News

Apple Continues iOS Enterprise Push with New Accenture Pact

• By David Ramel
• August 31, 2017

After conquering the high-end consumer mobile space (and ceding the low end to Android), Apple is continuing its push to inject iOS apps into the enterprise with yet another partnership designed to increase market presence.

This, time, the partnership is with Accenture, a professional services and consulting company specializing in business-oriented technology initiatives around the world.

The deal will see a new Accenture Digital Studios practice in various global locations, 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 this week. "The experts will include visual and experience designers, programmers, data architects and scientists, and hardware and software designers."

Apple has been setting up these enterprise-oriented partnerships for years.

More than three years ago, for example, Apple teamed up with IBM for a Big Data deal. IBM has been a strong Apple partner, having early this year, for example, announced it was taking its Watson AI offering mobile by offering it 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 "revolutionize the mobile work experience for enterprise customers." And the list goes on.

Apparently seeing few other opportunities for market expansion, this week's pact indicates Apple is proceeding full steam ahead on 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."

Apple said the new deal with Accenture 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.
• Internet-of-Things (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 to 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.