In October, IBM and AT&T released an announcement that speaks loudly about the importance of partnerships in the cloud marketplace. Companies pursue partnerships when they recognize that if they work together, they will have a better chance of success than if they act separately. While some companies prefer to go it alone, other partner-friendly companies like IBM and AT&T recognize two things about business clouds. First, no company has all the pieces of the puzzle,. Second, customers prefer to have their suppliers integrate complementary technologies and solutions so they don't have to.

For IBM, cloud computing is still more mindshare than marketshare, expected to contribute less than 2% of its $100B+ global revenue in 2012 (as discussed in "Can IBM's Strategy to Build Customer Private Clouds and IBM and Partner Cloud Services Protect its One Hundred Billion Dollar Business?").  However, the high levels of customer interest in moving IT apps and infrastructure to private and public clouds provide clear indications that IBM's traditional IT hardware, software and services business is at risk over the next 5-10 years unless it becomes a leading provider of a wide range of cloud options from which current and prospective customers will be choosing.  This need to redefine its offerings and how they are delivered and consumed by customers is what is driving the partnership with AT&T whose global network and corporate customer base present opportunities for making IBM cloud services more accessible around the world. 

For AT&T, the partnership adds the ability to resell IBM cloud services alongside its own AT&T cloud services with the added credibility that IBM brings as a trusted supplier and advisor to corporate IT organizations around the world.  IBM and AT&T need each other's help in competing against IaaS cloud market and mind share leader Amazon whose server and storage public and virtual private clouds and private high-bandwidth network connectivity. are directly competitive with IBM and AT&T cloud and VPN offerings.

Clouds can be found floating all over Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona. From Ford Motor Corp Executive Chairman W.C. Ford’s keynote describing how we need to rethink cars as being, like smartphones, pieces of larger networks to vendor announcements and demonstrations of mobile device management (MDM) solutions, clouds offer scalable, flexible, usage-priced network services that make information and communications technology (ICT) solutions easier and faster to try and buy for customers and faster and easer to update and support for providers. Many clouds have a server lining that extends to the customer data center in a hybrid cloud model that connects the past to the future by combining cost-effective cloud architectures with customizable corporate servers deployed on the customer premises.

One such example is the MobileIron Connected Cloud / Virtual Smartphone Platform (VSP) from AT&T  announced by AT&T  on day 1 of MWC 2012.  This new service represents a partnership between secure MDM vendor MobileIron and mobile communications service provider AT&T featuring secure device and telecom expense management for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows, and Symbian smartphones.  Included is an enterprise application storefront for distribution of applications developed internally or by third parties.  Although a multi-tenant MobileIron Connected Cloud service has been available directly from MobileIron since August 2011, the new hybrid cloud offering available through AT&T is important for greater MDM adoption.  Historically, the first network-based service has been the hardest and longest for organizations to embrace.  This partnership with AT&T provides MobileIron with a way to make it easier for organizations to adopt its secure MDM solution.  MobileIron’s VSP server, deployed on customer premises, will be fully managed by AT&T, a trusted service provider already providing businesses of all sizes with telecom hardware, software and services.  Having the server deployed on the customer site facilitates real-time tracking of voice and data activity and service quality for corporate and personal mobile devices (AT&T also announced enhancements to its existing AT&T Mobile Security service including protection against viruses, malware and malicious applications).

Public clouds will work fine for business applications like CRM and communications that involve processing, accessing, uploading and sharing corporate data.  However, many organizations will prefer hybrid clouds for applications like MDM that involve sensitive data, custom corporate policies and private worker data.