News

Apple Makes Another Enterprise Push with Accenture Pact

• By David Ramel
• September 01, 2017

In a bid to increase the iOS platform's presence in the enterprise market, Apple has inked a partnership with global consulting giant Accenture.

Announced this week, the deal will see a new iOS-focused Accenture Digital Studios practice in various locations worldwide, staffed with co-located Apple experts. "Working together, the two companies will launch a new set of tools and services that help enterprise clients transform how they engage with customers using iPhone and iPad," the companies said in a statement. "The experts will include visual and experience designers, programmers, data architects and scientists, and hardware and software designers."

Apple said the partnership will involve:

• New ecosystem services to help clients address the full range of iOS integration requirements to connect to back-end systems, leveraging Accenture's systems integration expertise and the unique iOS advantages built by Apple with key partners like SAP and Cisco.
  
  
• IoT services featuring new tools, templates and predesigned code to help clients take greater advantage of the data from IoT platforms in their iOS apps, putting more power into the hands of workers.
  
  
• Migration services to help clients quickly and easily transfer their existing legacy applications and data to modern iOS apps.

"The new iOS tools and services will take full advantage of the latest Apple technologies and tap into Accenture's leading digital and analytics capabilities," the companies said.

This is far from Apple's first enterprise-oriented partnership; in 2014, for example, Apple teamed up with IBM for a Big Data deal. IBM has been a strong Apple partner since, announcing earlier this year that its Watson AI will be offered in Apple's App Store. IBM has also teamed with Apple to ready the Swift language for the enterprise.

Other Apple collaborations included a deal with yet another consulting firm, Deloitte, aiming iOS at the enterprise. SAP also got in on the Apple partnerships with an iOS deal to "revolutionize the mobile work experience for enterprise customers."

Apple has already conquered the high-end consumer mobile space and ceded the low end to Android. Apparently seeing few other opportunities for market expansion, the company is proceeding full-steam ahead with its enterprise push.

"We're partnering with experts in enterprise including Accenture, Cisco, Deloitte, IBM and SAP," Apple says on its Web site. "Scale iOS for businesses of all sizes. Make the most of iPhone, iPad, and Mac by working with our partners on mobile strategy consulting, app development, back-end system integration, and corporate networking."