Apple isn't really known as an enterprise vendor, but rather as a consumer one that people like to use in an enterprise setting. Apple traditionally hasn't set itself up well to sell into enterprise - they don't follow the technology enterprise norms. If we look to Oracle as the exemplar (for better or worse) of what it means to be an enterprise company what do we see? Highly paid salespeople, large enterprise pricing approaches and big industry events where industry analysts and media get a preview into upcoming news that can then be disseminated to the masses.
Apple does none of this - it sells either via the web, through partners or from stores staffed by fresh-faced disciples. It tends not to "do deals" for enterprise customers, and it is the epitome of a closed shop. There are almost no industry analysts or media who get decent access to Apple and its execs and even fewer who get any insight into product roadmap.
So given these facts, it is interesting to see the announcement by Apple in its latest earnings call that they're going to partner with a number of companies to bring iOS solutions to market for the enterprise. Vendors such as Box, DocuSign and ServiceMax have all been shoulder-tapped to join the program that some say was only conceived of because of falling iPad sales.
These partnerships with existing SaaS companies make sense - after all, they have existing products in-market and Apple can help push them out to customers. Perhaps more interesting is another partnership that Apple has entered into, that with cloud systems-integrator, consulting house and development shop Appirio. Appirio is best known as a Salesforce consulting shop. Indeed it was actually established in Salesforce's startup incubator in San Mateo.
Since then, however, Appirio has broadened out and now adds SaaS vendors such as Workday, Google Apps and Cornerstone On Demand to its roster of supported SaaS products. It also helps organizations wanting to leverage Amazon Web Services (AWS).
But beyond this systems integration work, Appirio is home to a bustling ecosystem of developers, both internal and external, and this is the focus for Apple. Appirio is going to help third parties develop and deliver enterprise-focused iOS apps to market.
It makes sense, Appirio has a good crowdsourcing community for development projects and has already used that community to build hundreds of mobile projects for customers. Apply this to the much broader audience that Apple can garner and interesting things could well happen.
Appirio currently has 2,000 active iOS developers on its crowdsourced platform, it has ambitious plans to expand that to 20,000 within the next year - a huge workforce that can be leveraged to build iOS apps. Add to that the community of designers and data scientists that Appirio can tap and you have some interesting possibilities.
For too long, enterprise iOS apps have been problematic. Small mobile developers are often seen as too risky a bet for enterprises, while larger vendors didn't have the Apple support to really double down on the opportunity - this change from Apple looks set to turn the tables on the status quo.
So can Apple be the only vendor in history to buck the enterprise software norms? Can it continue being aloof and arrogant and still succeed in the heady world of the largest organziations. Something tells me that this real outlier will be able to do so.
