Is Apple Pushing a Cloud-Based Agenda with iOS 5?

Written by The VAR Guy 1
March 28, 2011

If there's one thing that really gets The VAR Guy's juices flowing, its a good rumor. This one is worth mulling over: Apparently, Apple is revamping its mobile operating system in iOS 5 to focus heavily on the cloud. If that's the case, such a move could have implications for the channel. Read on for a little speculative perspective ...

If there’s one thing that really gets The VAR Guy’s juices flowing, its a good rumor. This one is worth mulling over: Apparently, Apple is revamping its mobile operating system in iOS 5 to focus heavily on the cloud. If that’s the case, such a move could have implications for the channel. Read on for a little speculative perspective …

Tip of the hat goes to TechCrunch, which apparently has confirmed Apple’s strategies through two separate sources. The plan is to delay the traditional summer launch of iOS until Fall 2011 to make way for a big ‘cloud’ announcement that will likely come during Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference kicking off June 6, 2011. The cloud news might have something to do with the massive data center Apple built in North Carolina. The VAR Guy has heard plenty of rumblings that MobileMe will be getting a complete overhaul and will offer some new cloud features for free. Will this new data center accommodate that? Or is it more?

According to TechCrunch, iOS 5 will be a complete revamp of the OS and may even be released alongside a ‘new’ iPad 3. Sounds crazy to The VAR Guy, but our resident blogger is no stranger to Apple surprises. iOS 5 is set to be built around the cloud, reports TechCrunch, and allegedly is coming with a slew of new cloud services. One is likely to be on-the-fly access to all a user’s iTunes music from the cloud. The more techie-type services apparently are set to be discussed at WWDC.

So what are the channel implications? The VAR Guy looks at this news from a broader perspective — one that shows a fundamental shift in the way the cloud is going to be positioned moving forward. And that definitely would impact the channel.

Anytime a technology becomes ubiquitous and easy to use, consumers want that experience wherever they can get it. So what happens when Apple makes a cloud-based service that equally easy to use and demanded by consumers? If it’s powerful enough, it may shape the channel market offerings of cloud-based services. The VAR Guy thinks Apple easily could make some nice features free to all. For the SMB market, if Apple’s offerings are on par with other channel offerings, there could be a price war, or at the very least, a value/feature war.

Of course, this may be an extreme scenario. But Apple is no stranger to moving into new areas and changing the paradigm of an entire industry. (Case in point: iTunes.) But more importantly, what if iOS 5 is built to integrate more easily into a company’s existing cloud infrastructure? What if iOS 5 features built-in VDI? What if iOS 5 plays nice with VMware or Xen? iOS already works with Microsoft Exchange. Plus, The VAR Guy is well aware of Apple’s push to move deeper into the business space, so why not continue with a version of iOS that focuses more around the needs of corporations and their data centers?

The VAR Guy knows it may be all conjecture, but The VAR Guy has also learned to never underestimate Apple.

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