USA TODAY International Edition
Cook sees enterprise sales as big business for Apple
‘ We’re in the early days of what we can do,’ CEO says
iPhone sales broke records this weekend, but Apple CEO Tim Cook made a play for enterprise Tuesday.
“If you look at the last 12 months, ( enterprise sales for Apple were) $ 25 billion,” Cook said Tuesday in an interview conducted by Box CEO Aaron Levie. “This is not a hobby. This is a real business.” ( That $ 25 billion is about 14% of Apple’s revenue over the last year.)
Big business is a big deal for Apple. Cook’s appearance at an annual enterprise developers conference hosted by Box underscores a major push by Apple to collaborate with leading enterprise partners such as IBM, Cisco Systems and Box. The Cisco collaboration, announced in late August, is Apple’s latest push to put its products in front of corporate customers. Last year, Apple teamed with IBM to build and sell business applications for the iPhone and iPad.
This month, Apple unfurled a new, 12.9- inch iPad that is decidedly designed for the corporate market. It is being positioned as a replacement for a laptop computer, with Apple executives promising desktop performance in a tablet. Microsoft, a heavy hitter in the enterprise market, participated in the announcement.
Still, Apple at its core is a consumer company. “It was an incredible weekend,” Cook said when asked about sales of its latest iPhones. Apple says it sold more than 13 million iPhone 6S and 6S Plus smartphones when they went on sale Sept. 9, through Sunday, setting a company record. Last year, Apple established then- record sales of more than 10 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
“We’re in the early days of what we can do,” Cook says, alluding to Apple’s recent dominance in tech and its future financial prospects. “My gosh, we haven’t started yet.”
And enterprise sales could offer a decisive bump to Apple’s bottom line, Cook told Levie repeatedly during a 30- minute chat. Cook stressed the security of Apple products, a unified operating system and ecosystem and advances in mobility that make Apple products crucial to consumers and corporations alike.
But the key, Cook said, is partnering with established enterprise partners in vertical markets.
“If you think back in time, Apple and IBM were foes. Apple and Microsoft were foes,” Cook says. “But if you look at it, Microsoft and Apple can work on more things together. It is great for our customers. That is why we do it. I don’t believe in grudges.”