The glorious alliance between soft fruit Apple and Big Blue has not put the fear of Jehovah into other potential fruity alliances.
According to Reuters top executives at Dell and BlackBerry scoffed at the deal with their best scoffing sticks.
The pair have been trying to re-invent themselves, and some of the tame Apple press claims that the glorious Apple-IBM alliance will stuff up their efforts.
John Swainson, who heads Dell’s global software business, said that the Apple-IBM made a good press release but there was nothing in it which was worth taking seriously.
Swainson, who spent over two decades in senior roles at IBM, point out that IBM reps will be unable to flog Apple gear to their client base. He said that they were rubbish at selling that sort of thing when it had an IBM logo on it, so they are going to be just as pants at trying to sell stuff with an Apple on it.
While it is true that Apple products are better marketed, Swainson said they lack the depth of security features that many large business clients like banks need.
BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen told the Financial Times that the alliance was like when “two elephants start dancing”,
Dell and BlackBerry have declined to discuss whether they would consider teaming up, but some analysts, bankers and others have argued in the past that a partnership between the two underdogs potentially made sense.
Dell has a huge sales team, vast network of business clients and is focused on growing its security and device management capabilities which is everything that BlackBerry needs.
