Apple and IBM on Thursday announced 10 new MobileFirst enterprise apps, raising the total to 32, while focusing on several new areas including business travel, shift management, and field operations.
Though annual tablet sales have largely plateaued and aren't expected to see reignited growth in the near future, devices like Apple's iPad will continue to grow in use in corporate environments, Forrester Research believes.
As part of an ongoing enterprise solutions partnership, Apple and IBM on Thursday announced Apple Watch support for three MobileFirst apps serving the healthcare, public safety and energy industries.
Riding a wave of record-breaking iPhone sales, Apple remained the market leader in enterprise mobile device activations for the first quarter of 2015, but competitors are slowly eating away at iPad's tablet share, according to Good Technology.
As part of mobile applications and services initiative MobileFirst, Apple and IBM on Tuesday released eight new iOS apps serving various enterprises, adding new services for the healthcare and industrial products segments.
Apple and IBM have unveiled three more MobileFirst enterprise apps for iPhones and iPads, covering a range of industries and uses: Advisor Alerts, Passenger Care, and Dynamic Buy.
Apple gained ground in enterprise device activations over the fourth quarter of 2014, especially in strictly regulated industries, while Android share slipped over the same period, according to the latest data from Good Technology.
While Apple and IBM's enterprise partnership is specifically about iOS devices, Apple has also insisted that IBM's salespeople use Mac hardware when making their pitches to customers, ensuring that the company's tightly integrated ecosystem remains in focus.
Apple is pushing harder to sell hardware to enterprise and government markets, and has bolstered those efforts with the hire of a longtime executive at PC maker Hewlett-Packard, it was revealed on Thursday.
Though fewer corporations have indicated they are planning to deploy tablets in 2015, Apple's iOS is still the leading platform for corporations embracing the post-PC era, far ahead of smartphones and tablets running Android or Windows.
Apple and IBM on Wednesday unveiled a wide range of "MobileFirst" applications targeted toward businesses, representing the first results of the enterprise-focused partnership between both companies.
Apple on Tuesday announced businesses and educational institutions can now use the Device Enrollment Program (DEP) with devices purchased through Apple Authorized Resellers, while support for the service has been extended to include 26 countries.
Enterprise mobile services vendor Good Technology reports that Apple's iPhone 6 launch helped the company win back mobile device enterprise share from Android, boosting iOS to 69 percent of all device activations as firms' deployment of custom mobile apps continues to grow exponentially.
Apple isn't just waiting around for iPad sales to pick up speed. In its earnings conference call with analysts, Apple's chief executive Tim Cook stated the first wave of IBM's Mobile First apps targeting businesses would arrive next month, while separately noting that iPad now accounted for 90 percent of U.S. tablets used in education.
The landmark enterprise tie-up between Apple and 103-year-old technology behemoth IBM, announced earlier this year, was not the first collaboration that Apple CEO Tim Cook and IBM chief Ginni Rometty discussed, according to a new report.
Enterprise mobile services vendor Good Technology detailed in its latest quarterly report that companies continue to overwhelmingly prefer Apple's mobile platform over Android or Windows Mobile alternatives. The firm also noted a jump in government adoption of iPads.
Apple can now count the Ford Motor Co. among those who are embracing its iOS platform, as the automaker has revealed it will equip more than 9,000 workers with iPhones over the next two years.
As many as 6 out of every 10 employees at one Wall Street firm have gone back to carrying a corporate BlackBerry alongside their personal iPhone thanks to "Bring Your Own Device" trouble, underscoring Apple's teething problems in the enterprise and highlighting the importance of the company's new tie-up with C-suite favorite IBM.
Apple's new enterprise partnership with IBM will likely strengthen the position of the iPhone and iPad in the corporate world, but it probably won't move the needle much in terms of overall device sales, investment firm Piper Jaffray believes.
Google's head of Android development Sundar Pichai made brief remarks at Google IO to address the enterprise, a market that so far has largely ignored Android while enthusiastically adopting Apple's iOS mobile platform. Notably, his solution involved a "contribution" of Knox security by Samsung, Android's largest licensee.
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Roger Fingas
Neil Hughes
AppleInsider Staff
Mikey Campbell
Katie Marsal
Daniel Eran Dilger
Sam Oliver
