Apple & IBM Joining Forces

Neilc28

Neilc28

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Anyone else see this in the news?

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/201...=social&utm_source=BANNED&utm_campaign=buffer

Will be interesting to see how they are going to progress with this!
 
I can't see this ending well, there will be tears :)
 
Looks to me as though IBM are going to develop specific apps for their own services. I don't see an IBM version of Angry Birds being on the cards
 
Chappers said:
Looks to me as though IBM are going to develop specific apps for their own services. I don't see an IBM version of Angry Birds being on the cards
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Yes. This is probably aimed at taking on Blackberry in corporate markets.

Apple and IBM have worked together in the past - Apple, IBM and Motorola formed the AIM Alliance that developed PowerPC RISC processors in the early 1990s that were used in a number of IBM and Apple computers (and also ended up in the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii U amongst other games consoles). They also collaborated on Taligent, which was intended to create an object oriented, universal operating system and IBM actually manufactured the PowerBook 2400c laptop for Apple back in the late 1990s.
 
good news to the two in question, bad news for microsoft, and really bad news to us... I really don't want to see iOS become the major / main computing platform and IBM, as always, will make it even worse. I hope Google and the Linux foundation can counter this.
 
daugirdas said:
good news to the two in question, bad news for microsoft, and really bad news to us... I really don't want to see iOS become the major / main computing platform and IBM, as always, will make it even worse. I hope Google and the Linux foundation can counter this.
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Seeing as Android had about 78% of the global smartphone market share and iOS only about 18% in Q4 2013, unless the IBM alliance is spectacularly successful in reversing the rise of Android, I don't see you have grounds for concern.

Edit: Indeed Blackberry and Apple are likely to be the losers over the next few years if IDC are to be believed.

http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-v-android-market-share-2014-5
 
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Musicman said:
Seeing as Android had about 78% of the global smartphone market share and iOS only about 18% in Q4 2013, unless the IBM alliance is spectacularly successful in reversing the rise of Android, I don't see you have grounds for concern.

Edit: Indeed Blackberry and Apple are likely to be the losers over the next few years if IDC are to be believed.

http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-v-android-market-share-2014-5
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78% v 18% is mostly home and media consumption market. The partnership is regarding corporate / business computing - two very different applications.
 
Meh... I think it's more IBM realising their commercial software is being dropped by their traditional users in favour of free or lower cost alternatives. Clearcase is being replaced by git almost everywhere, ClearQuest being replaced by Bugzilla or JIRA (OK, not free, but eminently more usable). I've never found an IBM app that is really user friendly. Personally, I think it is IBM software just trying to stay alive. Interesting to see what they will come up with though.
 
arad85 said:
Meh... I think it's more IBM realising their commercial software is being dropped by their traditional users in favour of free or lower cost alternatives. Clearcase is being replaced by git almost everywhere, ClearQuest being replaced by Bugzilla or JIRA (OK, not free, but eminently more usable). I've never found an IBM app that is really user friendly. Personally, I think it is IBM software just trying to stay alive. Interesting to see what they will come up with though.
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It certainly feels that way, but they still have huge contracts with the likes of RBS, London council, MetOffice I believe to name a few.
 
the thing is with IBM is that its stagnated, niche, propriety tech. and that can be a good thing as it "just works". however the cost of their hardware and software support contracts is ridiculous, staff need specialised training etc, it makes it much more cost affective to jump ship if you can.
 
neil_g said:
the thing is with IBM is that its stagnated, niche, propriety tech. and that can be a good thing as it "just works". however the cost of their hardware and software support contracts is ridiculous, staff need specialised training etc, it makes it much more cost affective to jump ship if you can.
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For once I agree with you. But you know how it happens it business - contracts are negotiated as favours, friendship between CEOs, poorly informed decisions, etc, etc. Lobbying is the big driver. Big Blue isn't going anywhere.
 
daugirdas said:
For once I agree with you. But you know how it happens it business - contracts are negotiated as favours, friendship between CEOs, poorly informed decisions, etc, etc. Lobbying is the big driver. Big Blue isn't going anywhere.
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indeed.

to further my last point, i dont think ive ever met an IBM engineer under the age of 50 :lol:
 
I once had a freebie trip to the IBM mainframe factory. Even better was that we were flown there in a private jet.... :D
 
arad85 said:
I once had a freebie trip to the IBM mainframe factory. Even better was that we were flown there in a private jet.... :D
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I wondered what they did with the money from our support contracts :D

Another amusing IBM story.. We had an IBM engineer out on a hardware call recently at a remote site and one of my colleagues went to meet them. My colleague was running late so we made a call to site to see if the IBM chap was there yet to which the office staff told us to hang on while they checked, then came back on the line to say "can we assume that the guy in the car park in mustard colour trousers is the engineer?"

They're a funny breed. Although normally fairly amusing older chaps. :D

Although their telephone support isn't overly useful. Several years ago they told me that I really should know IBM platforms pretty well as they didn't help people that didn't know what to do in the event of a problem.

:thinking:
 
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neil_g said:
Although their telephone support isn't overly useful. Several years ago they told me that I really should know IBM platforms pretty well as they didn't help people that didn't know what to do in the event of a problem.
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:D Nice....
 
daugirdas said:
good news to the two in question, bad news for microsoft, and really bad news to us... I really don't want to see iOS become the major / main computing platform and IBM, as always, will make it even worse. I hope Google and the Linux foundation can counter this.
Click to expand...

It's not really that bad news to Microsoft, the main thing I can see it affecting is possibly uptake of the Azure platform and the possibility of schools using Surface tablets in the education sector, I can't see much else changing...
 
neil_g said:
Although their telephone support isn't overly useful. Several years ago they told me that I really should know IBM platforms pretty well as they didn't help people that didn't know what to do in the event of a problem.

:thinking:
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Actually, that sounds exactly how telephone support should be :D , at least for complex IT products. Require a degree of knowledge from the person requesting support, so they don't say "what....??? Talk to me in English!" when told to run regedit and change something under HKLM or similar. Or, in the words of one of my customers when I asked him the date of a file "I program in Visual Basic, I don't know about things like files.":eek:

(We sell an SDK which exports an API for use in Win32 and Win64 applications)
 
It depends on the product in all honesty and to what level of support you require. As a near-perfect example, we have a cluster of Equalogic SAN's at work, should we call Dell they would expect a fairly high level of knowledge from us in order to assist correctly, in fact when we initially purchased blades, we were asked to undertake blade infrastructure training prior to us being allowed enterprise support!!

Totally agree with it, and as a result we don't need to call Dell unless there are dire circumstances :runaway:
 
onomatopoeia said:
Actually, that sounds exactly how telephone support should be :D , at least for complex IT products. Require a degree of knowledge from the person requesting support, so they don't say "what....??? Talk to me in English!" when told to run regedit and change something under HKLM or similar. Or, in the words of one of my customers when I asked him the date of a file "I program in Visual Basic, I don't know about things like files.":eek:

(We sell an SDK which exports an API for use in Win32 and Win64 applications)
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Granted, sometimes. However when you're calling for support in a system down situation to told you're effectively too stupid to talk to? For the amount of money they get paid.. it also doesn't help I was new to the business and everyone that knew was on annual leave :)

On the flip side I've has many a head on wall banging session trying to talk IBM through setting up /diagnosing a VPN link. Those guys really don't know much about windows.
 
Edited - no point in taking it further off topic than it already has been
 
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A support team should help a customer in need, no matter how stupid they believe him to be. The training should have been dealt with at a later date (or a word had between companies if it was a repeat offence).

And I read it so the amount of money as referring to the amount paid for the support contract, not the individual salaries of anyone involved.
 
IBM are completely incapable of creating any kind of acceptable user experience in any of their applications. They are usually actively user-hostile! Hate to think what kind of mess they will turn up on iOS,
 
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