Dive Brief:
- Cisco and Apple are deepening their partnership with CallKit, a new API which allows apps like Cisco Spark to take advantage of new features in iOS 10.
- The new Apple operating system unifies VoIP calling and cellular calling for the first time.
- Users can keep using the iPhone the way they are used to, but the calls are handled by Cisco Spark, enabling new capabilities of VoIP apps running on the iPhone, according to a Cisco blog.
Dive Insight:
The enterprise market is becoming more and more important to those that sell technology products and solutions geared toward consumers, and Apple is increasingly turning to the enterprise for new sources of profit as its consumer sales cool.
Apple recently struck a number of deals with enterprise tech companies, including SAP, Cisco and IBM in hopes of building its enterprise business quickly. Cisco and Apple are now integrating iOS 10 and Cisco Spark in hopes of improving the business phone experience.
Until now, many of the functionalities of iPhones were catered to consumers. But with the older tech companies moving to develop more fluid and enterprise-focused APIs for iOS, more iPhones could soon find their way into the enterprise as work phones.
