Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Analyst Angle. We’ve collected a group of the industry’s leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry.
While the markets have reacted to this announcement, both BlackBerry and MobileIron shares have fallen. I think we need look at the cause and effect in both the short and long term to truly understand the overall impact.
Apple’s iOS clearly continues to dominate enterprise mobility in spite of Samsung’s global efforts to offer the enterprise secure Android smartphones and tablets using Samsung’s Knox security. Meanwhile, BlackBerry in the enterprise is in free fall. IBM has always been strong in enterprise mobility with IBM Global Services supporting BlackBerry infrastructure for some of the world’s largest corporate customers. Just like IBM supplied BlackBerry smartphones to its corporate customers, it now has the ability to provide iOS smartphones and tablets to those same corporate customers.
What is different now vs. then?
In past years, IBM Global Services has been simply supporting the mobility solutions its corporate customers have purchased. If you view the IBM Global Services IT Services Alliances webpage, you will see alliances with AirWatch, MobileIron, Juniper, Citrix and others. The difference now is that IBM has bought their way into iOS Enterprise Mobility with the acquisition of Maas360 (FiberLink) earlier this year. Today, IBM’s FiberLink, a Gartner EMM Magic Quadrant Leader, has on-premise and cloud-based EMM offerings that are on par with other Gartner EMM Magic Quadrant favorites MobileIron, Good Technology, Airwatch and newly added Globo.
Is this about Apple hardware or IBM EMM software?
IBM and IBM Global Services work with some of the largest corporations in the world who can afford to have IBM provide hardware and software technical support services. Now that iOS is mainstream in almost every large global enterprise, IBM’s global customers want to source the products from the vendors they have procurement and support agreements with as it makes doing business easier and gives corporate customers better economy of scale. In the short term, I don’t believe this IBM/Apple announcement will have any major impact on EMM players because most large corporate customers who will be buying Apple hardware have already made an EMM decision.
What about in 2015 and beyond?
As the market continues to evolve and mature, IBM’s direct and indirect channels will have a competitive advantage because they can bundle the IBM EMM (FiberLink) software with Apple hardware and IBM-provided hardware and software technical support services. This is something that is not as easy for most of the other EMM players to accomplish alone. It doesn’t mean that IBM Global Services will stop supporting partner solutions from AirWatch, MobileIron, Juniper, Citrix and others, it just means that IBM direct and indirect sales teams will be selling IBM solutions. It may all come down to which EMM provider has the better sales team and channel partners. However, if it comes down to price alone, the new IBM/Apple partnership will give IBM a competitive advantage, unless global hardware distribution partners Ingram Micro, Avnet and TechData can figure out how to work with EMM partners to bundle solutions and hardware and be able to compete.
A serial entrepreneur with Fortune 500 executive experience, Bill Rom has over 25 years of sales, marketing, operational, technical and capital raising experience. His extensive executive and entrepreneurial background, together with his operating and executive management success, spans corporate, venture and entrepreneurial settings. Prior to co-founding 151 ADVISORS, Rom was COO of EMS, a Dubai-based provider of mobile and BlackBerry solutions, where he was instrumental in launching the company in the UAE. Prior to the formation of EMS, he held executive management positions at Outercurve Technologies and Vaultus Mobile Technologies, and co-founded Mobile Computing Solutions, a mobile computing integrator and managed services company. Earlier in his career, Rom led the development and creation of wireless solutions such as the NCR Virtual Office, the first solution integrated with commercial wireless services. He also served as regional sales manager for NEC Technologies and held executive sales positions at LinkData and Victor Electronics.
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