16 thoughts on “Apple and IBM: “One of the most important and powerful tech partnerships we have ever seen””
I wonder what prompted this. Is definitely huge.
This has been in talks for a couple years. iOS 8 will include a lot of features to help IBM get its enterprise software going on the iOS platform. With Google always throwing out some pretty decent stuff that has taken hold in many offices and workflows, and Microsoft changing directions into services, looks like a lot of big companies are making this a priority at about the same time.
“I suspect Steve Jobs has a big grin on his face up in the sky.”
As silly as this sort of expression is, it’s the first thing that came to mind when I read this announcement.
True, it definitely is a positive trend.
yep. the DOOOMers on macrumors stating jobs would roll over in his grave dont really understand the business very well. only hero worship…
I’m sure that IBM has had a cottage industry of custom iOS development in the enterprise space for a while. And grown to the point where it’s full sized business now.
IBM’s desperation prompted this. They’re but a shadow of their former selves.
I feel to Apple it had a strong symbolic meaning, apart from that it’s just a bit more enterprise apps on iOS and nothing else.
Random thought. Google announced direct Samsung Knox support for Android L [next version].
Is it feasible this is in response to that announcement?
An announcement of this depths is not the result from a few weeks of negotiation, this must have been in the works for at least a year, especially considering that IBM promises to roll out several things in this fall already.
It is not only the apps and device management, but also arranging for things like consulting and on site support throughout IBMs global network, which I think covers something north of 110 countries. Planning and implementing that in three months is virtually impossible.
IBM has done iOS apps in some projects (I was PM in an infrastructure project where they delivered an iOS app which delivered customised subsets of alerts from a Websphere IB and captured acknowledgements and ticket acceptance) and they have done mobile management tools, too. So, this is really just gearing up on something that was there before. Putting out 100+ apps is certainly huge and should offer respectable cost savings over tools that were often billed as “custom solutions” until now (sure, we will have to see what they are like, but it is definitely a good step).
What will help Apple in many places is enterprise AppleCare, roll out and on site support, something they did not even have in most locations in the US, and in zero locations outside the US. This was actually the single biggest reason why we could not get Macs into some companies at all. To counter this Google will need a huge global player, or a lot of local players in many countries. I guess this was Cook’s most brilliant move so far, no chance of being copied 100% by anyone.
“An announcement of this depths is not the result from a few weeks of negotiation…”
That was my thought as well but figured I’d poll the community.
Man, Websphere is still around?
I knew IBM did a ton of consulting/”contract” work but that’s all I knew they did right now.
While the gist of Bajarin’s article is right (i.e. this is a significant deal), he has the history and context all wrong. For example, “IBM started the PC revolution.” Really?
I agree – for Apple, this has symbolic and practical significance. As for IBM being desperate and a shadow of its former selves … by what metric? By market cap? Well, pretty much at an all-time high. By revenue? Never has been much. By innovation? Well, still filing tons of patents. Just because they are not doing visible to the consumers doesn’t mean they are not doing something interesting and important.
If you pay attention, you’d notice that Tim Cook and Ginny Rometty mentioned specifically that they started talking two years ago and put a team together to “investigate” from the onset.
Revenue is lower than last year, which was lower than the year before. And they are getting killed in the cloud. For example, the fiasco that was the CIA bid that went to Amazon. IBM never used to lose those sorts of bids and they lost to Amazon, who have no enterprise or intelligence street cred.
I figured but didn’t take the time to read the article.
I wonder (somewhat hopefully) that there is more to this partnership than they’ve revealed so far. Or rather, that this is one stage of their partnership and that future stages are still being negotiated or developed.
Specifically, I would be interested to see how IBM’s big data can be used to improve Apple’s services (like Siri) by letting iPhone users hook into the same data stores used by Watson to make it seem so intelligent. In fact, I wonder if these talks are the reason that IBM’s announcements about Watson coming to smartphones never coalesced into an actual release or API.
I wonder what prompted this. Is definitely huge.
This has been in talks for a couple years. iOS 8 will include a lot of features to help IBM get its enterprise software going on the iOS platform. With Google always throwing out some pretty decent stuff that has taken hold in many offices and workflows, and Microsoft changing directions into services, looks like a lot of big companies are making this a priority at about the same time.
“I suspect Steve Jobs has a big grin on his face up in the sky.”
As silly as this sort of expression is, it’s the first thing that came to mind when I read this announcement.
True, it definitely is a positive trend.
yep. the DOOOMers on macrumors stating jobs would roll over in his grave dont really understand the business very well. only hero worship…
I’m sure that IBM has had a cottage industry of custom iOS development in the enterprise space for a while. And grown to the point where it’s full sized business now.
IBM’s desperation prompted this. They’re but a shadow of their former selves.
I feel to Apple it had a strong symbolic meaning, apart from that it’s just a bit more enterprise apps on iOS and nothing else.
Random thought. Google announced direct Samsung Knox support for Android L [next version].
Is it feasible this is in response to that announcement?
An announcement of this depths is not the result from a few weeks of negotiation, this must have been in the works for at least a year, especially considering that IBM promises to roll out several things in this fall already.
It is not only the apps and device management, but also arranging for things like consulting and on site support throughout IBMs global network, which I think covers something north of 110 countries. Planning and implementing that in three months is virtually impossible.
IBM has done iOS apps in some projects (I was PM in an infrastructure project where they delivered an iOS app which delivered customised subsets of alerts from a Websphere IB and captured acknowledgements and ticket acceptance) and they have done mobile management tools, too. So, this is really just gearing up on something that was there before. Putting out 100+ apps is certainly huge and should offer respectable cost savings over tools that were often billed as “custom solutions” until now (sure, we will have to see what they are like, but it is definitely a good step).
What will help Apple in many places is enterprise AppleCare, roll out and on site support, something they did not even have in most locations in the US, and in zero locations outside the US. This was actually the single biggest reason why we could not get Macs into some companies at all. To counter this Google will need a huge global player, or a lot of local players in many countries. I guess this was Cook’s most brilliant move so far, no chance of being copied 100% by anyone.
“An announcement of this depths is not the result from a few weeks of negotiation…”
That was my thought as well but figured I’d poll the community.
Man, Websphere is still around?
I knew IBM did a ton of consulting/”contract” work but that’s all I knew they did right now.
While the gist of Bajarin’s article is right (i.e. this is a significant deal), he has the history and context all wrong. For example, “IBM started the PC revolution.” Really?
I agree – for Apple, this has symbolic and practical significance. As for IBM being desperate and a shadow of its former selves … by what metric? By market cap? Well, pretty much at an all-time high. By revenue? Never has been much. By innovation? Well, still filing tons of patents. Just because they are not doing visible to the consumers doesn’t mean they are not doing something interesting and important.
If you pay attention, you’d notice that Tim Cook and Ginny Rometty mentioned specifically that they started talking two years ago and put a team together to “investigate” from the onset.
Revenue is lower than last year, which was lower than the year before. And they are getting killed in the cloud. For example, the fiasco that was the CIA bid that went to Amazon. IBM never used to lose those sorts of bids and they lost to Amazon, who have no enterprise or intelligence street cred.
I figured but didn’t take the time to read the article.
I wonder (somewhat hopefully) that there is more to this partnership than they’ve revealed so far. Or rather, that this is one stage of their partnership and that future stages are still being negotiated or developed.
Specifically, I would be interested to see how IBM’s big data can be used to improve Apple’s services (like Siri) by letting iPhone users hook into the same data stores used by Watson to make it seem so intelligent. In fact, I wonder if these talks are the reason that IBM’s announcements about Watson coming to smartphones never coalesced into an actual release or API.