Apple is looking to hire individuals across the US for a team of IBM Business Development Executives that “will be accountable for all aspects of the Apple and IBM partnership for a defined geographic and account set territory.” That means Apple is hiring a team of individuals that will act as company liaisons to help roll out and oversee sales teams pushing the new Apple/IBM iOS solutions to enterprise customers. The positions, which are industry and region-specific, also show Apple’s plan for the upcoming expansion of its enterprise solutions for new industries including manufacturing and healthcare.
Apple says the team will “play a pivotal role in the U.S. success of the recently announced Apple partnership with IBM.”
Apple is hiring the IBM Business Developer Executives to act as liaisons for the various industries that Apple and IBM have been developing solutions for. Currently the company is hiring for the position in Seattle and LA for the Healthcare & Retail industries, in New York City for the Financial Services & Retail industries, and in Dallas and Chicago for Manufacturing and Retail.
Industry field liaison to IBM – will operate in specific industry capacities. For example, if an Apple AE has a ‘retail industry oriented territory’, the BDE will help facilitate connection to IBM’s retail leadership and team so Apple and IBM can be more meaningful in their strategic partnership, for retail industry customers. The BDE will also work to build like industry communities across the geography to ensure that we are collaborating well and sharing learnings and best practices to be greatly successful in all of those industry customers in the territory.
The positions for healthcare and manufacturing sectors are particularly intriguing, as Apple hasn’t yet announced solutions with IBM for those industries. At its Q1 earnings call late last month, however, CEO Tim Cook announced that another 12 apps through the IBM partnership would arrive in Q1 of this year. That would bring the total of solutions to 22 and add solutions for new industries including healthcare, energy & utilities, and industrial products.
Apple announced back in December that the first wave of software developed through the IBM partnership was ready with a number of new “MobileFirst for iOS” solutions for the enterprise. The companies announced 10 new apps designed specifically for businesses including banking, retail, insurance, financial services, telecommunications and for governments and airlines. Apple will likely be hiring more of these liaisons for its sales team as it rolls out additional apps for other industries.
When Apple originally announced the partnership with IBM back in July of last year, the companies said they would collaborate to bring over 100 enterprise apps & cloud services to the iPhone and iPad while launching a new AppleCare service specifically for enterprise customers.
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Entirely irrelevant from the article: Every time I see a photo of Tim Cook, I look to see if there is an Watch on his wrist.
This is really – potentially but actually – the biggest Apple story of the year (or possibly of many years if it pans out as it could). And a key that not many on the Apple sites are talking about (when they get motivated to talk about Enterprise stuff at all) is just how badly IBM needs this to work.
They’re in a literal free fall that’s been coming for years of misdirection and increasing competition. And after some previous “downsizing” up to 25% of their workforce has butts on the line right now.
Apple has all the bargaining and leadership power in this relationship. That is, it’s true that penetrating IT thru IBM’s century old back door could help ensure they can keep overcoming the “law of large numbers” which posits that there’s a ceiling on how much and how rapidly the biggest corporations can grow for a good number of years to come.
So I’m sure Cookco wants this to happen, as in why wouldn’t they? Huge growth in areas already well within their core competencies and major new demand for existing products as well.
Also, once a real choice for IT departments, the idea of an A9 or A10 Mac that wouldn’t need a lot of on-board storage on corporate networks and which corps could afford to roll out in the tens of millions begins to look like a possible scenario as well. This would not be a “cheap Mac,” rather one built to Apple’s traditional quality level but tailored to have just the options IT needs in a heavily network-leaning environment, so good units and healthy profits at a price level between tablets and traditional Macs. And there could be both notebook and Mini-like variants. Plus a healthy market for all of the rest of the Mac line in various parts of corporations. MB Pros, iMacs, Pros, the whole enchilada….
…But it’s not like Apple’s hurting without this happening immediately and have plenty of growth opportunities left – in world markets for existing products, and for new ones in the pipeline.
For IBM, OTOH, Apple’s buzz and UI/app chops are perhaps not only their best, but maybe only remaining shot at staying relevant in the markets they’ve created and owned for longer than most of you have been alive.
So I really think they’re going to push this alliance hard with the idea of hanging on Apple’s extended coattails for dear life.
More about the condition IBM is in: http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/27/fix-ibm/
And if you look at this list of Big Blue’s problems you’ll notice that Apple could be instrumental to remediating a number of them.
There’s an emotional basis for the “relationship” as well. First, both Apple and IBM have previously faced near-death experiences at the hand of Microsoft’s scorched earth tactics of previous decades. And keeping Google/Android/Chrome from taking up the slack is very much in both company’s strategic interest.
Plus the two companies have a history of working together in reasonably amicable ways, even if all the projects eventually weren’t enduring winners on their own and aren’t (for now) in any significant business areas.
(The partnership is also in now chastened and newly cross-platform Microsoft’s interest as well. If Chrome takes over the Fortune 1000 desktop as the “appliance computer,” Google Docs wins. If IT goes more for a mix of Mac and Win 10 machines, Office hangs on to a healthy share.)
So this is really a possibly consequential matter. Either Apple busts down a wall and motors into the middle of Enterprise computing, or once and long mighty IBM becomes an old soldier fading away.
Stay tuned….
Welcome iBM. Seriously.
– Apple
I think it is a good move
Do I smell a “merge”?
If this is anything like iCloud email, this is definitely not going to work well.