SAN FRANCISCO — Will Tim Cook do anything to steal Google’s thunder?
The Apple CEO is back at the Moscone Center, this time for BoxWorks 2105, the annual gathering of customers and developers for enterprise cloud storage company Box.
It’s a rare speaking gig for Cook, who tends to limit his engagements to just a few high-profile events a year. While big and successful, Box’s conference is hardly one of the marquee events on the tech calendar. Unless it falls on the same exact day Google is announcing new products at its big Nexus media event.
“He’s f****ing with Google,” said one analyst in the press room when asked why Cook chose this event.
Cook is likely to talk up the new iPad Pro and Apple’s enterprise efforts, which include partnering with IBM and Cisco. Read on to see what he says. We’re liveblogging the event. Cook will be onstage at 9 a.m. Pacific.
Cook said Apple is trying to move to 100% renewable energy across it’s entire operation, even in its overseas factories.
“We are very focused also on the environment,” he said. “Climate change is real, and we should stop denying it.”
He said Apple realized a few years ago that Apple could be 100% renewable energy.
The US operation is already run totally on renewable energy, and the goal is to run supply chain on 100% renewable energy, he said.
“Anybody could do this,” he said in reference to other businesses. “This is one area where we want to be copied.”
“This is one of the areas where we could step up and lead, especially when there’s a void from government.”
“What does Dr. Dre think about Apple’s enterprise strategy?” asked Levie.
“We haven’t talked about enterprise strategy, but he’s an incredible artist” said Cook, finding an opportunity to plug Apple Music. “.Having Beats inside Apple has reenergized our music business. Music moves culture, and I think we all need a little more joy in our lives, and there’s a lot of joy coming out of Apple Music.”
“We’re focused on equality. Equality is free. There’s no cost to it,” says Cook, after being asked what the company is focusing on. “To give people a basic level of human rights and dignity is free. And yet, 200 years after we said all men are created equal, it’s still not the case today.”
Levie: “Who’s tougher to negotiate with, Taylor Swift of Carl Icahn?”
HUGE laughter from Cook and the crowd.
Cook: “Did you have another question?
Levie asked Cook if they’re building an airplane. Cook shot it down but says the world could use an Apple Plane. Watch out Boeing.
“We’re just getting started,” Tim Cook said when asked what the company can even do next, now that it’s projected to make $200 billion in revenue by the end of the year.
“I think we’re in the early days. We know where we want to go in TV. We’re going to ship Apple TV toward the end of next month. I look at all that and i think ‘goll we haven’t even started yet.’ It’s like we showed up to the race and the gun hasn’t gone off yet.”
Apple is trying to make more friends in the tech industry and make enemies of less people, Cook said.
“If you think back in time, Apple and IBM were foes. Apple and Microsoft were foes.”
The two companies still compete today, he said, but are better off partnering — “because that’s what the customer wants.”
“They want Microsoft Office to work on the Mac, and to work better than it does on Windows.
And this is a farce.”
He continued: “”I don’t believe in holding grudges. Life is short and we’re going to die soon.
It’s best to have as many friends as you can.”
“Apple needs to work as many of the major players as possible, and that’s what customers want and the enterprise wants.”
Cook keeps bringing up Apple’s partnership with IBM (“and Cisco, and Box”) every time he’s asked what Apple can do to make iOS better for enterprise.
Tim’s not a total Microsoft hater though.
“Today, Apple and Microsoft can partner on more things than we can compete on.” he confessed. “And that’s what the customer wants.”
Don’t expect Apple to every come out with Windows 10 time operating system that works on tablets and Macs.
“We don’t believe in having one operating system for PC and mobile.” said Tim “We’re very focused on two. But we recognize that we’re all moving from device-to-device all the time.”
Tim just took a swipe at Microsoft:
“We don’t believe in having one operating system for both mobile and PCs (like Microsoft,” he said. “We think it detects from both.”
He got a smattering of applause for that.
“We have no intention to blend them.”
Levie: How big is the enterprise business for Apple?
Cook says it was $25 billion in enterprise sales. “It’s not a hobby,” he said to big laughs, and that doesn’t include BYOD. It’s hard to get strong numbers on, but he thinks it’s huge.
Tim says mobile is just getting started and penetration of mobil in enterprise is still really low.
“It’s shocking how low it is,” he said.
“The good thing is that no one is behind. And it offers a lot of potential. The sky is the limit here.”
He added: “There are people ahead. Lilly is doing great stuff. GE is doing great stuff.
“There are pockets of people doing interesting things. but there aren’t many people, including us, that deserve a really high grade.”
Levie just revealed Box is about to introduce and iOS exclusive app. What it will actually do is still a mystery, but it’ll probably be another nice win for Apple’s ecosystem.
Tim’s talking how mobile is changing everything in consumer and business life.
“What mobility does,” he said, “it not only facilitates, you really have to rethink everything you are doing.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind, the best companies will be mobile.”
Tim added: “This is all about giving a suite of applications to the enterprise so we can really change the way people work.”
Tim trumpets Apple’s security for enterprise.
“We think that the skills that we bring to [enterprise] is huge,” says Cook. “Security isn’t just a thing we bolt on after the phone is designed.
Apple needs more enterprise partnerships, Tim says,
“Apple doesn’t have deep knowledge of all the verticals,” he said. “So we need to partner with different people to get that.”
Apple
Aaron: Why are you here at an enterprise conference?
Tim: We’ve always been about making tools to allow people to do things they couldn’t do without them…. empowering people.
When the world was divided between consumers and enterprise, we sided with the consumer.
But no one uses an enterprise phone or and enterprise car.
People want to use our products everywhere in their lives
They don’t want to carry two phones with them
Same with iPad.
We want to make tools to help people change the world, that means the enterprise as well.
Tim gives Aaron Levie, Box’s CEO, a big hug. The agenda of this am’s ‘fireside’ chat: where Apple is going in the enterprise. Exciting!
“we are the champions” – great intro song choice. Don’t know how Tim Cook “missed it”
Levie coming onto the stage with some gusto. Doubt Tim Cook will run up like that.
No, I’m at the press table. Look at Jim’s photo below, and you can see me trying to get WiFi working while I chug my morning coffee. I have a FC Barca cap on….
Tim is five minutes late. The room’s pretty full. Must be a couple of thousand here, including all the tech press: USA Today, WSJ, ReCode, AP, Business Insider. And Cult of Mac of course.
Tim should have forced them to play Beats 1 Radio, because this Fall Out Boy is not the song you want to lead into your keynote.
http://www.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/box_stage.jpg This is where Tim Cook and Aaron Levie will talk iOS 9 and the future of work.
Apparently it’s a zoo inside BoxWorks
Lots of people have dogs with them at #BoxWorks. And the dogs keep escaping their owners and wandering. I kinda feel like I'm in a zoo.
— Shara Tibken (@sharatibken) September 29, 2015
It’s unlikely that Cook will make any major announcements, but the appearance the the enterprise conference is another sign that Apple’s is really trying to make a big push into the work place.
The new iPad Pro will be a big part of those plans, but the most important thing that Apple’s lacking is tons and tons of killer enterprise apps. Apple’s partnership with IBM promises to bring over 100 enterprise iOS apps by the end of the year. It’s going to need even more than that though, so this appearance is part of the effort to attract more companies to iOS and the Mac.
We’re 10 minutes away from Tim Cook taking the stage with Box CEO Aaron Levie. Leander’s scrambling around for his seat at the event as I’m typing.
