Dive Brief:
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Apple and IBM formed a partnership rooted in an artificial intelligence service to aid business customers in creating their own custom applications, reports Fortune. The four-year-old alliance allows Apple and IBM to make apps for customers on their iOS devices.
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The service is called Watson Services for Core ML and allows developers to use Apple's Core ML tools to create ML-based apps, according to Fortune. Instead of relying on IBM's data centers to process incoming data, the apps allow advanced calculations to take place on devices.
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Coca-Cola is among the customers testing Watson Services for Core ML for its technicians and their inspection of vending machines. Exact revenue of the project is unknown, but IBM said it has sold more than 800 corporate apps because of its alliance with Apple, according to the report. Apple's Core ML tools are already accessible through existing ML services from cloud providers including Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
Dive Insight:
Overall, Apple is a top ranked company because of product innovations, including the software and AI engineering underlying its devices. However, sales for Apple's consumer-facing products have continued to decline, and the tech company is looking to the enterprise as its savior.
The type of relationship Apple has forged with companies like IBM is a positive signal in Apple's journey to becoming a more forceful vendor in the enterprise market.
Just last year Apple and SAP teamed up for SAP Cloud Platform software for iOS. The partnership was meant to speed up productivity for iOS developers and their creation of mobile apps.
Following that partnership, Apple and Accenture jointly launched a dedicated iOS practice to help iOS customers better use the system in August 2017.
Personnel from both companies — including visual and experience designers, data architects and hardware and software designers — can make new tools to help businesses better interact with customers using Apple devices.