Apple and IBM Forge Global Partnership to Transform Enterprise Mobility

[Qbah]

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/44370.wss

Who would have thought? Apple and IBM holding hands. I wonder what will this result in...

 

[Brian Stirling]

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/44370.wss

Who would have thought? Apple and IBM holding hands. I wonder what will this result in...

In 1990, or thereabouts, when I worked for Big Blue, Bill Gates famously stated that "IBM was irrelevant". As an IBMer that bothered me, not because Gates said but because he was right.

IBM is just another multi-national with a large number of poorly used smart people being lead by a musical chair group of idiots -- when the music stops there'll be a new idiot in charge. IBM management has been clueless in somewhat the same way that Xerox was with PARC back in the late 70's. All that talent and what to show for it...


Brian

 

[Anubis]

it will result in more people using free ipads at work to play angry birds and not do work

 

[luv2liv]

it is comical when i see people trying their best to make ipads do serious work....buying a case, a kb attached, making it function like a laptop. all they had to do was buy a laptop.

 

[Eug]

It's about time. Apple has long known they weren't doing well in enterprise alone, so they needed to have a partnership somewhere. However, this maybe took the death of Jobs to make it happen with IBM.

it is comical when i see people trying their best to make ipads do serious work....buying a case, a kb attached, making it function like a laptop. all they had to do was buy a laptop.

I have two personal laptops (Windows and Mac OS X). I also have an iPad with a keyboard (and a Nexus 7).

On business trips when I need to do real work, I usually take my laptop, usually my Mac. One pure fun trips for short periods when I want to travel light I may take none of the above and just use my iPhone. For the in between stuff, or for some conferences where I'm not presenting, I sometimes will take the iPad, +/- the keyboard depending on the situation.

IOW, when I just need iPad like use but will be typing a lot on it, I take the iPad with keyboard. Works fine. The main issue is that the keyboard cases aren't full-sized keyboards. So it's like typing on a netbook.

However, if I know I'll need to use something like MS Office, I take my laptop. Mind you, I've never tried MS Office for iPad yet. I'm curious how well that works.

 

[mirageracerx]

All that talent and what to show for it...
Brian

I thought that is how it is supposed to go in IT. for every knowledgeable tech out there, there are about 5 people wanting to be their manager.

 

[rh71]

All that talent and what to show for it...


Brian

Business-side service contracts are still healthy.

Innovation is a different story.

 

[theeedude]

So basically, IBM is writing some apps for iOS.

 

[Commodus]

The people attacking the Apple/IBM deal mostly come across as trying to downplay a loss for their "side" (as if this were a holy war).

IBM is still a gigantic company and a staple of the enterprise field. Apple currently has a lot more traction in corporate deployments than any Android manufacturer. It's a coup for both companies, and it could be good news for getting phones and tablets to be taken as serious enterprise tools, rather than just what you use to arrange a meeting. In hindsight, it's interesting that neither Google nor Microsoft saw fit to do this first.

 

[Eug]

So basically, IBM is writing some apps for iOS.

Indeed... Ones that would be rolled out over thousands of iPad/iPhone units in large corporate environments, where IBM would charge big bux for IT support.

The people attacking the Apple/IBM deal mostly come across as trying to downplay a loss for their "side" (as if this were a holy war).

IBM is still a gigantic company and a staple of the enterprise field. Apple currently has a lot more traction in corporate deployments than any Android manufacturer. It's a coup for both companies, and it could be good news for getting phones and tablets to be taken as serious enterprise tools, rather than just what you use to arrange a meeting. In hindsight, it's interesting that neither Google nor Microsoft saw fit to do this first.

I dunno. It seems MS has been trying forever to do this, but never had the right hardware (or software), cuz they just didn't get it.

Unless you want to use a toughened tablet, who wants a 3 lb tablet running some bloated full fledged Windows?

 

[Brian Stirling]

Indeed... Ones that would be rolled out over thousands of iPad/iPhone units in large corporate environments, where IBM would charge big bux for IT support.


I dunno. It seems MS has been trying forever to do this, but never had the right hardware (or software), cuz they just didn't get it.

Unless you want to use a toughened tablet, who wants a 3 lb tablet running some bloated full fledged Windows?

Owing to the way Billy out maneuvered IBM back in the day M$ probably had little chance of this kind of alliance with IBM.

IBM may still be a big company but they're pretty much no bigger in market value versus inflation than they were in the late 50's -- growth -- not really. Yes, Xerox is still around to. Going forward neither appears likely to be around in a couple more decades...


Brian

 

[Eug]

Owing to the way Billy out maneuvered IBM back in the day M$ probably had little chance of this kind of alliance with IBM.

Actually what I meant is MS has kinda been trying to do this with Windows on 3rd party Windows tablets without IBM's involvement, and failed, because Windows was too bloated and the hardware was not really suited for it.

By the time they realized this, it was too late. They came up with Windows RT and Surface but we all know how well that went. Ironically, the iPad was already showing up in corporate environments, despite the fact it is built as a consumer device.

 

[Phokus]

Microsoft, HP, and everyone else should partner up with Google (especially now that Samsung has donated it's Knox technology to Google) to counteract Apple/IBM.

Edit: In fact, I think Microsoft should give up trying to compete with Apple and Google in the mobile space, they're terrible at it and haven't made any headway.

Edit 2: Google should buy blackberry

 

[Qbah]

For me it feels a bit forced, the whole idea. Blackberry failed, I don't really see how this can go any other way, perhaps it will take longer to accept the outcome though... Mobile exploded in the consumer space because it is a natural fit, the devices are for consuming content, getting fast access to specific data. I don't really see how that can fit in an enterprise environment to do work... Even if the biggest consumer company and the biggest enterprise company are joining forces...

 

[Skel]

Owing to the way Billy out maneuvered IBM back in the day M$ probably had little chance of this kind of alliance with IBM.

IBM may still be a big company but they're pretty much no bigger in market value versus inflation than they were in the late 50's -- growth -- not really. Yes, Xerox is still around to. Going forward neither appears likely to be around in a couple more decades...


Brian

How do you come to the conclusion that IBM won't be around "in a couple of more decades"? Just because they're not a hardware or consumer product maker doesn't mean they're dying. In fact IBM has been growing leaps and bounds in the past decade. I can't speak to Xerox, but with IBM it really seems you don't really know much about them.

 

[Ravynmagi]

In our enterprise most of the employees have iPhones. We have a few iPads issue for product testing. Though obviously iPads won't be replacing our Dell laptops anytime ever.

I'm impressed with how well the iPhones work in the enterprise. I'm able to manage many of the iPhone features remotely with our MDM server, though I wish we had a way to lock down the profiles a bit more so users couldn't easily remove them. But iPhones are far easier to manage with MDM than Android or Windows phones.

I'm kinda surprised at how bad Windows Phone is in the Enterprise. Our MDM server doesn't have any support for Windows Phone at all (I think WP8 completely lacks this). Though I am happy to hear Windows Phone 8.1 will include some MDM support. But why so late? Android has some, but needs to improve a lot more. I would also like to see encrypting on Android phones to be much less of a pain in the ass.

I'm happy to see Apple and IBM teaming up. Apple seems to already be way ahead of the game in this area and now they are getting help to really push it further. I hope this is the wakeup call to get Google and Microsoft moving. Because as nice as iPhones are, I'd love to be able to offer employees Android and Windows phones too if only I could manage them better.

 

[bearxor]

I'm impressed with how well the iPhones work in the enterprise. I'm able to manage many of the iPhone features remotely with our MDM server, though I wish we had a way to lock down the profiles a bit more so users couldn't easily remove them. But iPhones are far easier to manage with MDM than Android or Windows phones.

Tie the ActiveSync settings to a profile. If they remove the MDM profile, it removes the ActiveSync profile. Then it's basically useless to them as a work device.

 

[Brian Stirling]

How do you come to the conclusion that IBM won't be around "in a couple of more decades"? Just because they're not a hardware or consumer product maker doesn't mean they're dying. In fact IBM has been growing leaps and bounds in the past decade. I can't speak to Xerox, but with IBM it really seems you don't really know much about them.

IBM has all the look and feel of most of the old companies that time passed them by. Interestingly, when Bill Gates made his famous IBM is irrelevant comment M$ was the new kid on the block and showed they understood the new face of computers way better than Big Blue did. Fast forward a couple decades and M$ looks to be the out-of-touch old guard that's had its lunch eaten by Apple and Google.

Yeah, IBM may still exist 20 years from now but as what?


Brian

 

[Commodus]

IBM has all the look and feel of most of the old companies that time passed them by. Interestingly, when Bill Gates made his famous IBM is irrelevant comment M$ was the new kid on the block and showed they understood the new face of computers way better than Big Blue did. Fast forward a couple decades and M$ looks to be the out-of-touch old guard that's had its lunch eaten by Apple and Google.

Yeah, IBM may still exist 20 years from now but as what?


Brian

It's hard to say if IBM will stay the same, but I think the big necessary shift happened in the mid-2000s, when it dropped the consumer-facing business (i.e. PCs). Even if everyone does all their computing on phones and tablets and wearables, you'll still need server platforms for a long, long while. The real question is whether there will be someone who seriously disrupts IBM's business... and the Apple deal may be a hedge against that happening.

It's notable that Google and Microsoft are ironically hamstrung if they want to make this kind of partnership. Google has the device market share, but Android is typically weak in this space... that and Google has made some enemies in the enterprise world, including Microsoft (obviously) and Oracle (by purposefully copying Java without permission). Microsoft? Well, it has an enterprise side already, if not with the exact same overlap, but it doesn't have much share in phones or tablets.

 

[Phynaz]

In 1990, or thereabouts, when I worked for Big Blue, Bill Gates famously stated that "IBM was irrelevant". As an IBMer that bothered me, not because Gates said but because he was right.

IBM is just another multi-national with a large number of poorly used smart people being lead by a musical chair group of idiots -- when the music stops there'll be a new idiot in charge. IBM management has been clueless in somewhat the same way that Xerox was with PARC back in the late 70's. All that talent and what to show for it...


Brian

Revenue (ttm): 98.83B
Gross Profit (ttm): 48.50B
Net Income Avl to Common (ttm): 15.84B
Diluted EPS (ttm): 14.63
Enterprise Value: 228.99B

They don't seem irrelevant to me. But then I'm not a bitter ex-employee.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Revenue (ttm): 98.83B
Gross Profit (ttm): 48.50B
Net Income Avl to Common (ttm): 15.84B
Diluted EPS (ttm): 14.63
Enterprise Value: 228.99B

They don't seem irrelevant to me. But then I'm not a bitter ex-employee.

No, they're still a big company but then they're no bigger then they were decades ago when you account for inflation. What they're doing now is mostly service related and dependant on old ties to old companies. They will find it hard to compete against cheaper foreign companies in the long run. They have abandoned actual product development for the most part.

Meanwhile, the little pimple that was Apple makes more from toys than all of IBM.

I left IBM more than 20 years ago, I more disappointed than bitter...


Brian

 

[magomago]

I'm not so sure why you guys are so pessimistic about this; Apple gets to sell a lot more hardware and has another big selling point to its consumers in the enterprise space of why they should buy an iphone, and IBM gets to further lockdown this space by extending their software to the most popular platform out there. If IBM does this correctly, their implementation should be such that they won't be tied to any apple specific hardware, and with the sheer number of iphones out there, they can continue to be the standard in this area.

If anything I see this as a bigger IBM win; today, IBM is in the business only of software and software support. Apple is in Hardware and Software --> this deal gives IBM the software lock (and corresponding lucrative support contracts) it wants. Apple does get more hardware sold, but it doesn't directly benefits from the SW piece of the pie, and its indirect benefit is that there will be more apps purchased from the apple appstore.

Of course, unless Apple also gets a share of what IBM gets from support contracts....that would be a different story.