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IBM looks to capitalise on iPhone boom
International Business Machines Corp (IBM), aiming to capitalise on the popularity of the iPhone and BlackBerry, is developing technology for mobile devices and holding discussions with wireless service providers.
- By Katie Hoffmann, Bloomberg
- Published: 23:16 June 19, 2009
New York: International Business Machines Corp (IBM), aiming to capitalise on the popularity of the iPhone and BlackBerry, is developing technology for mobile devices and holding discussions with wireless service providers.
IBM is talking "with virtually every large carrier," including AT&T Inc, Vodafone Group Plc, and France Telecom SA, about web programmes and services, Paul Bloom, head of telecommunications research, said in an interview.
AT&T is the exclusive US carrier for Apple Inc's iPhone.
The mobile web can provide a new growth engine for IBM, the world's largest computer-services provider, Bloom said.
Global shipments of smart phones, those with advanced web and e-mail features, increased 22 per cent last year, double the pace of personal computers, research firm IDC said. Until now, IBM had limited activity in wireless, such as formatting its Lotus software for some smart phones, he said. "It's a very different ballgame," Bloom said. "Now you move to digital data and sensor technology and analytics and IT."
The company is also focused on emerging markets, where many people will bypass personal computers and use phones as their main medium of communication, Mark Dean, a vice-president of research said.
"Often ... emerging countries will leapfrog established countries in technologies," Dean said in an interview in Hawthorne, New York.
"We thought the PC era was big, the mobile era is going to be just huge."
IBM, based in Armonk, New York, has seen its shares gain 28 per cent this year.
Mobile-phone shipments in Brazil, Russia, India, and China, will increase this year, compared with a 15-per cent decline in the US, according to Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC.
Growth might be fuelled in countries with stimulus plans, such as China, where the government is considering giving low-cost smart phones to some citizens, Bloom said.
"The price of smart phones is going to go down, and the capabilities are going to go up," Bloom said.
IBM has no plans to make its own handset, said Dean, who said he personally uses Research In Motion Ltd's BlackBerry Curve.
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