Earlier this month, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) & International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) announced a deal to join hands and venture together in order to tap the large market of enterprise solutions for businesses around the globe. The deal is aimed at using Apple smart devices like iPhones and iPads and combining them with IBM smart solutions for enterprises, thus creating an offering that could hardly be ignored by enterprise clients.
Announcing the deal on June 15, 2014, IBM had said that it would be creating more than 100 applications that provide solutions to the needs of industry specific issues relating to retail, healthcare, banking, travel, transportation, and telecommunications.
The deal will also be creating cloud-based solutions for enterprise users that would be compatible with the operating system of Apple’s devices i.e. iOS. The platform, which will enable the integration between Apple & IBM will be iOS 8.
While the deal is expected to give credibility to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) devices when it comes to matters like data privacy and software security owing to International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) being one of the trusted and leading providers of enterprise solutions, it will also assist IBM in making use of the popularity of Apple’s devices to consumers.
Moreover, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, had noted in a recent earnings call that the partnership with IBM, also known as the ‘Big Blue,’ should help Apple in halting the falling sales of the iPad, as the deal will help in selling more iPads and other Apple devices to corporate clients.
Meanwhile, the partnership between the two giants can ring a warning bell for other multi-national giants like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL). Microsoft is a provider of corporate computing solutions and its CEO, Satya Nadella, has been pushing the strategy of “mobile-first, cloud-first.”
Similarly, BlackBerry has been long targeting businesses with its secure software framework and trying to use it to compete against rivals in the mobile space. Meanwhile, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has been developing a lot in the area of cloud computing.
As the partnership between Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) may take time to fructify, it can become a game changer for both the tech giants when they combine IBM’s analytics with the strong product range of Apple, as the inputs of data points into devices running on iOS can become a great source of information to IBM’s analytics.
Disclosure: none
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