Apple’s Fleetsmith closes as demand for enterprise MDM expands
Apple will discontinue its Fleetsmith Mobile Device Management (MDM) service in October and desires clients to seek out different MDM suppliers.
Apple
Apple will discontinue the Fleetsmith Mobile Device Management (MDM) service in October and is warning companies utilizing the service to seek out one other MDM supplier.
Apple and Fleetsmith, a brief historical past
Apple acquired Fleetsmith in June 2020. At the time, it was understood the corporate needed to enhance what it provided to small enterprise customers. “The weakest spot for Apple in business has always been for the small businesses who just want to get started,” Jamf CEO Dean Hager instructed me quickly after Apple Business Essentials was revealed.
When I spoke with Fleetsmith co-founder Zack Blum in 2018, he mentioned:
“Apple’s biggest accomplishment and contribution to enterprise technology has been bringing mobile to the enterprise. Apple has raised the bar in delivering well-designed product experiences, as well as hardware and OS security.”
Replacing Fleetsmith
Many small and mid-sized enterprise (SMB) customers could be served by Apple Business Essentials, which leverages among the applied sciences Apple took from Fleetsmith. However, for extra complicated deployments, there’s a wealthy trade of subtle MDM methods.
Thankfully, following greater than a decade of regular development in Apple deployments within the enterprise, Fleetsmith clients looking for another MDM vendor are more and more spoiled for alternative.
Founded in 2002 and used at SAP, IBM and even perhaps at Apple, Jamf was early to establish the rising Apple in enterprise alternative and stays the clear market chief with a variety of providers, together with highly effective Zero Trust options.
But Jamf is not the one sport on the town. Reflecting Apple’s development within the sector, the secure of Apple-focused MDM suppliers is increasing fairly quickly.
That’s nice, as many companies have fairly distinctive wants, so the plethora of decisions means even essentially the most distinctive enterprise has a possibility to establish a vendor appropriate for the enterprise they run. Companies together with Jumpcloud, Addigy, Hexnode, Kandji, Citrix, MobileIron and plenty of others are all competing with Jamf to help the enterprise.
What is driving Apple within the enterprise?
This rising community of gamers has emerged in response to the consumerization of IT, which continues to rework enterprise expertise. A brand new 451 Research research I’ve seen claims that about 25% of SMBs plan to spend money on their digital transformation technique shifting ahead, following substantial {hardware} investments throughout the final two years.
MDM is a important factor to any such technique.
Of course, relating to the proliferation of Apple equipment in enterprise IT, you possibly can justifiably argue this primary started to speed up following introduction of the iPhone in 2007, which quickly spawned the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) pattern. As the Apple smartphone grew to become extra extensively used within the enterprise, iPad and Mac deployment quickly adopted.
This need for a consumer-simple expertise in enterprise IT has additionally nurtured the emergence of employee-choice schemes, as mentioned right here, right here, and right here.
One latest survey (commissioned by Jamf) claimed Apple customers had a greater expertise with their chosen platform, reporting enhancements in productiveness (87%), self-sufficiency (87%), and creativity (86%).
Ways of seeing
The manner enterprise leaders see Apple equipment has modified dramatically within the final decade or so. The days when tech leaders might mock the corporate’s choices actually got here to an finish when Microsoft’s then-CEO, Steve Ballmer confronted a room stuffed with Mac-using journalists at a press occasion.
Today, whereas enterprise leaders proceed to see Apple {hardware} as a costlier preliminary funding, it has turn into crystal clear that the price of possession over the usable lifecycle greater than makes up for that.
In different phrases, this facet of the market has grown and can proceed to develop, and with nearly each Fortune 500 agency now supporting Apple gadgets, it is unlikely to say no any time quickly.
Farewell Fleetsmith, howdy new world of enterprise IT
Apple is aware of this, in fact, and whereas the shuttering of Fleetsmith suggests the corporate will proceed to nurture the third-party MDM providers market, it nonetheless means current Fleetsmith clients should now prioritize discovering another MDM supplier.
As defined on this Apple tech help word, Fleetsmith will stop on Oct. 21, after which gadgets will not obtain configuration profiles. The service not accepts new clients.
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