INTERVIEW - Apple, IBM to shed light on apps, alliance next month

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc and IBM have signed up about 50 initial corporate clients for software solutions and apps developed jointly under their recently forged strategic alliance, chief financial officer Luca Maestri told Reuters.

The two companies, which in July announced they would team up to sell iPads and iPhones with specialized software to corporate and government customers, will announce the first batch of apps and software next month, he said in an interview on Monday.

Their alliance is aimed at helping Apple delve more deeply into the business of serving corporate clients, a business now dominated by the likes of IBM, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft Corp. But neither company has said much about their progress since the July announcement.

"The level of interest from the corporate world has been incredible," Maestri said after Apple released its September quarter results.

The company posted better-than-expected revenue after its best new iPhone launch on record, pushing sales of the smartphone to 39.27 million in the September quarter. Maestri told Reuters that sales of the new iPhones in China, where they went on sale just last week, have surpassed the launch of the previous generation iPhone 5S and 5C.

(Reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)