Apple Teams With IBM to Woo the Corporations It Once Ignored

Courtesy of Apple/Paul Sakuma

Apple and IBM have joined forces to sell iPhones and iPads to business customers.

The two companies unveiled their new partnership on Tuesday, and at first blush, it seems like an odd announcement. After all, the iPhone has been around for seven years, and Apple says that its iOS operating system is already used in 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies. But after years of pushing the iPhones and iPads into businesses in rather subtle ways, Apple now wants to redouble its efforts with more public and direct methods, hoping to expand even further into the business world.

When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, the company had a sneaky and cunningly effective strategy for selling its hardware to corporate America. It played hard-to-get, ignoring corporate IT departments and letting consumers fall in love with the device. Apple fanatics would be the shock troops in the invasion of corporate America.

The strategy was remarkably effective. Apple’s smartphones and tablets proceeded to take over the business world, with little more than an aloof push from Apple’s marketing team–though the company did actively push devices into the business world in some ways.

But now things have changed. Apple’s growth is slowing. Google’s Android has proven to be a serious competitor, and Apple needs more a friend in a business suit. That friend, it turns out, is IBM—the company that Apple once likened to Big Brother. These days, though, IBM doesn’t sell PCs. It’s become a software and services company, with a sideline in exotic servers. And Apple sees it as a much better partner than anything else.

The deal will give IBM a better way developing software and selling Apple’s tablets and phones to its enterprise customers, and it gives Apple a way to boost hardware sales. “If you were building a puzzle they would fit nicely together with no overlap,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told Re/code. “We do not compete on anything. And when you do that you end up with something better than either of you could produce yourself.”