The Secret To Apple's Ongoing Success

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Apple Inc. AAPL has reported record-breaking iPhone sales results nearly every quarter for the past four years. The company is expected to keep the trend going when it reports its fiscal 2015 first quarter results on Tuesday, January 27 at 5:00 p.m. ET.

"I think you're going to have the iPhone sales up near the high end of the range -- maybe at the very high end of what analysts are expecting," Cody Willard, chairman of financial social network Scutify, told Benzinga.

It's no secret that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are very successful. But what is the secret to Apple's overall success?

Related Link: Apple Created A Special Team To Win Sony's Former Customers

"Apple created a new market and a new need and created raving fans, not customers," Sachin Lulla, a partner in IBM's North American automotive practice, told Benzinga. "I think the reason they were able to do that is they were open to partnerships. They truly believed in innovation as the key to changing the game."

Apple surprised the world in July 2014 when the company announced that it had formed a global partnership with International Business Machines Corp. IBM to transform enterprise mobility.

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"IBM clearly has been part of the mobility effort from an enterprise standpoint, agnostic of the operating system, for a long time now," said Lulla. "It made perfect sense for both companies to come together and truly transform the enterprise through mobility, bringing Apple's design philosophies, the iOS platform and IBM's industry expertise."

A 'Game Changer'

Lulla said that by leveraging IBM's resources and working jointly with Apple to develop specific apps, it will be a "game changer for anyone looking at mobility within the enterprise."

"Based on the approach to that effort, we've trained our teams extensively around the design aspects of mobile design development," said Lulla. "Our mobile development practice is very integrated with our design methodology and our user experience team. IBM is actually the world's largest digital agency."

Lulla wasn't involved in deciding the partnership, so he couldn't say why Apple was chosen over Google Inc GOOG or Microsoft Corporation MSFT. He did say that IBM continues to develop and support mobility efforts for enterprises across all of these platforms.

"The Apple alliance does give us an edge to bring the iOS and Apple design philosophies to mobile development, which clearly the market has appreciated," Lulla added. "But again, we are working with multiple clients across all these platforms."

Ready In Advance

IBM works hand-in-hand with Apple before each major iOS upgrade is released. Lulla thinks this is a "big benefit" for CIOs, particularly with the growth of the BYOD (bring your own device) concept. He said that Apple and IBM conduct joint pretests before any major release comes out for enterprises.

"That way any unknown impacts to existing applications, existing devices in the enterprise for select clients is minimized or mitigated or addressed," Lulla explained. "With every release of iOS, we will be working jointly with Apple on their efforts."

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.

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Posted In: Top StoriesExclusivesTechCody WillardGoogleIBMiOSMicrosoftSachin LullaScutify
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