While there are still some industry observers who cling to rapidly declining arguments against such deployment, "Apple devices are already pervasive in the enterprise," said Mahmoud Naghshineh, General Manager of Offers and Solutions, IBM.
IOS company is here
Naghshineh spoke to me as IBM expands its MobileFirst iOS to the business schema. He echoes Mike Brinker, Global Digital Leader, Deloitte Digital, who last year called Apple products "essential to the modern enterprise."
"We are delivering innovative applications that are securely integrated with a company's business data, leveraging Apple's user experience to change the experience of mobile professionals," Naghshineh said in an e-mail.
"We are creating beautiful intuitive applications that connect to the core business systems, integrating the right data to help professionals deliver exceptional experiences."
One of the criticisms that have sometimes been thrown at such solutions is that they only provide a usability layer through existing data, but this is changing and fast.
Working with Watson
"While it is important to have data, the true game changer is the knowledge derived from this data, and we are now making this possible with the advanced analytics and cognitive capabilities of IBM Watson," said Naghshineh.
IBM is also leveraging its existing alliances and partnerships to "push forward business mobility," he said. More recently, it has expanded its alliance with SAP to facilitate the integration of those solutions with iOS applications. He has also expanded his relationship with Box.
Although many people are aware of the Apple / IBM business partnership, they may not yet fully recognize the depth of scale.
Naghshineh told me that IBM now has more than 10,000 designers and developers ready to help companies build and develop iOS applications for business.
New centers (IBM calls these "garages") in Shanghai and Bucharest, as well as Bangalore, mean that the company can develop business applications "quickly" as well as maintain and update them throughout the life of the application.
Worth it?
According to the Good Technology Mobility Index Index, iPhone accounted for 72 percent of all business smartphone activations during the first quarter, while the iPad accounted for 81 percent of tablet activations.
"Our companies are responding very well to our partnership, and many are well at deploying and seeing the benefits of the business," Naghshineh said. And a report on Accenture's 2015 Digital Density Index said the use of digital technologies could add $ 1.36 trillion to the top 10 economies in the world by 2020.
Forrester has stated that an airline deploying a suite of iOS enterprise applications can expect up to 48 percent return on investment over a three-year period, with a 30 percent reduction in mobile application development costs and a Reduction of 10 percent in operating costs.
"What we are doing together is a deep transformation on a business scale that begins with the end-user experience at the heart of the customer's core business processes and the most relevant data - at the moment - at the fingertips of the professional "Naghshineh said.
For whom?
Who uses these technologies? You can track through several reports that I have written if you want, but you will find these solutions now in use in retail, air transport, financial services, education, emergency response teams, doctors and beyond.
These industries are not just looking for individual applications. "We are now seeing conversations around enterprise mobility shifting from wanting a single application to a much broader transformation around deploying multiple applications," Naghshineh said.
Example of this: Lufthansa Group, City Furniture, Singapore Airlines and Japan Airlines are implementing applications that use data and analysis to improve customer experiences.
"In order to compete, organizations need to define new business models to create better ways of interacting with customers through digitally-enabled experiences." For many of our customers, we believe that all of the transformations across the enterprise must be focused on experience. Customers, the mobile is the basis for its broader transformation, "explained Naghshineh.
Continuing
Customers want to take full advantage of the potential of mobile solutions to transform their business. They want agile development paths to deploy fast, changeable models in response to customer need, and want a great design and the kind of user experience we get when using any iOS application. Security and support in the cloud are also important. And applications must be able to connect with core business systems, he suggested.
Looking to the future, like augmented reality, artificial intelligence has the potential to transform business models.
IBM's response to this is to ensure that the iOS applications it develops can be incorporated with IBM Watson's cognitive capabilities. With Watson's ability to learn and adapt, I hope to see the use of iOS solutions spreading rapidly to other business cases, allowing for faster decisions and agile deployment of products in response to changing needs.
What you think? Does your company use more Apple computers? Are you working with IBM? What do you anticipate your business could achieve with digital transformation, or do you think everything is just hype? Leave me a line and let me know.
Google+? If you use social networks and happen to be a Google+ user, why not join the Kool Aid Corner community of AppleHolic and join in the conversation as we pursue the spirit of Apple's new model?
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