The big news this month was the announcement that Apple and
IBM have partnered up to deliver better enterprise solutions to large
corporations. Essentially IBM will be selling iPads and iPhones with custom
apps to help deliver complete enterprise solutions to big business. These
devices will include IBM cloud services, a new enterprise focused Apple Care
and all the solutions you need for security, analytics, etc. This is apparently
putting the best of both companies together – Apple can focus on making great
hardware and operating systems, while IBM can focus on enterprise solutions and
IT support. While this all sounds wonderful – especially for the apparent 98%
of Fortune 500 companies that use iOS devices even though Apple provides sub par
solutions for big business – it’s a lot easier said than done. 
Apple can claim that this will be a partnership, but when
have we known Apple to give up control of anything? They’ve created a closed
operating system that doesn’t allow for user changes, they control what apps are
released in the App store, they controlled the global prices of e-books, but
now they will allow another company to sell their devices with alterations?
Aside from Apple having control issues, I think they are underestimating how
difficult of a task this will be. They are asking IBM to design and develop
specific applications and security features for an operating system it didn’t
build. Will these devices need a customized rollout for each big company? What happens
to employees that follow BYOD – bring your own device? Will their phones need
to be altered or replaced? I think that Apple and IBM have a long way to go before
this partnership is feasible - this announcement is primarily meant as a
scare tactic.
I’m sure as soon as they announced this, all the analysts
were going crazy trying to figure out who this would hurt the most. Already
there were some journalists saying Microsoft would lose its hold on enterprise
or that Blackberry’s revival was doomed. Blackberry doesn’t seem too worried – CEO
John Chen’s response was to say that the partnership was like “when two
elephants start dancing”, whatever that means. Lots of noise, no results? The
partnership has certainly started speculation about Blackberry potentially
collaborating with another company, with Dell being one of the names thrown out
there. As for Microsoft, they’ll be just fine. While they may not be winning on the
mobile front, the majority of businesses still use PCs, even if they may not have
upgraded to Windows 8.
However, an interesting point was made by the media. Will
Apple and IBM do anything to combine their ‘computer selves’ – Siri and Watson?
What kind of outcome can we expect if they do? One of the funniest things mentioned
by the media was the fact that businesses are struggling with the complexity of
managing big data and that maybe there can be greater insights if they are
available on the ‘easy to use iPads and iPhones’. Maybe they think Apple can
magically make big data simple enough for everyone to use – good luck with
that.
I want to end off by talking about how Amazon has had a
rough week. They announced that they lost $126 million this quarter, even
though they had a 23% increase in revenue. They’re investing so much in new
products and services that they’re simply spending more than they make, even if
they continue to make more and more. Investors are starting to get antsy,
especially because Amazon announced that they are expecting to lose $810
million next quarter, but CEO Jeff Bezos is trying to explain that it’s about
the long haul. Of course investors want to see a return on investment but
Amazon just isn’t that kind of company. Bezos has a huge dream and wants to
continue expanding – especially now that Chinese giant Alibaba (which is bigger
than Amazon and Ebay combined) is trying to get into the U.S. market. I think
Bezos is right when he says that this is not the time to slow down – although i’m
not sure if there will ever be a time for slowed growth.
As a side note for those avid Twitter/Amazon users, you can
now buy things without leaving Twitter. You just sync your two accounts, reply
#AmazonCart to any tweet containing an Amazon link and when you wander back to
Amazon the item will have already been added to your cart. I’m not sure how
useful this will be to most of us, but it’s certainly the start of an
interesting trend. 
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