UK government reaches 11,000 iPhone SE deal

iPhone SE is the lower cost product for big deployments

Another day, another major deployment of Apple technology in the kind of places we long ago abandoned expectation the company could boldly go. The enterprise adoption of inventions from Cupertino is becoming normalized.

11,000 iPhone SE’s for gov

So, what’s happening? Following news that Orange Business Services is drinking its own cup of ice water to become an Apple Authorized Reseller for Enterprise clients, we learn the UK government is making yet another big investment in Apple products.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has awarded the UK’s fourth largest government reseller XMA the contract to provide 11,000 64GB iPhone SE 2020’s for the department responsible for managing the misery of a growing chunk of the nation’s population.

The iPhones will be supplied with asset-tracking tags and independent support for IBM software, most likely to ensure tight integration of the department’s back-end systems.

XMA has been grabbing a slice of multiple deals of this type in recent months, including supply of tablets to Scottish schools and involvement in the UK’s poor attempt to provide laptops to children to support home learning during the pandemic.

Fans of UK government procurement deals can find more details on the deal here.

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

Now, there’s little doubt that enterprise investments in new equipment happen all the time, but it’s hard to ignore the direction of travel here:

On security, longevity and in terms of TCO, there’s no mobile platform to compete with iPhone, and this is driving enterprises of every stripe (including government and NGO’s) to purchase these devices.

The trend doesn’t stop there, after all, once you’ve begun using an iPhone it’s a relatively simple step to make the leap to using a Mac, especially a s a growing number of iPhone apps will now work on current M1 Macs.

That last point is significant for another reason, as it makes it simple for enterprises to build on one platform to support many – in this case those iPad apps become business tools across iPhone and Mac. Windows, meanwhile, is becoming the ubiquitous companion across every platform, driving he infrastructure while becoming increasingly available as a tablet or online.

The new PC industry isn’t just about PCs, it’s about mobile devices and edge services, boosted by high-end cloud infrastructure from the likes of SAP, Oracle, and IBM. It’s platform independence means Apple is staking a growing claim in this space, of which more later.

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