Apple has announced a strategic partnership with IBM that will see the enterprise giant transfer over 150 of their enterprise and IT apps and tools to Apple platforms natively, and will also have IBM selling Apple iPhones and iPads to its business clients all over the world. In an interview with CNBC, Apple CEO Tim Cook and IBM CEO Virginia Rometty both told the network that Apple and IBM are like “puzzle pieces” that fit perfectly together. “We knew that we needed to have a partner that deeply understood each of the verticals,” Cook told CNBC. “That had scale, that had a lot of dirt under their fingernails so to speak from really understanding each of these verticals and we found a kindred spirit in IBM.”
Tech behemoths Apple and IBM announced a partnership Tuesday that could make Apple—traditionally a consumer brand—a major player in the business market. IBM said it would create a class of more than 100 business applications exclusively for iPhones and iPads to run on Apple’s iOS platform. In return, IBM will sell Apple’s products with 100 industry-specific apps to its clients worldwide. Some of the services IBM will provide via iOS include device management, security, analytics and mobile integration, they said in a release. In return, Apple’s vaunted AppleCare service would provide support for these applications. The partnership is about “transforming enterprise,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC in an exclusive interview. The partnership aims to “deliver on the promise of mobile in a big way,” he said. One priority of the partnership will be one of the “biggest inhibitors” in enterprise, which is security, IBM CEO Virginia Rometty told CNBC. Security is increasingly important as cyberhacking and surveillance become more ubiquitous concerns. The news could impact Blackberry, once the industry leader in enterprise mobile, which is aiming to right itself after years of declining profits and fleeing clients. “Apple just took a sword and just stabbed it right in the heart of Blackberry and said ‘you’re done,'” said Ross Gerber, CEO of wealth management firm Gerber Kawasaki, in a “Closing Bell” interview.
