The convienence of two masters – the Apple-IBM alliance
- Mark Skilton
- Jul 17, 2014
- 3 min read
The growth of mobile devices and mobile apps in particular is the greatest area of consumer technology growth seen in the last three years by most any industry measure.
These range from 77% in mobile device growth to over 115% in mobile apps growth in 2013. More than 2 billion mobile devices globally where shipped in 2013.
Only the explosive growth of mass data on the Internet surpass this figure with figures up to 4300% data growth to 35 Zettabytes by 2020 in terms of size and volume of data in what is called big data. The connection of mobile use and apps is driving this unprecedented phenomenon and it’s only going to get even bigger as figures like 25 Billion connected devices by 2020 and 1 in 3 people on the planet will be using social media. Data creation and Data network traffic will grow continually; a recent Cisco study cites global mobile data traffic grew 81 percent in 2013, this has been described as representing 13% of the total internet traffic . With statistics like these the technology and business service vendors who are playing in this space have much to gain and lose if they are not well positioned to maximise investment and return from this phenomenon.
The big game is in what some describe as SMAC, Social, mobile, data analytics and cloud and IOT Internet of things. The big opportunity and challenge is in connectivity between mobile devices and cloud computing and the data drivers of social media and analytics through this mobile infrastructure over the Internet.
IBM has strengths in their SoftLayer acquisition for Enterprise data and service orchestration and integration to their cloud services. IBM also have gained Enterprise successes in the social business market of business analytics and what they describe as cognitive computing. IBM have divested in infrastructure areas such as PC and selected Compute hardware as they recognize the shift towards a data and services centric universe. What they don’t have is their own OEM Mobile platform and device market and so the alliance with Apple is a return to the strategic co-competitors we have seen in the past with these two companies in earlier eras of the Mac and PC alliances of convenience. Apple has the hyper growth innovation of their mobile device and application market for consumers but lacks the industrial enterprise business model for large scale enterprise solutions. Hence the IBM alliance is an interesting channel for Apple to accelerate the build new growth for their mobile device range. The alliance makes good sense as the Google Android platform with its ubiquity in the consumer and enterprise market would be an alternative mobile device platform for IBM to partner but would also represent a more strategically difficult alliance as Google has cloud and enterprise apps services that could be supplanted and cannibalize data traffic away from IBM cloud data centers. More troubling for Microsoft and its Azure and Nokia strategy is whether this is a killer blow for this strategy described in the CEO Satya Nadella recent letter to the employees. While attempting to play in both mobile and cloud camps, Microsoft may not be able to be master of both in consumer and enterprise markets. Amazon has recognized this with their recent attempt to launch their own mobile device as well as reader devices but like the failed Facebook Mobile the issue for these companies is in being able to create enterprise and consumer scale quality service content and delivery. A similar set of technology and economic realities also meet the telecoms providers who likewise have the network and cloud infrastructure but seek ways to create compelling monetizable services. The challenge for IBM and Apple will be in the marriage of two masters, one in consumer mobile and one in enterprise systems, being able to coexist to seamlessly work for customers. Apple will benefit from faster enterprise level services through their devices and IBM will benefit from the superlative form factor user experience that apple excels in.
Both IBM, Apple and their competitors recognize the overall trend is that people and business are doing more online but not at station PC terminals but on the move and in context of the moment and location where they work and play. Whether eBooks, infotainment in the car or tracking warehouse logistics movements to influencing retail store purchases, the mobile device is king in tomorrows world of enterprise.
Comments where syndicated in the following articles July 2014
ComputerWeeklyUK http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3531084/ibm-mobile-app-tie-up-gives-apple-enterprise-credibility/
Australian Financial Review http://www.afr.com/p/technology/why_ibm_deal_with_apple_spells_trouble_cBJlPvVcy6yDwvn7oM0i8M
FreshBusinessThinking http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/news.php?NID=23022&Title=Apple+and+IBM+to+Co-Develop+Apps
Evaluation Engineering http://www.evaluationengineering.com/blogs/ibm-to-promote-apple-ios-for-business.php
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