IBM AND BOX UNVEIL EXPERT SELLER APP FOR IOS

The app offers IBM cloud analytics and Box content management for iPads and iPhones

IBM and Box today announced a low-cost, easy-to-deploy version of Expert Seller to improve the sales and marketing experience for workers using iPads and iPhones.

The new app combines Box’s expertise with content management and IBM’s Mobile First for iOS cloud capabilities, the companies said.

Pricing has not been announced, although an IBM spokeswoman described it as a low-cost app that can be deployed to workers within five days. Prices will be based on a monthly subscription fee.

Marketing and sales professionals will be able to use the app to more easily push out the newest sales and services information to their sales forces, according to IBM.

IBM has 100 MobileFirst for iOS apps for 14 different vertical industries and 65 different professions. Apple and IBM first joined hands in mid-2014. Last June, IBM partnered with Box.

Using Expert Seller, sales personnel can get quick updates on pricing, features and promotions on their iPads or iPhones. Box technology adds content management and security permissions, as well as the ability to preview content. Companies can build analytics add-ons to the app that are powered by IBM Watson functionality.

Apps to assist sales professionals are plentiful, but IBM and Apple — as well as Box — hope to offer customers the advantage of a top-rated computing platform for iPhones and iPads with deep analytics and content management. The app’s success will depend on how well those capabilities work together. The monthly cost for the app could end up paying for itself with better sales, analysts said.

IBM posted a fairly detailed description of Expert Seller with Box online.

The Expert Seller app came about partly because Box wanted to create a more compelling workflow experience with its products, rather than remain mainly a cloud storage vendor, according to Maribel Lopez, an analyst at Lopez Research. “Working with IBM and Apple, Box can compete with the likes of bigtincan for a sales content portal…with the value add of the cognitive analytics.”

Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner, said the chief advantage of the new app is that it will allow Expert Seller to be deployed very rapidly.

Baker called Expert Seller “another good app in the portfolio from the IBM/Apple partnership, which is consistently producing strong results.”