The partnership between Apple and IBM is on track to deliver 100 iOS business apps by the end of the year, as Tim Cook promised it would.
The partners just released 8 more apps and added three more industries, reports 9to5 Mac.
That brings the total number of apps to 22 and the total number of industries to 9: banking, utilities, government, healthcare, manufacturing, insurance, retail, telecommunications and transportation.
This follows the first 10 apps released in December and a promise by Tim Cook in January to roll out those new apps and industries in Q1. That's also when he said the two had "over 100" apps planned and was "on target" to release them this calendar year.
The partnership, which goes by the name IBM Moblefirst for iOS, is meant to help Apple shore up waning iPad sales and give IBM a much-needed presence in a growing mobile market.
The two are hoping to encourage enterprises to buy iPads by writing very specific apps aimed at very specific business users.
For instance, one of the new healthcare apps is called "Hospital RN for iPhone."
It lets nurses tap into hospitals patient records, organize tasks for the patient and use iBeacon technology to locate patient rooms or automatically pull up patient records as a they walk near (should a hospital opt to install iBeacons).
We don't know yet how many enterprises are buying these custom apps to run on new iPads and iPhones, but Cook said in January that IBM had about 150 companies kicking the tires.
We'll likely hear more about that when Apple announces its next earnings later this month.
Should this work out like both companies hope, it could be a big threat to Microsoft's dominance in the enterprise.
In fact, one Wall Street analyst said that Apple was the powerhouse partner in this arrangement and was so influential, it mandated that IBM salespeople use Macs and Apple's Keynote presentation software when they visit enterprises to pitch them.
That's pretty ironic since IBM is often credited for inventing the PC and actually has its own presentation software too, as part of its Lotus Symphony office suite.
