Air Canada and National Grid To Use Apple, IBM Apps; United Airlines Renewed iPad Program

Riding on its iPhones success, Apple Inc is venturing into the enterprise market more steadily than its competitors like Samsung, Microsoft and Blackberry. With the passage of time, Apple is gaining more enterprise customers. Recent prominent customer wins include Air Canada, National Grid in the UK and Banorte in Mexico. It is also worth mentioning that United Airlines has renewed its iPad program with more than 10,000 iPad Air 2s.

Around 500 companies, including Air Canada and National Grid, are now using mobile apps developed by Apple and IBM, revealed Apple CFO Luca Maestri during a call to discuss the company’s third quarter results, reports Computer World. Air Canada flight attendants might be using the Passenger+ app on an iPad, which will allow them to view passenger and flight information.

Maestri also mentioned that governments from various countries are also interested in using Apple hardware and IBM software. For instance, the government of Japan wants to use the Apple devices to take care of their ageing population. In April, Apple, IBM and Japan Post declared a joint programme to deliver iPads with special health apps developed by IBM and analytics to connect Japanese senior citizens. By 2020, Japan Post aims to reach out to 4 million to 5 million Japanese seniors. Two of the earliest customers American Eagle Outfitters and the government of Miami Dade County in Florida also use IBM apps on Apple mobile devices. In July 2014, Apple and IBM teamed up develop mobile apps for business users.

According to Infotech Lead, in the June quarter IBM released 13 new MobileFirst for Apple iOS apps. This new line includes a wide range from retail banking and healthcare to HR and sales. Currently, there are 35 apps in IBM’s MobileFirst for iOS. There will be 100 apps available by the end of 2015 which will connect big data and analytics on their iPads and iPhones.

Apple’s mobile partners are creating path breaking solutions on iOS across many industries which in turn are attracting significant customer interest to utilise iPads and iPhones. Apple has 456 global stores out of which 190 are outside the United States. Apple will open 40 new stores in Greater China by mid 2016. The company’s Q3 results revealed that Apple sold 4.8 million Macs and iPhone represents more than 60 per cent of its sales.

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