. ♫
♪ Hum-dee-dum-dum. ♪♪
See you there soon, Dell and Blackberry!
There’s no coffee in hell.
There is too coffee in hell. It’s called decaf
heh…boy, that would really be hell.
The Horror!
The horror.
My local dollar store is now selling brand new Dell PCs but most people there just scoffed at them and bought batteries instead
I do find it funny that these two companies still think that they are remotely relevant. Deluded doesn’t do it justice.