First wave of IBM MobileFirst for iOS apps released by Apple and IBM

The momentous teaming up of former rivals IBM and Apple to push enterprise-grade solutions on iOS has yielded the first crop of applications. The apps include Passenger+ (above), which allows airline flight crews to offer personalized, in-flight services to passengers such as rebooking flights, accessing baggage information and providing special offers. Other mobile business apps now available through the collaboration between IBM and Apple are designed for customers in banking, retail, insurance, financial services, telecommunications and government.

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IBM and SAP form biggest cloud partnership to accelerate enterprise adoption

Fresh from a groundbreaking partnership with former rival Apple Inc.,  IBM has nailed another blockbuster deal. IBM and SAP just announced the industry’s largest cloud deal -- and the biggest win for IBM Cloud to date. With this agreement, IBM has become the global enterprise cloud platform  providing large companies and mainstream business with access to SAP's complex and business-critical applications via the IBM Cloud. 

“This announcement is a significant milestone in the deployment of enterprise cloud,” said IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty. “It builds on our two companies’ long history of bringing innovation to business, and extends IBM’s position as the premier global cloud platform. Our secure, open, hybrid enterprise cloud platform will enable SAP clients to support new ways to work in an era shaped by Big Data, mobile and social." Hit jump for more details.

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Apple and IBM forge global partnership to transform enterprise mobility

Apple and IBM announced an exclusive partnership that teams the market-leading strengths of each company to transform enterprise mobility through a new class of business apps—bringing IBM’s big data and analytics capabilities to iPhone and iPad. The groundbreaking partnership brings together Apples' expertise in mobile devices and IBM's strength in cloud systems as well as enterprise deployment. 

The landmark partnership aims to redefine the way work will get done, address key industry mobility challenges and spark true mobile-led business change—grounded in four core capabilities:

• a new class of more than 100 industry-specific enterprise solutions including native apps, developed exclusively from the ground up, for iPhone and iPad;

• unique IBM cloud services optimized for iOS, including device management, security, analytics and mobile integration;

• new AppleCare service and support offering tailored to the needs of the enterprise;  and  

• new packaged offerings from IBM for device activation, supply and management.

Hit jump for the full details of the announcement. 

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IBM and National Geographic Kids hold Guinness World Records title for smallest printed magazine cover

IBM and National Geographic Kids aim to show the power of nanotechnology with the latest Guinness World Records title it garnered. The publication and tech company combined forces to print the world's smallest magazine cover at 11 x 14 micrometers. It is so miniscule that a grain of salt can hold 2,000 cover images. IBM scientists created a tiny "chisel" with a heatable silicon tip that is 100,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil point. The scientists printed the March 2014 cover (which was voted online by National Geographic Kids' readers) in under 10 minutes onto a polymer.

IBM wanted to demonstrate how this new capability may impact prototyping of new transistor devices, which will help create more energy-efficient and faster electronics for different devices. It can even be used to create nano-sized security tags to help prevent document forgery for items such as passports, currency, and even priceless works of art.