The Apple-IBM bromance of Enterprise Mobility
Apple and IBM are poles apart when it comes to their business ethics and overall. Business strategies are concerned and now they have decided to end this cold war from more than 30 years and have joined hands in what is said to be the biggest news of the year. And well their partnership certainly is the greatest partnership there ever was. Apple and IBM will combine their forces on Enterprise Mobility through a range of business apps.
What is Enterprise Mobility?
Enterprise mobility itself means a shift in trends, a shift in certain work habits of employees, with many employees now working away from office and they are using more of mobile devices and cloud based services to carry out their business tasks. Rest assured, the term Enterprise Mobility refers to overall mobility of corporate data and not just mobile devices and employees associated with those devices.
How it will get the work done?
The historic partnership between both tech moguls will change how people work and how the work gets done by employers as in large organisation it is difficult to track each and every employee’s work and the overall productivity of employees, resulting in a sorrow state of affairs on the balance sheet at the end of the year.
Reports suggests that more than 100 enterprise solutions will be developed from the ground level which includes native mobile apps for iOS devices. Totally different IBM cloud services will now be optimised for iOS which includes mobile security, web security, analytics, device management and mobile integration among others. Apple Inc will start a new AppleCare service to offer customised needs of enterprises. IBM will provide packages for device activation, supply and management.
What will IBM gain from this deal?
There is no denial of the fact that most of the enterprises and small businesses today use iOS devices to carry out their daily tasks and if reports are to be believed then more than 92% of the Fortune 500 companies use iOS devices and more than 90% of the Global 500 companies use iOS devices for their work. This itself says that IBM can directly benefit from this data, if they provide their cloud based services for enterprise business apps to these devices then it would definitely help IBM reach more business mass.
What will Apple gain from this deal?
Most of you must have this question in their minds that if Apple devices are used by more than 90% business executives and organisations around the world then what is in this deal for the Cupertino based giant? Well, you must not deny the fact that IBM’s big data analytics will take iOS apps to an altogether different level which was never imagined by Apple, though the App Store is as successful as ever in terms of revenue, but they lacked something on the software side for the businesses and IBM will just cushion that and fill the void. According to the iOSFirst agreement, IBM will also start selling iPads and iPhones with business solutions to their enterprise clients worldover.
As per the partnership, business specific IBM apps will now be built exclusively for iOS devices and would be delivered in a safe environment, alongwith analytics and linked to core enterprise solutions. Irrespective to the size of the organisation, work environment, employee adaptability, these apps can be customized for any organisation and easily deployed, upgraded via cloud services of IBM and Apple.
“This is a big step for iPhone and iPad in the enterprise, and we can’t wait to see the exciting new ways organizations will put iOS devices to work,” as quoted by Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of Worldwide Marketing.
It is not difficult to digest the fact that the business world has gone mobile and Apple and IBM will bring the best technology (in terms of hardware and software alike) with uber smart data and big data analytics to help businesses change and adapt to how work gets done in this era. In case, if we missed out any of the important stuff related to the Apple IBM deal, you can mention it in the comments section below.
Rajiv Patil is the founder & Managing Director of Nimblechapps, an innovative iPhone app development company. He takes a keen interest in topics related to mobile app development and mobile game development and often like to share his knowledge through informative posts on leading blogging sites.