It's the sort of relationship that draws the ire of rivals and makes friends feel a bit excluded -- IBM and Apple's new partnership moves in on Microsoft and BlackBerry's turf, while prompting a bit of concern from Apple's partners.
IBM and Apple's joint venture into enterprise and mobile development has both parties elated over their future together. And because the majority of the deal's details have remained withheld, Apple resellers have been left to speculate on their future dealings with the tech company.
Recalling how his organization had to stand in line behind larger partners while waiting for the iPad 4, Andy Nunez, director of services at Liberty Tech, said Apple's relationship with IBM could be a problem for his Griffin, Ga.-based tech firm. Nunez said Apple's larger partners received a bigger portion of revenue from the tablet than did his firm.
"I think it is a situation where IBM becomes another competitor," said Nunez. "But to be honest, the pricing structure for Apple hardware leaves us insignificant revenue in the first place."
Apple and IBM partner Bob Venero, CEO of Holbrook, N.Y.-based Future Tech, said he was hopeful the new alliance would help Apple overcome its past shortcoming in support for enterprise environments. But with details still unreleased, Venero was still a bit wary of the deal.
"I hope the goal for [Apple] is not to do this exclusively through IBM and cut out their business partners, who have been going to work for them year after year after year, but strange times. You never know," said Venero.
Competitors have just as much, if not more, reason to worry about Apple's latest relationship. BlackBerry, with its HIPAA-compliant devices and its stake in the enterprise world and its financial struggles, has been threatened with a possible knockout blow.
IBM's injection into Apple's mobile devices and Apple's cloud lift of IBM's enterprise expertise meets Microsoft's new "cloud first, mobile first" mantra head on. Mark Skilton, a professor at Warwick Business School, said that IBM and Apple's alliance could present a formidable challenge for Microsoft's Azure and Nokia aspirations.
"While attempting to play in both mobile and cloud camps, Microsoft may not be able to be master of both in consumer and enterprise markets," stated Skilton. "Amazon has recently attempted to launch its own mobile device as well as reader devices but, as with the failed Facebook mobile, the issue for these companies is in being able to create quality services and content for the enterprise and consumer markets."
