I’m still quite shocked with the agreement between IBM and Apple to sell and support iPads and iPhones in the enterprise but it is not a surprise.
IBM counts with more than 150 business apps and Apple has some of the best consumer devices with no enterprise integration at all. Microsoft has a great combo of devices + consumer apps + commercial apps + enterprise integration, but still needs the “cool factor” of Apple or the pricing of Android devices.
Having said that, I think this new friendship is a very serious matters as IBM services are really good (despite they are bloody expensive) and iPads and iPhones ara also very good devices as well.
We have to remember that IBM was ranked as a leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile application Development Platforms this year and ranked second just after Microsoft in the ALM Quadrant.
Amongst the main Mobility Enterirpse products on IBM we have the new IBM Worklikght Platform, the IBM mobile services for Bluemix, the Cloudant, the IBM WebSpehere MQ and the IBM MessageSight, and these are only some of the so many services that IBM is providing for Enterprise Solutions.
Still, for me Microsoft Mobile Strategy is the best right now but if Apple and IBM begin to work together… interesting times are coming 🙂
Some references:
http://www.ibm.com/mobilefirst/us/en/
http://www.zdnet.com/ibm-apple-forge-enterprise-app-pact-watson-meet-ipad-7000031641/
A Microsoftee in IBM 