評論
打印
iPhones and iPads moved an important step towards becoming staples of modern working life on Tuesday as Apple sealed a groundbreaking alliance with IBM to turn its gadgets into fully business-friendly devices.
iPhone和iPad周二向著成為現代職場必備用品的目標邁出了重要一步，蘋果(Apple)與IBM達成一項具有開創性的合作協議，將把蘋果設備變成完全商業友好的設備。
The partnership, intended to increase the security and functionality of Apple’s mobile devices for corporate users, is a mark of how deeply “consumerisation” is reshaping corporate technology markets.
這一合作針對企業用戶，旨在加強企業用戶使用的移動設備的安全和功用。這也表明，“消費者導向”正大大改變企業科技市場。
Apple and IBM were once bitter foes in the personal computing market, but have been forced to co-operate as workers bring gadgets from their personal lives to the office.
蘋果和IBM曾經是個人電腦市場上的一對勁敵，但隨著員工將電子設備從個人生活帶到辦公室，雙方被迫展開合作。
The deal will see IBM provide cloud services, including device management and security, for Apple’s handsets and tablets, which it will sell to large business and government customers loaded with apps specialised for particular industries.
根據這筆交易，IBM將為蘋果手機和平板電腦提供云服務（包括設備管理和安全），蘋果向大企業和政府客戶銷售的也將是帶有行業定制應用軟件的設備。
Frank Gillett, analyst at Forrester Research, hailed the deal as a “landmark agreement”.
Forrester Research分析師弗蘭克•吉勒特(Frank Gillett)稱贊這筆交易是一項“里程碑式協議”。
The biggest loser from the partnership is likely to be Microsoft, which will suffer a dent to its ambitions of winning business users over to its Windows 8 software on touchscreen devices, said Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering.
Envisioneering分析師理查德•多爾蒂(Richard Doherty)表示，蘋果與IBM合作的最大輸家可能是微軟(Microsoft)，微軟正試圖通過用于觸屏設備的Windows 8軟件贏得企業用戶。
Although Apple says 98 per cent of Fortune 500 companies use its devices, the partnership is an acknowledgment that the consumer-focused company lacks the expertise and salesforce required to tackle large corporate customers. It also comes amid continuing criticism of Apple’s cloud services and will provide a fillip to the iPhone, where revenue growth has slowed in recent quarters.
盡管蘋果表示，《財富》(Fortune)500強公司中有98%都在使用蘋果設備，但雙方的合作表明，在與大公司客戶打交道方面，這家以消費者為中心的公司仍缺乏專業技能和銷售團隊。而此時外界對蘋果云服務的批評還在繼續，雙方的合作將會刺激iPhone的銷售，最近幾個季度iPhone的收入增長一直緩慢。
