Thanks to numerous biographies and movies like the criminally-underrated Pirates of Silicon Valley, Steve Job’s hatred for IBM is well documented. The Apple co-founder famously vowed to take down the Big Blue, and, to his credit, spent his entire youth trying to do. As the present state of affairs show all too well, Apple has finally succeded, and succeeded well.
Things now have come to such a pass that IBM will now help Apple sell its MacBooks to an industry that is still largely dominated by Microsoft’s Windows. As their recent partnership to take on the enterprise division, half of IBM’s staff is now using MacBooks, while 110.000 iPads, iPhones and MacBooks are continuously being shipped to IBM’s workforce in a gesture of friendship between the former rivals. Although it is unknown if IBM will provide any Apple MacBook services in the future, it’s clear that the Apple brand is already an ominous presence at IBM’s HQ. In response, Apple employees are already working on iOS apps for IBM clients like Citigroup, Sprint, and many others.
In fact, IBM is going one step further, and will now help its clients also get on to the Apple bandwagon.
The services unveiled Wednesday, designed to help corporate clients deploy Macs by the thousands, are a direct outgrowth of that experience. Much of what IBM knows about getting workers up and running on Macs, it learned from Apple. IBM sent Fletcher Previn, its Workplace as a Service vice president, to Apple headquarters last fall for a weeklong immersion in Apple’s approach to delivering Macs to its own employees. Mr. Previn said he was amazed by the smooth experience Apple had built for its own people.
These new mobility services for Mac join a growing list of enhanced IBM mobile enterprise services introduced by IBM last year. They include Infrastructure Development Services, Application Platform Management Services, Device Procurement and Deployment Services, Managed Mobility Services, Mobile Network Services, Mobile Collaboration Services, Mobile Virtualization, and IBM Smart and Embedded Device Security.
It’s true what they say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
