IBM, Salesforce Strike Global Partnership on Cloud, AI

According to IBM and Salesforce, the answer to both of those questions is yes. The two Fortune 500 companies on Monday afternoon revealed a sweeping global strategic partnership that aligns one iconic company's multiyear turnaround effort with another's staggering growth ambitions. According to the terms of the deal, IBM and Salesforce will integrate artificial intelligence platforms (Watson and Einstein, respectively) and some of their software and services (e.g. a Salesforce component to ingest The Weather Company's meteorological data). Why not go it alone? Fortune spoke on the phone with IBM CEO Ginni Rometty and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to get a better understanding of the motives behind the deal.