IBM is making a massive change thanks to Apple

by  

Laura Lorenzetti

This would’ve looked crazy ten years ago.

Instead of viewing Apple as a bitter rival as it had for years, Big Blue is adopting the company as a vital partner.

IBM  IBM 0.81%  is on track to become one of the world’s largest corporate users of Apple’s MacBooks after first offering the hardware in May, the Wall StreetJournal reports. And now, IBM is launching a new service that will help other corporations make the same leap from Windows.

The new service takes the lessons IBM just gleaned from implementing more than 110,000 Apple  AAPL 1.95% devices, including iPads, MacBooks and iPhones, across its own company, helping corporate clients make the same kind of wide-reaching tech turnover.

IBM’s new knowledge wasn’t just guess-and-check implementation. It learned directly from the source, sending one of its vice presidents for a weeklong immersion into Apple’s methods of distributing its tech internally.

“We each have our strengths,” Fletcher Previn, IBM’s vice president of Workplace as a Service, told the Journal. “Apple is great at the experience and making some of the best devices in the world but we know what a lot of large enterprises need.”