Apple Forms Partnership with SAP in Continued B2B Push
On the heels of Apple’s first reported year-over-year quarterly revenue in 13 years last week, the company is doubling down on its push into the enterprise tech space.
On the heels of Apple’s first reported year-over-year quarterly revenue in 13 years last week, the company is doubling down on its push into the enterprise tech space.
In a move that offers big opportunities for the channel, enterprise software giant SAP (SAP) and Apple (AAPL) today announced a partnership to bring iOS to its customer base. The partnership will include a new set of apps for the iPhone and iPad that leverage data already stored in SAP tools. In addition, SAP is providing a new software development kit with an iOS SDK for its in-memory database product HANA, which will give organizations and service providers the opportunity to build custom apps. Programmers will have access to training to learn to code on the HANA iOS SDK.
BYOD policies and end user loyalty to iPhones and iPads have forced enterprises to find ways to integrate iOS into their workflows in a prime example of consumer-driven IT. Where IBM, HP and other enterprise hardware OEMs started by selling to big business and only later made affordable, smaller options available to consumers, Apple is taking the opposite approach and using its immense popularity among end users as a vanguard to a push into enterprise tech.
“This partnership will transform how iPhone and iPad are used in enterprise by bringing together the innovation and security of iOS with SAP’s deep expertise in business software,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement. “As the leader in enterprise software and with 76% of business transactions touching an SAP system, SAP is the ideal partner to help us truly transform how businesses around the world are run on iPhone and iPad.”
Apple’s other partnerships include those with IBM, Cisco and Microsoft. Cook told investors last September that Apple’s enterprise tech sales reached $25 billion in the 12-month period ending last June. While enterprise sales are “not a hobby” for Apple, neither is the company entirely comfortable in the B2B space. In particular, it lacks expertise selling industry-specific solutions. “We don’t have deep knowledge of all the verticals that enterprise is in,” he admitted.
In order to make those inroads, Cook knows Apple needs strategic partnerships. “You want to do business with someone that is part of an ecosystem,” Cook said. “The island days are gone.”
