As part of a new strategic partnership with Apple, Salesforce will release a Salesforce Mobile SDK for iOS by end of 2018 and redesign its iOS app by early 2019
Chris Welch / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's enterprise push has been building through named partners: SAP committed to iOS apps and an SDK for HANA Cloud Platform in 2016, followed by the Apple-Accenture alliance to help enterprises migrate legacy apps to iOS in 2017. Salesforce is now the next major SaaS name to sign on, committing to a native iOS SDK and a redesigned app rather than a one-off integration.
For Salesforce specifically, this sits alongside its other platform bets — the 2015 Microsoft partnership built a Salesforce1 mobile app for Windows 10, and the 2017 Google deal tied G Suite into its CRM. The Apple pact extends that multi-platform strategy to the device layer, where Apple gets a flagship CRM optimized for iOS and Salesforce gets deeper reach into iPhone-centric enterprises.
First-order effects
- Salesforce developers building custom CRM apps get a dedicated iOS SDK by end of 2018, making native iPhone and iPad apps a supported path instead of a workaround.
- Salesforce's own customers on iPhones get a redesigned native app by early 2019, replacing whatever generic mobile experience shipped before the partnership.
Second-order effects
- SAP, which struck the same kind of Apple deal two years earlier, now shares the 'Apple-validated enterprise partner' positioning with its closest CRM rival — differentiation shifts from having an iOS story to how deep each one goes.
- Microsoft and Google, both holding their own Salesforce partnerships, face pressure to match Apple's device-level access or risk their integrations looking shallower than the iOS experience Salesforce is now building.
Third-order effects
- If the SAP-Salesforce pattern holds, Apple's enterprise strategy standardizes on big-platform-by-big-platform deals with SDK commitments, turning iOS optimization from a per-company project into a default expectation for enterprise SaaS vendors.
- Enterprise buyers gain leverage to demand native mobile experiences as table stakes, pushing CRM and ERP vendors toward sustained platform engineering rather than periodic app refreshes.
The trend: Apple is assembling enterprise distribution one flagship SaaS vendor at a time, converting iOS support from a vendor choice into a competitive requirement set by whoever signs next.