Ginni Rometty might not be a household name in the same way as Tim Cook has become. She is the Chairman and CEO of IBM and, because of yesterday’s huge joint Apple/IBM announcement, is about to become a player in the Appleverse, at least where enterprise is concerned.
From the linked article:
Google, Samsung and team Android may have to form the equivalent of the enterprise Justice League to counter the Apple-IBM alliance as well as Microsoft’s foothold in corporations.
The biggest challenge for team Android is that Google and Samsung, two partners with enterprise ambitions, will have to herd cats to reach corporations. Android will need channel, integration and services support and there are few players that can match IBM’s reach.
The herding cats metaphor is apropos. There just isn’t another company with IBM’s enterprise pedigree. The next tier down is fragmented. There’s no easy solution for Team Android as far as enterprise partnerships go. The Apple IBM alliance is a strategic stroke of genius.
Read the article for more details on the players involved. Enterprise just got very interesting.
Well, there’s Oracle, though Google isn’t exactly on the best terms with them… And then there’s HP, a company with good hooks into the enterprise, though they are a bit shaky. But I agree, there isn’t another company out there with the breadth of enterprise connections that IBM has, both in hardware, software, and services.
I think the photos of Cook and Rometty are telling, though—Tim’s dapper style vs. Ginni’s rather stodgy 1980’s look (at best). The concern I would have if I were them (particularly Cook) is whether the clash of cultures will be problematic. IBM is a big company with managers who have big egos (as all giant corporations, no doubt)—will software written by IBM for iOS devices really be good iOS apps? Users of Lotus Notes most certainly might worry!
How long before Cook and Rometty join the board of their counterpart’s company? If/when this happens, we will know there’s express intent to gun down Google and Microsoft.
HP would probably team with Apple before Google.
The existence of HP Chromebooks kind of refutes that…