
Apple Teams Up With IBM for Enterprise Push - benstein
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/apple-teams-up-with-ibm-for-huge-expansive-enterprise-push/
======
Daishiman
People here are _waaaay_ overstating the importance of this arrangement.

IBM is a services and consulting company, and as such it will sell you
_anything_ you want so long as you're willing to pay a service and support
contract for it.

People are not aware that IBM has about as much in-house knowledge of Solaris
and HP-UX as AIX, or Oracle as much as DB/2; customers routinely pay them to
support other's software and hardware, and it's a business that works out
nicely for them.

The only thing this means is that Apple will now be another official partner
of IBM, with potentially some more help than usual, but believe me: if
customers want IBM to support their app running Android or Windows Phone
clients, you're damn sure they'll have that option and will have no issue
doing the dance, though they may certainly entice you to use their partner's
competition software if they can.

But from their core business standpoint, this is no more important than their
current experience in using JD Edwards, RIM, Oracle, Cognos, Informix, or any
of the other products through which IBM makes billions a year, directly or
indirectly. And they would certainly _never_ consider Apple hardware on the
desktop for the vast majority of their customers.

This is a company with over 300000 employees worldwide, several hundreds of
software and hardware partners in every possible IT subdomains, and a direct
reach to tens of millions of people. This affects their regular business very,
very little, which is still a core niche of banks, insurance companies,
governments, military contractors and health care.

~~~
vegabook
IBM has always pitched availability and throughput for multinational-class
computing. This is something Apple has singularly failed at, just look at
iCloud which is still sluggish and lacking in robustness. It seems to me that
Apple user endpoint (terminal?) hardware with IBM service guarantees and
availability in the back end works really well. Also while I agree that this
is just another IBM partner, it's quite interesting to see how even the
mainstream press is giving this partnership announcement a lot of front page
visibility, suggesting it will be noticed by the corporate decision makers
too.

~~~
Daishiman
Corporate decision makers give not two shits about public opinion as far as
software go; if that were the case the enterprise software wouldn't have the
horrendous, dreadful UIs it has.

They surely read the excuses of trade magazines in IT, but those will care
more about the next version of Oracle Financials or .NET with the same or more
importance than a partnership with Apple.

Honestly, this is popular just because it suck ups to Apple fans who feel they
have something to prove by Apple's involvement in the enterprise.

~~~
_pmf_
> if that were the case the enterprise software wouldn't have the horrendous,
> dreadful UIs it has

Yeah, god forbid companies developing applications that are more complex than
Silicon Valley's ephemeral, featureless und useless Twitter clones where a big
button "I'm special" is enough to satisfy all needs of their teenage
customers.

~~~
danudey
It's not a question of 'complexity' vs. 'this app does nothing'. It's a
question of usability. I've dealt with a lot of enterprise software which is
almost impossible for people to use, and which has features to make life
easier that no one knows about because the UI is so inscrutable and
nonsensical.

It's possible to make complex, enterprise software while at the same time
making good software; it just rarely happens.

------
robert_tweed
This seems like a very smart move for both parties and is going to massively
disruptive effect on the industry. It'll be interesting to see how Google and
Microsoft react (especially since Microsoft seems to be finally dragging
itself out of the Ballmer dark age).

It's a perfect synergy _[1]_ , with IBM having dropped hardware some time ago
and subsequently, most software, in favour of open-source + prestige R&D +
consultancy services. Apple on the other hand, makes some of the best hardware
around and turns a good profit doing it, and they also have some of the best
software UX (if not necessarily the most powerful solutions). Put the two
together and it's an extremely potent combination, as long as they can pull
off the collaboration effectively. Apple is already making fairly serious
inroads into corporate IT since BYOD became a thing. To a lesser extent,
they've been a business brand longer than they've been perceived as purely
consumer-oriented, with the design industry being the only thing that kept
them alive in the 90s pre-iPod-turnaround.

It will also be interesting to see what impact this has on open source,
because that's something that IBM currently supports heavily so they can avoid
the cost of developing a lot of common business software in-house. This
partnership might herald a preference for, for example, Apple servers running
OSX, over Linux.

A more positive outcome is that we're likely to see significant improvements
in Apple software to meet needs that IBM clients will demand: stuff that tends
to sit on a dusty shelf for years, like fixing SMB support in OSX, might start
seeing some serious engineering investment by Apple.

We also might see an end to Apple's "no rollbacks" policy, which IMO is a
serious barrier to adoption in corporate environments (and is a huge pain for
testing). No IT department worth its salt will ever push out a possibly
breaking change like an OS update without a rollback plan, but Apple actively
prevents that right now. Either that, or Apple will need to up it's release
cycles to match the way SaaS is typically managed and take bug reports more
seriously, although probably only when they come through a priority channel
reserved for corporate customers, much like how Microsoft handles "unofficial"
hotfixes that don't go into Windows update.

 _[1] Apologies for using the word "synergy" but it really is appropriate
here._

~~~
throwawayaway
I've worked with IBM.

Your post all seems to be very consumerist. IBM sells servers. Apple does not
sell servers. IBM sells their own server hardware. IBM dropped their x64/x86
servers recently.

Apple makes consumer hardware, IBM makes expensively marked up enterprise
hardware.

IBM makes TERRIBLE software, apple makes shiny consumer stuff, the absolute
most that will come out of this is sametime and or notes getting a small bit
more attention from IBM on iOS products. Most of IBM's crap is a thinly veiled
customisation on top of Eclipse, it makes me laugh thinking about how that
will translate to an iOS device. IBM's server side software, while marginally
better - what apple hardware is that going to run on?

IBM clients couldn't give less of a hoot about samba shares in OSX. This news
will have approximately zero effect.

~~~
lmg643
I am surprised that no one has mentioned the recent cringely book on IBM,
which I learned about from HN.

IBM doesn't even make their own servers anymore - selling that business to
lenovo (IBM only makes mainframes).

I assume this is relatively neutral for both parties, and reflects the
deterioration of technical competence at IBM.

IBM will act as a giant sales arm, and apple would fulfill whatever contract
IBM can land. only question is how big the scale they can accomplish together.
you would think IBM enterprise is naturally large scale but not necessarily
justifying largest-market-cap-in-the-world. apple's still going to need major
consumer hits to keep growing.

Apple has $574bn market cap last check, to IBMs $190bn. Apple would almost
need to _acquire_ IBM to move the needle, and selfishly, as an apple-convert,
i hope they aren't actually considering that.

would be a true shame for apple to stop building the consumer products of our
dreams, to build some soul-less bullshit for "enterprise" courtesy of IBM.
risk of the great dream dying.

also big risk of the IBM culture and mindset infecting apple.

i'm sure steve jobs would get a huge kick out of apple throwing a lifeline to
IBM, thinking back to the 80s when IBM was "big blue" and a formidable
technology competitor.

i could see steve going ahead with this for kicks, which is about how i think
apple is going to approach it. can't harm apple if they ring-fence the work,
and don't let IBM management practices become apple practices.

~~~
walterbell
What is Apple's next big push? Wearable (motion processor in iPhone, iWatch)
sensor monitoring of humans for medical, insurance and payments (iBeacon/BT),
among other use cases for lifeform surveillance.

Can Apple support the cloud analytics needed to process the large amount of
human-generated, personal sensor data for the many enterprise verticals that
will be transformed by this data?

IBM has invested in "Smart City" initiatives, urban-scale control and
coordination. Pick your favorite sci-fi movie. There is potential here to
marry the personal operating system (Apple) and the city-state operating
system (IBM).

Earlier this year, IBM adopted an ARM-like approach to their Power
architecture, licensing IP to "OpenPower" partners. For example, here's a
$4.88 billion joint project on servers & software for smart cities in China.

[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-07/14/c_1334823...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-07/14/c_133482315.htm)

\---

The joint project with Chinese firm Sichuan Huaxun Zhongxing Technologies Co.
Ltd follows their announcement on May 18 that they will build a service center
dedicated to the big data and cloud computing that is necessary for smart
cities.

... "Cooperation with IBM will have an immense impact on the construction of
smart cities in the world and fast-track the R&D level of high-end servers in
China by 10 to 20 years," said He Wenjun, chairman of Huaxun Zhongxing
Technologies.

The smart city concept was invented by IBM.

In 2012, China selected over 130 cities as pilot sites for a smart city
program that will explore ways to foster a new type of urbanization.

\---

~~~
threeseed
>Can Apple support the cloud analytics needed to process the large amount of
human-generated, personal sensor data for the many enterprise verticals that
will be transformed by this data?

No. Which is why they are looking to IBM to condense this "big data" on the
server side and stream it to the iOS devices.

------
discreteevent
IBM makes some of the worst front end software in the world. Lotus Notes,
Rational Rose, Doors etc. Deeply nested menus, one level of undo, zero to
negative OS integration, bugs that never get fixed, unsearchable
documentation, bloat upon bloat, everything that gives enterprise software a
bad name.

I wonder whether Apple will bring IBM up or will IBM bring Apple down on that
front.

~~~
Tloewald
To be fair, lotus notes was awful before IBM bought it.

~~~
codingdave
No, no it really wasn't. It had some well-earned respect, and was innovative.
It offered power to the users that was unheard of in those days, allowing them
to spin out their own discussions and applications without needing software
developers to help out. It clustered, it scaled, it had granular levels of
security that still hold up today. It was used to build online communities in
the days when dial-up BBSes were the norm.

While the UI of its client sucked compared to anything we see today, those
were the days of Windows 3.1. Everything sucked back then.

It has aged poorly. But it had its place, and its time.

~~~
Tloewald
Really it was. I used it before IBM bought it and it was awful. Good
technology but execrable UI.

------
jarjoura
I wanted to immediately shout, "now THIS is something SJ would be rolling in
his grave over." However, in the mid 2000s he was a big believer in switching
to Intel and even though I found it hard to believe a company that pushed
PowerPC for so long was suddenly so willing to join "the dark side" at the
time.

His Intel switch bet played off for Apple and I imagine this bet by Tim Cook
will also play out for them. I look forward to having many more years of iOS
work and many more years of Xcode and iOS SDK improvements :-). Stability and
security will be at the top of the lists :-D

~~~
Osmium
> I wanted to immediately shout, "now THIS is something SJ would be rolling in
> his grave over."

Don't forget the HP-branded iPods too, which was also a bit weird. That was
under Steve too.

~~~
raverbashing
Rockr phone

~~~
sjwright
The ROKR might well be the worst thing Steve ever showed in any of his
keynotes. It was comedy awful.

~~~
uptown
The Apple Hifi must be a close-second.

~~~
mortenjorck
The Hifi was hardly awful. It was just... a startlingly average product to
merit a Steve Jobs unveiling.

------
gojomo
The last big Apple-IBM alliance in 1991 gave the world Taligent, Kaleida, and
the PowerPC:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance)

~~~
cratermoon
The big Microsoft-IBM alliance gave the world... OS/2 and Windows.

~~~
rational-future
I don't think IBM was ever involved with Windows.

~~~
valarauca1
I don't mean to be so dismissive but you kidding me right?

IBM and Microsoft signed an contract, that IBM AT clone computers would ship
with Microsoft DOS and they would license (and pay for) every-single-copy of
it. The _openish_ IBM PC standard allowed for Microsoft to continually expand
into their near monopoly on the Business, and Home PC market.

That agreement literally built Microsoft. When they signed that agreement,
Microsoft didn't even own the rights to DOS, or had even made an OS. They just
licensed a BASIC compiler.

~~~
gojomo
DOS and Windows are not the same thing. One reasonable interpretation of the
history is that "Windows" is specifically the point over which Microsoft & IBM
diverged, with Windows being the additions/lineage where Microsoft ruled and
IBM's formal contributions essentially nil.

~~~
valarauca1
In DOS you literally started windows as an application (not MSDOS 1.0).
Windows was originally a visual file manager in MSDOS long before it was short
hand for an OS/and full window manager we know today.

~~~
gojomo
Yes, but what was IBM's formal involvement in any of those early versions of
'Windows'?

Neither my memory nor the Wikipedia history suggest any formal IBM role in the
development of 'Windows' itself, at least not through Windows 3.11. It wasn't
a joint project (though I suppose the closeness of the partnership likely
meant source/fix/feature sharing behind the scenes).

Then, IBM was formally cooperating with Microsoft on something they thought
would be OS/2\. To the extent anything co-developed then wound up in Windows
NT, that was never IBM's intent. Again, Windows was the Microsoft-controlled
branch, not the partnership product.

That would roughly match the assertion by rational-future about which you were
dismissive.

------
tbyehl
Funny. I just started @ IBM. Can't run Windows because I have privileged
access to systems. Can't BYOD because same. Can't hackintosh because
licensing. And officially they don't buy Macs.

~~~
fiatmoney
So run Linux; what's the problem?

~~~
aye
Yup, either RHEL or OpenSUSE should fit quite well into the culture.

~~~
tbyehl
Some weird IBM flavor of RHEL 6.5 is what they gave me. On hardware that is
near top-of-the-line and thus poorly supported. I bought a docking station and
it was an ordeal just to get it to recognize a monitor attached to the dock.
And it crashes on undocking.

But the kicker is that my job here revolves around VMware and Windows.
VMware's web client needs a newer version of Flash than you can get on Linux
outside of Chrome. And Chrome dropped RHEL 6.x ages ago. And every RDP app
packed with RHEL 6.x is junk compared to CoRD or RDCMan.

If I could BYOD I'd happily go buy a new MBA and IBM could toss it into a
Blendtec when I'm done here.

~~~
sespindola
I'm currently a fellow IBMer.

Go to w3, search for "approved OS" and take your pick. I'm currently running
fedora 20 with mate desktop. Works like a charm on a T430.

------
IBM
Nobody ever got fired for buying Apple?

~~~
yardie
If you look at the way schools are buying tablets. It's pretty spot on. They
could go for a cheaper Android tablets but most of them are junk or 1 step
above junk.

------
matdrewin
I see very little benefit for Apple.

IBM makes complex expensive software that people are still trying to get rid
of in the enterprise. Apple doesn't need a sales force for iPads, most top
execs have been demanding iPads for the last 2 years already, it's just IT
that's slow to adopt it because they fear loss of control with BYOD.

Only upside here is stuff like Watson and the likes. I can see IBM providing
back-end services to Apple but that's about it.

~~~
ojosilva
IBM signs juicy hardware + software contacts with large corporations and
government around the globe. They don't have a (serious) mobile offering,
something their customers are asking for more and more every day to be thrown
into deals and EULAs. So now the IBM salesman will have a very sexy Apple
brochure in the briefcase to show around. Apple taps into a large, high margin
market where 200, 000 devices deals will not be uncommon and without doing
much really, no new stores, no new salespeople. The technology behind this is
minimal, some security improvements, maybe a Tivoli or Rational plugin. No
real disruption here, people, just lots of cash.

------
arturventura
This is Apple making an attack at Google. Microsoft is a gonner in a few
years. Google was ready to take charge of their market with Google apps and
cloud services.

Apple is gonna make IBM build a cloud base infrastructure with Apple User
interface and QA. We are talking very high end costumers, not the typical
small or medium corp. No one will be fired for buying Apple and IBM. Google,
maybe.

Enterprise Cloud was one Horse race for Microsoft market. Now there are two.

~~~
pilsetnieks
> Microsoft is a gonner in a few years.

A bit more than a few years. They still have pretty good profits (Windows and
Office are still quite popular,) and even if that dried up suddenly and they
had zero revenue, they could quite literally live on their cash reserves for a
decade.

~~~
gress
If Microsoft goes to zero revenue, their shareholders will have different uses
for the cash. Long before that point it will be dismantled.

[edit: downvotes, seriously? I'm just pointing out that Microsoft is not a
private company that can do whatever it likes with its cash pile if it is not
performing. I guess that is uncomfortable for some reason.]

~~~
jchendy
Can you ELI5 what would be the actual impact of a huge selloff of Microsoft
shares?

~~~
gress
Who is talking about a selloff of shares?

------
filmgirlcw
Better article/interview:
[http://www.cnbc.com/id/101834316](http://www.cnbc.com/id/101834316)

------
jaegerpicker
I think a lot of people are missing the point here. If you look at Apple's big
push into new markets (Healthkit) and the mobile market direction (possibly
towards wearables) which have a huge upside when paired with a high quality
health data collection market. So Apple is moving to a good position in the
front end of the coming health care aware wearables market but that's not
nearly as valuable as having one of the hugest backend healthcare services
providers as a close partner. IBM is a huge health care cloud provider, I'm
pretty sure they are the largest in fact. So imagine an end to end health care
data solution, Apple controlling the actual devices and health kit based
software clients and IBM gathering and storage/analysis services in the cloud.
It's a huge market in the US alone and a fantastic way for Apple to gain a
large chunk of the wearables market, with a better integrated end to end
solution.

I have no inside info but I can't imagine that Apple isn't thinking of this as
a move going forward.

------
AnthonyMouse
They're talking about Google here but this is more of a claim against
Microsoft's territory. It looks like a play to replace Active Directory and
Exchange Server with device-integrated cloud services.

~~~
blazespin
Wrong. The future is mobile. This is a play against Knox/Samsung.

~~~
psbp
It should be noted that Knox is being baked into AOSP, so it's presumably in
Google's hands now.

------
callmeed
A lot of people seem to dismiss this as a bad idea, but it makes sense to me.
I see it as IBM becoming the _" SourceBits for Enterprise Customers"_ [0].
They just add another zero or two on their hourly rate and package it up into
a "solution".

Also, the article mentions retail as an initial target industry. Their
Websphere platform powers some big ecommerce sites [1]. Now they can go after
those customers and sell them mobile retail solutions. Plus it's probably a
big F&B for the sales team selling Websphere.

I'm sure the same goes for any commercial "products" IBM has for
banking/travel/healthcare. Even if they just act as "implementation providers"
for 3rd party products, to be able to say "choose us because we will also
build you an iPad app for your BIGHealthDataSystem install" is pretty huge.

Also, this is great for iOS developers because there will be more jobs
available.

Hopefully (and I'm reaching on this one), it also means IBM will
create/contribute to more open-source iOS/Obj-C/Swift projects and tools.

[0] [http://www.sourcebits.com/](http://www.sourcebits.com/)

[1] [https://www.sparkred.com/blog/2013-leading-ecommerce-
platfor...](https://www.sparkred.com/blog/2013-leading-ecommerce-platforms-
for-the-top-100-online-retailers-research/)

------
mathattack
Taligent anyone?

It will be interesting to see how this works out. The one thing Apple lacks is
the monster enterprise salesforce that IBM has. And that may be the strongest
thing that IBM has left.

~~~
Ixiaus
I was about to say, MONEY, but then I looked at Apple's market cap and IBM's
market cap...

~~~
gonzo
fuck market cap. (Apple: $574.75B, IBM: $190.79B)

look at net income.

For the three months ended 29 March, Apple had $10.223B in net income. For
roughly the same quarter (ending 31 March), IBM had $2.384B.

Apple is carrying $18.949B in cash and cash equivalents (though most of this
is locked-up overseas), and another $22.401B in short-term marketable
securities.

IBM is carrying $9.409B in cash and cash equivalents, and a mere $295M in
markable securities.

------
mekpro
I'm not sure this is a good idea for Apple which its root were always based on
Consumer product. Steve Jobs hated Enterprise Market. Its fair to believe that
Enterprise is an opposite site of Consumer. Their principle of requirement,
design or even purchasing decision are very different. You can't please
everyone. I wonder how will next i-Devices look like if they are trying to
please enterprise rather than the consumer.

~~~
josho
As I understand it, this is Apple focusing on consumer, while leveraging IBM
as a strategic partner to service/support the enterprise market.

Without IBM, Apple would have to build up an enterprise sales team or cede
that market to Microsoft who has an existing enterprise sales team. So, if
this partnership works out it plays to both companies strengths.

Finally, Apple has been encroaching on enterprise for years, each iOS update
has included enterprise specific features (central management, per app vpn,
single sign on to name a few from v7 & 8).

------
julianozen
Welcome, IBM.

Seriously.

~~~
sjwright
That's a clever comment.

[http://www.cbc.ca/undertheinfluence/Welcome%20IBM.%20serious...](http://www.cbc.ca/undertheinfluence/Welcome%20IBM.%20seriously%20ad.jpg)

~~~
selimthegrim
_Logarithmic leaps_? Clearly some copyeditor was nodding off there...

~~~
pohl
...or was seduced by the siren song of alliteration.

------
qq66
Apple isn't doing anything that unusual here. Hardware doesn't have to be
"consumer" or "enterprise" \-- your PC at home and your PC at work aren't that
different. It's software and sales that are very different between home and
work -- IBM will layer "enterprise" software and sales models on top of Apple
hardware and both players should make money.

------
nostromo
I'd love to see Watson replace Siri someday.

~~~
IBM
I think Siri as a brand won't change, but that doesn't mean Watson can't be
doing things in the back-end.

~~~
the906
I'd love to see the two as a couple.

------
higherpurpose
I'm surprised so few people or articles mentioned the 1984 ad, and how Apple
used to think IBM is the Anti-Christ.

~~~
sjwright
That ad worked because _customers_ at the time associated IBM with the
impending corporate monolith. IBM was just the whipping-boy for the larger
idea. (Much like how today Apple is the whipping-boy for Foxconn manufacturing
scandals.)

It became apparent soon after that Microsoft was the real threat to Apple's
business model.

------
CurtMonash
This is ratification that iOS devices have an important presence in
enterprises, which may be important to the three people in the industry who
hadn't yet realized that.

Otherwise, it's business as usual -- IBM customers have a need that has
something to do with IT, IBM puts together an offering to address it.

------
tn13
So they are now going to screw blackberry from other side as well. This is a
bad news for Microsoft as well.

------
bsg75
Does this mean the DB/2 on the Mac will finally reach version parity with
Linux? (I am not kidding)

------
resca79
Now Apple has to produce a new spot about IBM
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA)

------
yuhong
Notice that this don't mention anything about OS X.

~~~
josho
Right, because Windows is entrenched. There is little hope for OSX to displace
Windows. Look at how Sun & Linux initiatives tried and largely failed.

This is for iOS a greenfield space, where Apple wants to lock up their
position as the standard mobile platform. Apple can win without working too
hard to displace the incumbent (likely Blackberry).

~~~
dublinben
It's interesting that you refer to iOS as "the standard mobile platform" when
Android has been the market share leader for some time.

~~~
alayne
Not in the enterprise.

------
fidotron
It's like Apple have bought IBM for the grand price of absolutely nothing. All
the upside, none of the risk. (Someone in Cupertino was taking notes from the
Wall St bailouts . . . )

For IBM this has to be their last shot before sliding off into oblivion, with
their resurgence now looking incredibly temporary. All they really bring at
this point is customer relationships and service monkeys, with the former
being what Apple are really after.

~~~
blazespin
Service monkeys. Lordy. Those service monkeys build the infrastructure that
keeps this world together.

------
hiroprot
Headline could use some clarification...at first I thought this was about
enterprise push notifications.

~~~
fleitz
Confusion is part of the enterprise market.

As soon as you figure out what a product actually does, you realize you could
replace it a shell script that took 30 minutes to write.

The point is to get managers to buy something from IBM so they can have push
notifications.

------
vfclists
My enemy's enemy is my friend, until he also becomes my enemy, which happens
sooner or later

------
JimmaDaRustla
IBM will devour their money, just hope that the resulting product is worth it.

------
tomsthumb
Is an osx server better for command line admin than the non-server version?

~~~
Moto7451
At this point OS X Server is an App you install from the App Store that
adds/enables additional functionality and admin interfaces for verious bits of
technology. The rest of the OS remains the same.

------
fleitz
Can't wait for iOS/2 Armonk with CoreDB2 for iThinkPad.

------
orionblastar
It seems Apple and IBM have done this before:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent)

------
ksec
Is this only for the Enterprise? ( BTW IBM Notes Sucks )

PowerPC? And the Fab IBM is trying to sell but no one wants?

------
blazespin
Antitrust.

------
EGreg
I think IBM needs this more than Apple.

------
the906
This makes me incredibly happy.

------
dba7dba
I see this as a sign of weakness for Apple. My gut feeling is this is a sign
Apple if feeling vulnerable.

------
r00fus
Makes sense given the historical past alliances [1]

Combined with extensions in iOS, I wonder if we can expect to see similar
partnerships soon across the enterprise space?

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC)

------
iwaffles
The Times They Are a-Changin'

------
bluedevil2k
This smells of desperation for IBM - it seems to be risk free for Apple. IBM
sells their expensive mainframes/server, expensive consultants, and oh by the
way, you have to buy 300 iPads as well as part of the contract.

~~~
gonzo
IBM is already in the accounts, and the accounts want iPads.

------
na85
Oh, how the Mighty have fallen. Big Blue used to be the cream of the crop.

------
brudgers
Is branding driving the bus when what counts as innovation for Apple in 2014
is the iBMPhone? The only way this makes sense is if Apple is planning to
purchase IBM because otherwise they are the weaker party in a partnership -
phones and tablets and pc's are commodities, big iron boxes and enterprise
expertise are not.

~~~
wmf
_phones and tablets and pc 's are commodities, big iron boxes and enterprise
expertise are not._

My impression is the opposite; there's only one iPhone. The whole BYOD thing
happened because if you gave employees Blackberries they'd still go out and
buy iPhones.

~~~
brudgers
Blackberry is not the iPhone's competition today and it is unlikely to be the
iPhone's competition in the future. Today it's the Galaxy etc. and they are
really nice phones with really good apps and perhaps even more importantly in
the enterprise world, a diversity of open source development stacks that align
well with the rest of the enterprise development eco-system.

BYOD doesn't scale directly.

~~~
josho
You are right that Blackberry doesn't compete with Apple in the consumer
space. But, a lot of enterprise shops are still Blackberry. Largely because
Blackberry infrastructure has been in place for years and purchasing takes a
long time as well. Apple with IBM has a chance to displace those aging
Blackberry mail gateways.

~~~
brudgers
The iPhone doesn't change IBM 's opportunity because we're not talking about
replacing one device specific infrastructure with a different device specific
infrastructure. The BlackBerry specific systems IBM would replace are likely
to be replaced with device agnostic not iPhone specific in most cases.

The only meaningful differences for IBM I see are that it can throw a bunch of
iPhones into the deal and bundle them under the service contract with Apple's
blessings and that IBM can use iPhones in literature and dog and pony shows.

~~~
josho
IBM does not want Microsoft to be successful in this space. A homogeneous
Microsoft environment is bad for IBM. You are right that IBM won't make a lot
of money through Apple, maybe incremental services & support revenue, but it
also helps to protect IBM from Microsoft software in the enterprise.

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orionblastar
IBM moved away from X86-X64 hardware, sold them to Lenovo.

IBM knows it is the Post-PC and Post-Microsoft era.

IBM sees Apple using ARM for mobile devices, and Apple, Motorola, and IBM once
were partners in the PowerPC technology. So possible IBM and Apple could make
a new series of ARM chips for servers and mobile devices. Apple wants to drop
Samsung for ARM chips and other stuff, and IBM could replace Samsung.

IBM could make ARM based servers that run OSX Server in a blade configuration
for Apple, and Apple can license iOS to IBM for mobile devices, and OSX Server
for servers.

I figure a new version of OSX called OSX/2 will be made, with puns towards
OS/2 that came out of Microsoft-IBM working together. One that is ARM and X64
based and uses some universal binary format to make apps run on both
platforms.

