Following Apple partnership, IBM now offering employees Macs for the first time ~ Apple Juice

Thursday, 28 May 2015

Following Apple partnership, IBM now offering employees Macs for the first time

Apple CEO Tim Cook with IBM CEO Ginni Rometty

After inking a deal with Apple to push iOS devices and enterprise apps to its customers, IBM today started offers employees Macs for the first time. We’ve seen the official IBM notice, and several IBM employees on Twitter are praising the decision after years of PC hell:

Benefits of #IBM #Apple partnership. Employees can now choose between MAC or PC. #betterwaytowork
—
John Collins (@johncollins2014) May 28, 2015

In a memo to employees, IBM notes that starting today employees can pick from a MacBook Pro, Macbook Air, or a PC when setting up a new or refreshed workstation. The machines will include new software for security, Wi-Fi, and VPN out of the box so employees just have to connect to the internet to get started, according to the memo.

Apple first announced the partnership with IBM last summer that would see the companies develop MobileFirst for iOS apps for enterprise customers in addition to pushing iOS devices and enterprise AppleCare support to customers. It’s probably not a good look to be selling Apple services from a ThinkPad, but it the change is a company wide initiative and not just for IBM employees pushing MobileFirst for iOS. Employees will be able to switch to company-issued Macs whenever replacing an older machine as normal.

Apple first started rolling out the apps in December with solutions for banking, retail, insurance, financial services, telecommunications, government and airlines. It’s since launched several more MobileFirst solutions bringing the total up to 22 and just this month started bringing Apple Watch support to several of the apps.