Apple CEO Tim Cook with IBM CEO Ginni Rometty
After inking a deal with Apple to push iOS devices and enterprise apps to its customers, IBM today started offering all employees Macs for the first time. We’ve seen the official IBM notice, and several IBM employees on Twitter are praising the decision after years of PC hell:
[tweet https://twitter.com/johncollins2014/status/603840150657998848]
In a memo to employees, IBM notes that starting today all employees (not just some select developers like in the past) can pick from a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or a PC when setting up a new or refreshed workstation. The machines will include new software for security, Wi-Fi, and VPN out of the box so employees just have to connect to the internet to get started, according to the memo. IBM notes that it currently has around 15,000 Macs deployed through its BYOD program, but plans to deploy around 50,000 Macbooks by the end of the year. That, according to the memo, would make IBM the biggest “Mac shop” around, and the company said it’s sharing what it learns through the new deployment with Apple as Apple assists through its device enrollment program.
Apple first announced the partnership with IBM last summer that would see the companies develop MobileFirst for iOS apps for enterprise customers in addition to pushing iOS devices and enterprise AppleCare support. It’s probably not a good look to be selling Apple services from a ThinkPad, but the change is a company wide initiative and not just for IBM employees pushing MobileFirst for iOS. Employees will be able to switch to company-issued Macs whenever replacing an older machine as normal.
Apple first started rolling out the apps in December with solutions for banking, retail, insurance, financial services, telecommunications, government and airlines. It’s since launched several more MobileFirst solutions bringing the total up to 22 and just this month started bringing Apple Watch support to several of the apps.
[tweet https://twitter.com/Godgy77/status/603694842800123905]
[tweet https://twitter.com/kescherich/status/60384773625812172]
[tweet https://twitter.com/notessensei/status/603864472084750336]
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I guess he’ll just froze over. Or Steve handed IBM employees a glass of ice water. In any event, welcome. Seriously.
Remember that first ad Steve Jobs got blasted for starting a war with IBM? My have times changed. This is truly a day to remember. Yeah, HELL JUST FROZE over the day of forcing IBM employees to choose is a day to remember. Maybe more corporations will follow suit and offer employees the choice between macs and PCs.
I read an article a while back and the article was written after surveying several companies that were offering both platforms or the BYOD and what they found out is that when a company offered Macs OR PCs or gave the employee the choice to bring their own device, that Apple obtained 30% market share. I know this isn’t going to happen in a year or so, but imagine how much additional sales, revenues, and profits Apple would have if they got 30% market share in desktop/laptop PCs on a global level when right now they have about 7%/ Those are huge potentials. With IBM adding to the list of large companies offering PCs or Macs, Macs sales is probably going to start increasing at a faster rate.
I think it’s a matter of time when IBM is going to offer Macs to their customers and IBM turning into a Mac reseller offering extended service contracts, etc.
If they get a lot more attention in the enterprise application market for where IBM plays, more and more users may be preferring the Mac over PCs for the enterprise market.
The biggest hinderance was in the area of IT admin applications. Most large corporations use Microsoft software to manage their PC install base and Microsoft’s software doesn’t support Macs, so they have to use another software product that manages large installs of Macs. It wouldn’t surprise me if IBM brought out a IT management software that managed both Macs and PCs, that would be a good enterprise IT support app for them to release. IBM has Tivoli software which helps IT to support installations of PCs, but they might have to add functionality to Tivoli to support Macs and PCs. time will tell, but that’s the next step for IBM.
That actually isn’t true at all. OS X supports Microsoft Active Directory, so you can easily have roaming profiles and the like. Just type “Directory Utility” into Spotlight and you can set it up.
As for an IT support app to manage both OS X and Windows platforms simultaneously, that’s pretty close. JAMF can take over reporting of Windows assets, and plugs directly into SCCM for deploying Windows-based software via Casper. And compared to Microsoft Solution Accelerators, JAMF makes Redmond’s offering look like some $5 shareware you bought at a yard sale. It’s only a matter of time.
The two real big problems here are Apple’s refusal to push large-scale Macs into the corporate world. They’ve just left this to 3rd party companies that specialize in refreshes. And the second are jerk IT staff members that have almost a blood-feud against Apple products.
The timing is now right with Windows 10 for Apple to strike. Going forward, it’s anyone’s guess as to how well BYOD will support it. With key logging metrics in the Beta versions that I’ve seen, Security teams may not be very responsive to it, and may demand enterprise or more expensive professional releases that drop it. The funny thing though about BYOD is that save for a few common hiccups along the way, many IT people who are supporting BYOD are slowly realizing that once they set up a Mac user, they stop bothering them as compared to Windows users.
Time will tell, yes. Right now on the backend, Windows Server and UNIX flavors will remain in charge, but OS X could end up being the face of how business gets done. The only thing is Microsoft Office. Redmond has that sword hanging over Cupertino’s head for business productivity. But MS does want revenue streams, so they may sacrifice their OS market and rely more upon their Productivity software instead.
This isn’t true; when I worked at IBM ten years ago, there were definitely developers who had company-issued Macs. Thinkpads were, of course, the primary offering. But Macbooks were absolutely available.
Someone didn’t read the part of the article that stated “IBM notes that it currently has around 15,000 Macs deployed through its BYOD program”
well, IBM sold off its ThinkPad PC line to Lenovo a fews years back so this development isn’t entirely surprising. That being said, the ThinkPad lineup of laptops are the only one wintel laptops I’d consider buying.
Heh, I remember Pirates of Silicon Valley where Jobs is depicted as hating IBM to the core. Craziness! I’ve always liked ThinkPads; IBM software however leave a lot to be desired (just look at Lotus Notes — UGH! What a gigantic heaping, steaming pile of cow dung).
The IBM consuiltants I have been working with for years on an internal project, already have Macs and have done for years.
Oh the humanity! Think of all those MCSE certified IT guys in low level positions at small businesses. All those decades of trashing anything not Microsoft and now this, IBM getting cozy with the Great Satan Apple. How will they explain this to their clueless CEO who let them ban Apple products from the network?
Funny, I guess one of the first things they’ll figure out it’s Mac, not MAC lol
My wife’s company (>300K employees) rolled out MacBook Pros to their marketing design group more than a year ago. The IT group couldn’t figure out how to integrate the company databases. So they outsourced IT for this transition after 6 months. It’s been almost a year of them not doing anything. I mean COME ON. Clueless IT in many companies will hold on to their Windows turf.
The machines will include new software for security, Wi-Fi, and VPN out of the box so employees just have to connect to the internet to get started, according to the memo. https://www.pass4sureexam.com/
What? No iMacs?
I’d imagine the reasoning for MacBooks over iMacs is the ability to take your machine to meetings and to allow work from home capability
I see this as a power move on IBM’s part. I think Apple doesn’t have anything new to offer, so they start acquiring, or partnering with other companies more. For IBM, their AI technology could become the dominant software. Imagine having something like Watson technology on all our devices. Apple would devolve into more of a hardware company again.