Today's Top Stories Facing the second consecutive quarter of declining iPad sales, CEO Tim Cook is betting that Apple's alliance with IBM will stanch the bleeding by opening up the enterprise channel to more iPad purchases. IPad sales were down 9.2 percent year-over-year in the most recent quarter [.pdf], after falling 16 percent year-over-year in the previous quarter. "We think there is a substantial upside in business, and this was ... the thinking behind the partnership with IBM that we announced last week," Cook was quoted by CRN as saying during the Q-and-A portion of this week's earnings call. "We think that the core thing that unleashes this is a better go-to-market, which IBM clearly brings to the table, but even more importantly, apps that are written with mobile first in mind," Cook added. As part of the alliance, IBM will write more than 100 enterprise-specific apps for the iPad and iPhone; IBM cloud services will be optimized for iOS, including device management, security analytics and mobile integration; AppleCare services and support will focus more on enterprise users; and IBM will offer iOS device activation, supply and management. On the whole, analysts have reacted favorably to the partnership news. "I do believe Apple can leverage IBM's channel," Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White told Reuters. It is "logical" for IBM to partner with Apple since iOS is "becoming such an important part of the enterprise app landscape," says Jack Gold, founder and principal analyst with J. Gold Associates. "Apple gets a co-selling opportunity and more importantly IBM to back them up in support services for the enterprise, an area Apple is weak in," Gold said in an email sent to FierceMobileIT. "We believe that stronger commercial demand for tablets in the second half of 2014 will help the market grow and that we will see more enterprise-specific offerings, as illustrated by the Apple and IBM partnership, come to market," says Jean Philippe Bouchard, IDC research director for tablets. Apple's benign neglect of the enterprise market might be over. The company was happy to let the average employee bring personal iOS devices into the workplace and reap the benefits. But now that this hands-off approach is no longer working, Cupertino has decided to bring in the big guns of an enterprise IT icon to specifically target enterprise users.
For more:
- see Apple's financial results [.pdf]
- read the CRN story
- check out the Reuters report
- see the IDC release
- check out the Apple-IBM release
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Wall Street expects good things from Apple Read more about: IBM
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While mobile device penetration in Europe is high, European firms remain reluctant to allow BYOD. According to a recent survey of European firms by IDC, 41 percent don't have any plans to allow BYOD. This is down only slightly from a similar survey last year, where 44 percent of firms said they were not planning on BYOD, according to IDC stats cited in a CIO article. "BYOD has taken off to quite a large extent in the U.S., and for a while it looked as though it was going to be vogue in Europe as well. But European employees don't like BYOD so much as American employees," says John Delaney, associate vice president of mobility at IDC, at the 2014 Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 and Enterprise Mobility Summit. Surprisingly, employees are the ones holding back BYOD in Europe. Employees expect their company to pay for their IT devices and they are reluctant to give up their privacy to be able to bring their own devices into work. "There's a cultural expectation here that your employer will provide you with the tools you need to do your job. You don't expect to have to buy it yourself," Delaney says. Of course, IT security worries are also a factor, as they are in the U.S. For example, more than half of 1,600 senior IT pros in the U.S. and Europe recently surveyed by IDG reported a serious violation of personal mobile device use. According to a 2013 survey of CIOs in the U.K., over half of U.K. corporate networks had been breached because of BYOD. So security remains a concern for IT pros in Europe when it comes to BYOD. Add employee reluctance to the mix and you have a recipe for slow adoption of BYOD in the Old World.
For more:
- read the CIO article
- check out IDG survey results
Related Articles:
Firms turn blind-eye to BYOD policy
No one-size-fits-all solution for BYOD policies, panel reveals
Survey: Over half of UK corporate networks breached because of BYOD Read more about: Europe, Privacy
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More and more enterprises are considering deploying machine-to-machine (M2M) devices and applications to improve productivity and reduce costs. One concern of IT managers, however, is whether a generic M2M solution will work in a corporate environment. To address IT concerns about adopting technology, AT&T set up its AT&T Foundry with $100 million in funding from a range of sponsors including Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Amdocs, Intel and Microsoft. "We work in small cross-functional teams, which include developers, designers, and marketing. This way, everyone has to be a project leader at different points in the process. We also collaborate on projects with developers, startups and other companies," the Foundry explains on its website. In total, the Foundry has five prototyping centers that are working on more than 200 projects and has deployed dozens of new apps and services for customers. There are two centers in Plano, Texas, and one each in Atlanta, Ga., Palo Alto, Calif., and Ra'anana, Israel. "The concept came out of our corporation's desire to be able to do things faster and accelerate the idea of ideation and getting things to market," Craig Lee, director of the AT&T M2M Foundry in Plano, tells GreenBiz.com. At the M2M Foundry, there are six specialized M2M engineers skilled in radio frequency technologies, circuit board design, firmware development, chassis and housing design and app development. Recently, a document shredding company asked the Foundry to develop an M2M prototype, and it had the prototype up and running in less than an hour. "Instead of spinning up a pilot, we can quickly determine whether an idea is workable and provide early feedback," Lee tells GreenBiz.com. M2M, and the broader Internet of Things concept, promises to change the way companies do business. AT&T Foundry is helping those companies achieve that transformation faster and cheaper.
For more:
- check out the AT&T Foundry website
- read the GreenBiz.com article
Related Articles:
A brief history of the Internet of Things
Cellular M2M connections to triple in Asia by 2017, predicts IHS
Jasper Wireless, Ericsson top M2M platform providers Read more about: Cisco, Ericsson
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