With the release of Windows 10, Microsoft has started the process of unifying all of its products under a single operating system, which has many people wondering if Apple plans to do the same. Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed this question in a recent chat with Box CEO Aaron Levie, where he pretty much shut down any possibility of iOS and OS X merging in the near future. According to Cook, merging the two operating systems would “subtract from both” and make it so that users “don’t get the best experience from either.”
During a BoxWorks fireside chat with Box CEO Aaron Levie, Apple CEO Tim Cook divulged some interesting tidbits about why the longtime consumer technology company made a pivot to the enterprise. “We have always been about making tools that allow people to do things that they couldn’t do without them,” Cook said. “So for a while, when the world was bifurcated between the consumer and enterprise, we focused on consumer.” But that bifurcation has subsided, Cook said, and people no longer approach their technology as one or the other. There’s no enterprise-specific smartphone, no enterprise-based car, Cook said. Instead, the things that make devices work great for consumers make them great for enterprise as well. Apple’s enterprise ambitions started long before the IBM partnership, Cook said, noting that the company began building enterprise features into its software several years ago. And while Cook didn’t mince words on Apple’s enterprise qualifications — such as its security features and its overall iOS — he made a point to stress the importance of partnerships in Apple’s overall enterprise strategy.
