Amazing: Apple and IBM announce partnership to create mobile apps for enterprise

Today Apple and IBM announced a partnership that is, frankly, rather shocking.  But somehow it makes sense.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/apple-teams-up-with-ibm-for-huge-expansive-enterprise-push/

Their goal is to release 100 iPad mobile apps for enterprise (ERP, CRM, and SCM) verticals.  We've been pushing since 2010 the vision of iPads as massive agents of change for the enterprise app market.  

No surprise, with the focus on challenges from SAAS vendors, most enterprise vertical vendors have spent very little time on mobile.  In fact most mobile apps just replicate the ugly UI from browser-based systems.  If Apple and IBM can show better ways to use mobile real-estate properly, then hurrah!

Startup Elementum is Poised to Re-Write the Rules For Supply Chain Management

Another mobile enterprise startup, Elementum announces new funding:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/08/jerry-yang-box-workday-founders-invest-in-disruptive-supply-chain-saas-elementum/

 They are focused on a mobile-first strategy for supply chain management...an increasingly complex international function.  Remember that Tim Cook, Apple executive, first started his job by coordinating the massively complex sourcing of parts for Apple hardware.

Elementum launched to simplify supply chain management similar to the way Salesforce disrupted the CRM for sales, and Workday reinvented software for HR and finance. The company has created a suite of mobile apps that simplifies and optimizes complicated supply chain processes in the cloud. For most businesses, dealing with supply chain software is an archaic process, and things like mobile, realtime access to data, and even good design is hard to come by.

They also talk about something called the "Supply Chain Graph" which we might presume is a combination of data from a customer's internal systems, data from the suppliers, and then globally sourced data from the web...perhaps weather reports and shipping schedules, who knows.