

Apple and IBM Deliver First Wave of IBM MobileFirst for iOS Apps - hugopascal
https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/12/10Apple-and-IBM-Deliver-First-Wave-of-IBM-MobileFirst-for-iOS-Apps.html

======
ha292
IBM is playing to two of it's strengths here -- decades of enterprise sales
relationships and development manpower, largely based in India. In effect,
they're becoming a sales and System Integration channel for Apple. In return
they get to give their customers mobile apps that put lipstick on the pigs
(Mainframe software, WebSphere/J2EE apps).

What I find amusing is how IBM is spinning this into a "Data and Analytics"
play. Granted, it is a bit of marketing BS. But I also suspect that they are
trying to please the stock market analysts. It would probably be a highlight
in their next earnings call.

~~~
Gorbzel
Really? Largely based in India? :-(

~~~
DINKDINK
Why is that a bad thing?

~~~
Gorbzel
IBM has positioned itself as the consulting company that understands the need
to be truly global, even running ads on television emphasizing that recently.

What they're pitching for data storage and consulting is just as beneficial
for development. Thus, if they're saying one thing and then doing all their
dev work in India, that sucks.

------
ams6110
Well you can definitely see the IBM influence in this announcement. Some of
those sentences could have come straight out of the buzzword generator.

~~~
niels_olson
The whole announcement is just words. These are just words to keep
stockholders apprised of the situation. This release suggests they have some
business clients, and it gives some businesses who would like to bring in
Apple more leverage to campaign to higher ups who are scared to death of
putting a toe outside the warm blanket of Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, et al.

If you're not big enough to have a press release full of buzzwords that no one
cares about, you're not big enough to talk to the Pentagon. Seems backward,
but that's the logic inside the Pentagon.

------
smackfu
I think I'm missing something. These sounds like generic industry apps, but
Fortune 500 companies don't use generic apps, they use stuff tailored to their
business. It says they are customizable, but that's a lot easier said than
done.

~~~
lnanek2
Tailored is exactly what IBM wants. They are basically a consulting and
services company nowadays, having let go most of their hardware divisions
after analyzing their business and deciding they weren't profitable. They will
be exceedingly happy to sell you consultants time to tailor the apps for you,
in fact, if the app didn't require tailoring, they probably wouldn't want it
in their line up.

~~~
chiph
I'm amazed by that decision (to leave the hardware & software biz). Look at
Apple -- that's pretty much all they do, and they have a $650B market cap, 4x
that of IBM.

~~~
smackfu
It's not simply that Apple is in the hardware biz, it's that Apple has a
strategy for the hardware biz that enables 40% margins. They're an outlier.
None of their hardware competitors have that.

If someone could show IBM a strategy for their hardware that had those kind of
margins, I bet they would stay in hardware.

------
russnewcomer
It sounds like these are essentially mobile app interfaces to existing IBM
Solutions? I wonder if they generate the local interfaces dynamically to allow
for that customization, or if each app is individually written for each
customer.

------
omh
Based on the IBM pages at [http://www.ibm.com/mobilefirst/us/en/mobilefirst-
for-ios.htm...](http://www.ibm.com/mobilefirst/us/en/mobilefirst-for-ios.html)
these don't look like full apps that you could use right now.

I guess that IBM are planning to use this as a framework to build custom apps
on. And the publicity from this announcement is supposed to help them get more
companies asking them for apps.

------
hkarthik
The next generation of big enterprise application platforms needs to target
mobile and IBM is trying to get ahead of the curve. The more interesting part
is that Apple is now playing along. In the Steve Jobs' days, they never would
have paid much attention to the enterprise.

------
genbit
[http://www.apple.com/business/mobile-enterprise-
apps/](http://www.apple.com/business/mobile-enterprise-apps/)

------
mszyndel
Ryanair announced today that they will equip pilots with iPads to save on time
and paper documentation. I wonder if those news are connected?

~~~
vibrolax
I doubt it. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has permitted the
iPad to be used as Class 1 Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) since at least 2011.

[http://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviation_industry/airline_ope...](http://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviation_industry/airline_operators/airline_safety/info/all_infos/media/2011/InFO11011.pdf)

