IBM is set to become Apple’s largest corporate client ever, and now that Cupertino’s old rival is finally embracing Macs and iPhones, Big Blue is ready to help other businesses switch to Macs as well.
In order to help its corporate clients switch over to Macs quickly, IBM announced today that it now offers cloud-based IT services that will help business integrate Macs with their enterprise systems and applications.
After shunning Macs for decades, IBM expects to purchase up to 200,000 Macs by the end of the year for its employees, and the company has learned a thing or two about making a massive switch from PCs to OS X. Now it wants to help other businesses incorporate Macs into their existing IT infrastructures with the newly announced IBM MobileFirst Managed Mobility Services program.
While PC sales have been shrinking, the Mac has defied market trends by outgrowing the PC industry every year for the last decade. Now that more and more businesses are ready to switch to Apple products, properly integrating them at a massive scale can be a challenge.
IBM’s new service allows clients to order Macs and have them delivered directly to employees without the need for additional setup, imaging or configuration. This will save companies time, reduce costs and create a better employee experience thanks to Macs that just work straight out of the box. The service can also support personally owned Macs in bring-your-own-device work environments.
A variety of IBM clients have already been offered these services on a custom basis, but IBM is now offering them as standard. In addition to helping businesses deploy new Macs, IBM’s services can also help you manage ongoing support for old Macs, by providing OS and image management, software application management, automatic compliance and configuration updates, and more.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
12 responses to “IBM wants to help your business switch to Macs”
If business today need IBM to convince them to switch to Mac’s then Apple hasn’t been doing their marketing very well. You can still run Windows on a Mac and side by side.
Ever try to talk to sys admins that have swore by windows for 30 years? There is no getting through to those people with normal marketing means.
Apple would also need to offer cheaper desktop computers.
Good luck at Apple offering anything that is cheaper than iMac’s or MBP or their new desktop. That would cut into their bottom line, unless they bought hundred of thousands of them. Apple might give them a few bucks discount.
Maybe not the case, actually. I work for a medical corporation making medical software and we are all supplied free ThinkPad W550 workstations. They cost about $1,500 a piece to buy. Next year we are switching to the Dell M series and those cost even more I’m pretty sure.
Could also be support, I am an IT major and the curriculum has a HEAVY bias on Windows & Microsoft Apps. Even in operating systems class we just skipped over Macs & OS X.
Yeah that is because MS has better corporate solutions than OS X. By better I mean easier. Hyper V environments and exchange and all that… it makes it very easy for IT admins to jump into the ecosystem.
True. Maybe IBM plans to change that in the near future. But even if they develop better corporate solutions, it is always difficult to defeat the incumbent.
All those Windows admins are scared to death of losing their jobs. Macs require much less hand-holding and troubleshooting that PCs.
The problem is that they have a lot of say over what the company will use.
Exactly!
I would at my work, but I use a lot of SQL and Excel for their more advanced features and there isn’t a comparable product on Mac. If I could do my job and get away from IE/SharePoint/SQL I would in a heartbeat.