How Tim Cook created a $25 billion beast of a business in 2015 in a market where Apple used to struggle

Historically, Apple products have been the black sheep of the corporate employee world, hidden behind Microsoft's powerful shadow.

Then employees started bringing their iPhones and iPads to work.

Still, it wasn't until mid 2014 - when Tim Cook cuddled up to IBM to announce a new partnership to focus on selling more iOS devices to businesses - that Apple woke up and smelled a big new market.

And it was in 2015 that the partnership, and Apple's bigger efforts, really flowered.

For instance, earlier this week, IBM announced the duo has now created 100 iOS apps for all sorts of business needs.

And that was just one of the many break-out moments Apple had in the enterprise market in 2015. From the looks of it, 2016 could be even better.