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PC Inventor IBM to Babysit Macs for Businesses

Times change.
IBM CEO Ginn Rometty and Apple CEO Tim Cook. Photo courtesy IBM.

Apple and IBM are becoming closer and closer friends.

IBM, which is poised to become the largest corporate user of Macs, said today that it's rolling out a service to help companies integrate Macs into their work environments. IBM, which birthed the modern PC in 1981, has been cosying up to Apple ever since last year, when the companies announced a strategic partnership to deploy iPads in the enterprise and to develop mobile apps for enterprise environments.

IBM told the Wall Street Journal that it expects to manage about 50,000 Macs by the end of the year, a number that may eventually jump to 200,000. IBM's job is to help clients like Citigroup and Sprint roll out swaths of Macs without disrupting productivity. Businesses like these, typically dominated by PCs, will be able to order shiny new Macs from IBM, then have IBM's team fully set them up up so they can immediately be used by employees.

While Apple did not directly comment on IBM's announcement, it did—channeling the memory of Steve Jobs—take the time to gloat that Mac sales have outpaced PC sales for the past decade.