Apple and IBM are making good on their promise to deliver more than 100 user-friendly and powerful apps for the enterprise — the two companies rolled out the first 10. Delivered as part of IBM’s MobileFirst for iOS solutions initiative, the apps tap into IBM’s big data and analytics solutions and deliver it in a touch-friendly and intuitive way on the iPad.

The apps span vertical industries including banking, retail, insurance, financial services, telecommunications, government, and transportation.

What’s really interesting about these apps, though, is that Apple and IBM actually came together to deliver them at all. Neither Apple nor IBM truly needs each other to deliver apps to the enterprise and sell iPads to businesses, but both companies working together can create something greater together that’s also easier to sell.

It’s a relationship where it seems both companies will gain will little risk to either.

So What About the Apps?

IBM has been working on delivering specialized applications to specific, under-served industry verticals, selling IBM’s brand of actionable data analytics. To get enterprises to buy into it, a fancy new delivery mechanism on mobile devices meets specific pain points and opportunities, and apps created with Apple’s design help . . . give them a shot at actually being used.

The apps can be customized for any organization and easily deployed, managed and upgraded via cloud services from IBM specifically for iOS devices, with security across the data, app and device, Apple reports.

Here’s the basic apps, listed below . . . but you’ll likely enjoy scanning through them on Apple’s splashy enterprise app marketing page instead.

  • Plan Flight (Travel and Transportation) addresses the major expense of all airlines—fuel—permitting pilots to view flight schedules, flight plans, and crew manifests ahead of time, report issues in-flight to ground crews, and make more informed decisions about discretionary fuel.
  • Passenger+ (Travel and Transportation) empowers flight crews to offer an unmatched level of personalized services to passengers in-flight—including special offers, re-booking, and baggage information.
  • Advise & Grow (Banking and Financial Markets) puts bankers on premise with their small business clients, with secure authorization to access client profiles and competitive analyses, gather analytics-driven insights to make personalized recommendations, and complete secure transactions.
  • Trusted Advice (Banking and Financial Markets) allows advisors to access and manage client portfolios, gain insight from powerful predictive analytics—in the client’s kitchen or at the local coffee shop, rather than the advisor’s office—with full ability to test recommendations with sophisticated modeling tools all the way to complete, secure transactions.
  • Retention (Insurance) empowers agents with access to customers’ profiles and history, including an analytics-driven retention risk score as well as smart alerts, reminders, and recommendations on next best steps and facilitation of key transactions like collection of e-signatures and premiums.
  • Case Advice (Government) addresses the issue of workload and support among caseworkers who are making critical decisions, one family or situation at a time, on the go. The solution adjusts case priorities based on real-time analytics-driven insights, and assesses risk based on predictive analysis.
  • Incident Aware (Government) converts an iPhone into a vital crime prevention asset, presenting law enforcement officers with real-time access to maps and video-feeds of incident locations; information about victim status, escalation risk, and crime history; and improved ability to call for back-up and supporting services.
  • Sales Assist (Retail) enables associates to connect with customer profiles, make suggestions based on previous purchases and current selections, check inventory, locate items in-store, and ship out-of-store items.
  • Pick & Pack (Retail) combines proximity-based technology with back-end inventory systems for transformed order fulfillment.
  • Expert Tech (Telecommunications) taps into native iOS capabilities including FaceTime® for easy access to expertise and location services for route optimization to deliver superior on-site service, more effective issue resolution and productivity as well as improved customer satisfaction.

About the author

Chris Maxcer

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I've been writing about the tech industry since the birth of the email newsletter, and I still remember the clacking Mac keyboards from high school -- Apple's seed-planting strategy at work. I'm a big fan of elegant gear and great tech, but there's something to be said for turning it all off -- or most of it -- to go outside. Online I like to call out cool stuff on Wicked Cool Bite and blog with my buddies at Man Makes Fire. To catch me, take a "firstnamelastname" guess at the url of this site.