AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

Apple announced a networking deal with Cisco to optimize Cisco's network hardware for iOS traffic.  It not only shows a new serious push by the Cupertino, California company to move past its consumer-oriented past into enterprise (along with the previous massive IBM partnership), it shows that Apple under the leadership of Tim Cook is ready to grow into new markets by leveraging its popular mobile platform. Under the terms of the deal, Apple will work with Cisco to create a fast lane for the iPhone and iPad. More than that, the two companies will work to create an integrated and more collaborative environment for Apple devices.  What is interesting about Apple's enterprise deals is that the success of Apple's iOS devices owes largely to the BYOD (bring your own device) culture in enterprise with massive armies of mobile warriors wanting to use their iPhones and iPads instead of company-issued devices.  The Cisco deal is just a recognition that Apple has to do more for it...

Android Wear is now an app on iOS that can work with the iPhone.  This is huge news.  First, let's go through a bit what it does and then why now. What it does is allow the user to access their Google-based information on compatible Android Wear watches (so far, looks like only one LG model works with more compatibile devices on the way) to be connected with Apple's iPhone family, second biggest mobile OS after Android itself in terms of market share.  You can access weather, flight information, and some notifications.  It is likely anyone who uses iMessage or Apple's dedicated apps will be out of luck in terms of notifications.  But if the user or users live in the Google world, that really does not matter all that much. Now comes the why.  There are two main possibilities.  Google does not want to cede the lucrative iOS market to just Apple even though Apple offers a much more integrated Apple Watch and Android Wear will only offer a subset of Androi...