12 ms·

Apple Acquires Fleetsmith

246 points by gmemstr 6y ago

sup_ 6y ago
Congrats!
mrpippy 6y ago
Wow. Apple seems to have gone out of their way over the years to not provide their own actual MDM service, or even a server for people to host themselves. "We look forward to continuing to deliver Fleetsmith to existing and new customers." sure sounds like the service will stay open, AKA this is not Apple's usual acqui-hire and shut down the company.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Apple has offered an MDM service for years. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement
  - andreasley 6y ago
    While Apple has been publishing their MDM Protocol Reference, the only implementation they ever offered was "Profile Manager", a limited, unreliable service that only runs on macOS Server. Apple never provided MDM as a cloud service.
    - wcfields 6y ago
      Profile Manager works great* * , ask me how I know. * Until your hidden-from-view postgre SQL db gets corrupted and stops working and all the solutions on the Apple support forums are "couldn't find a fix so just flatten and reinstalled... now moving to Jamf", so every thing in PM is treated like a faberge egg and you're using a kludge of package managers and such to fill in the gaps. Your 2012 Mac Mini Server in a Sonnet Rackmac needs it's dying 5400rpm HDD switched over to SSDs, which, now you're also using 3rd party hardware + SAS PCIe controllers to connect to a RAID / Tape Drive to keep this thing going. * Every OS X update is held off because you're trigger shy of the last time it broke OS X Server and your 3rd party SAS controller drivers. Yet another server to manage on site and/or spend too much $$$ on a boutique "Mac Stadium" data center which is essentially a colo'd Mac Mini.
      - wpm 6y ago
        Beeg oof. I feel your pain. Jamf Pro is more like Jank Pro but fuck me, it's a million times better than PM. First time I met our now current Apple Systems Engineer for my region, he laughed when I said I had used PM in the past and said "Uhhh, yeah, don't use Profile Manager in production."
  - samcat116 6y ago
    Apple doesn’t have an MDM. They create the base MDM protocol for iOS/macOS/tvOS that other vendors make systems on top of. You used to do some basic stuff using OS X Server and configuration profiles, however much of this is gone now and you really need a third party MDM to manage Apple devices in any meaningful way.
  - chmars 6y ago
    Yep … but someone had (and has) to run the necessary services …
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  Except they completely disabled the app catalog this morning, without notice. That's fun.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- enos_feedler 6y ago
  I also see this as more of a TestFlight style acquisition for product integration
- chmars 6y ago
  Most of the features are gone, i.e., support for third-party applications …
- gregoriol 6y ago
  Apple bought TestFlight some time ago, which ended up not as a standalone service but as an integrated service; this will probably happen to Fleetsmith too: it'll close as a standalone, be rewritten into something Apple likes, and be marketed as an Apple solution for MDM.
jedieaston 6y ago
Fleetsmith disabled their entire third-party app catalog this morning and disabled Bash scripting (that was reenabled 15 minutes ago), breaking workflows for a bunch of users (and, according to the MacAdmins slack, tons of end users got random popups asking for an administrator to fix kernel extensions that were previously loaded via Fleetsmith). [0] I can understand having to sunset the catalog, but how did Fleetsmith (or Apple) think that doing that without one peep was okay? Even a "we've been informed by legal that we can't host these packages, so within x days they will be removed from our catalog. we will provide functionality to replace them on your systems with packages you make yourself". 0: https://www.reddit.com/r/macsysadmin/comments/hf30qk/apple_buys_fleetsmith_mdm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macsysadmin/comments/hf30qk/apple_b... (discussion about fallout)
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  > Fleetsmith disabled their entire third-party app catalog this morning and disabled Bash scripting (that was reenabled 15 minutes ago), breaking workflows for a bunch of users (and, according to the MacAdmins slack, tons of end users got random popups asking for an administrator to fix kernel extensions that were previously loaded via Fleetsmith) So, they're already learning from Apple?
  - apercu 6y ago
    I hate to have to sardonically upvote this but Apple has really been losing their way.I find both my iMac and my iPhone to be increasingly nagware-focused, especially because I have zero desire to use iCloud.
    - playingchanges 6y ago
      The insistence on bullying me into iCloud with notifications is my least favorite iOS feature.
      - enos_feedler 6y ago
        Curious, why not use iCloud?
Adaptive 6y ago
I deployed Fleetsmith a couple years ago after evaluating the field. Fewer features than the competition but well designed and clearly improving over time. Zach Blum (CEO/co-founder) would regularly follow up on issues and tickets himself, always friendly and helpful. I know transitions like this can be rough but I'm glad to see them achieve this success.
jasoneckert 6y ago
This is very likely bad news for companies like Jamf. Apple is likely wanting to bring macOS/iOS management into their own product suite and tightly integrate it in future products, much like what Microsoft did with Terminal Services, which nearly killed Citrix 20 years ago.
- vondur 6y ago
  Yes, it's puzzling. Apple had pretty much "blessed" JAMF as the goto way to manage Mac/iOS Devices in the enterprise. Most of the JAMF seminars/tech sessions I have been to usually had an Apple enterprise Rep on hand to work with.
- cj 6y ago
  This was also my first thought. It's surprising because JamF is recommended as the de facto (only serious) solution for people serious managing fleets.
  - w0de 6y ago
    That’s simply not true, a marketing a line from jamf. There are several serious MDMs. Of big enterprises I know of just one that uses jamf, and they augment it with many, many questionable bash scripts.
    - cj 6y ago
      > a marketing a line from jamf My perspective comes from talking to anyone on the Apple Business team at the San Francisco union square location, and also reps from apple's general business support line. There are definitely a ton of other MDM solutions, but none that I've heard mentioned so frequently by apple employees as JamF.
      - w0de 6y ago
        Apple has long echoed this line (part of the reason their purchasing of fleetsmith, not jamf, is surprising). A sampling of MDMs that large companies you've heard of use: - vmware workspace one - bare metal micromdm - simplemdm - fleetsmith - kandji - jamf
terracatta 6y ago
CEO of Kolide here. This announcement couldn't have come at a crazier time...today I planned on announcing our intentions to enter the MDM product space. Our MDM is meant to be a new fresh take on device management that puts end-users in the driver seat. It's user focused device management and we are applying everything we've learned from our security product to the management space. https://blog.kolide.com/kolide-mdm-for-those-that-dont-need-to-be-managed-8f07a58319d2 https://blog.kolide.com/kolide-mdm-for-those-that-dont-need-... If you are interested in trying out what we are releasing later this year, read the post, and get on the list https://www.kolide.com/mdm/ https://www.kolide.com/mdm/
- wrboyce 6y ago
  Am I missing something, or by “crazier time” do you mean “standby while I advertise my product”?
  - terracatta 6y ago
    I understand where you are coming from but it's more like, "standby while I share something my team and I have been working really hard on that is relevant to the news and who are interested in MDM".
    - Ecco 6y ago
      I'm genuinely curious: how is that not advertising your product?
      - vegcel 6y ago
        not all advertising is soullessly cynical
      - solarkraft 6y ago
        It's advertising, but perfectly legitimate in the context. Many people in this thread are probably looking for an alternative now, so they might well be happy to see this mention. Besides that it's also a personal story "I've been working on a competitor for a while and this is weirdly nicely timed". A few months ago burtonator was under almost every article advertising his project ("Javascript? During the development of Polar Bookshelf (getpolarized.io) I have used Javascript!"), which I personally found a lot more annoying. In the sea of close to 100% of pointless ads you quickly forget that they are actually supposed to make you aware of something you want. For many people in this thread that has probably succeeded.
languagehacker 6y ago
I worked with Zach and Ken back at Wikia. They were great to work with! When Zach showed me the first version of Fleetsmith I was beyond impressed and knew he had discovered a very cool market opportunity. It's really nice to see their efforts get recognized in such a fantastic manner. Way to go!
ohduran 6y ago
Can't not see the favicon they have is Ghost's instead of their logo.
- Kye 6y ago
  It appears to be fixed.
groobongithub 6y ago
Fleetsmith has always been one of the only two commercial products I've endorsed for Mac management. They do great work and have the right vision. I work a lot in this space on https://micromdm.io/ https://micromdm.io/ an open source service, and have industry experience doing device management at various organizations.
- enos_feedler 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing your take on this from a unique vantage point.
  - enos_feedler 6y ago
    And thanks for the downvote! Will never again thank anyone with unique insights to take their time and offer perspective on this forum again!
- jimnotgym 6y ago
  Can you tell me the other one?
  - groobongithub 6y ago
    SimpleMDM
    - devy 6y ago
      According to Wikipedia, SimpleMDM doesn't provide "Device Lockdown" and "Expense Management", whereas there are some vendors provide all (all green in a row). [1] Also as far as I know, SimpleMDM pricing[2] is not the cheapest in the market either, their feature set is similar to Mosyle's, but Mosyle's cheaper.[3] [1:] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mobile_Device_Management_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mobile_Device_Manageme... [2]: https://simplemdm.com/pricing/ https://simplemdm.com/pricing/ [3]: https://business.mosyle.com/pricing https://business.mosyle.com/pricing
monocasa 6y ago
I'll throw out there that I work for JumpCloud. We just launched our MDM service for Macs on top of the remote management of Macs we've supported for almost eight years now, and continue to support Windows, and Linux systems as well. If you manage a heterogeneous fleet you should check us out. (Or honestly, I think we're pretty great in homogeneous envs too). Accounts with less than 10 users are free. https://jumpcloud.com https://jumpcloud.com EDIT: Clarified that we've been remotely managing macs or the better part of a decade. The MDM piece is the new one.
- chmars 6y ago
  That sounds great, however, 'just launched' doesn't sound too promising. In addition, I'm not sure whether you are GDPR-compliant as claimed at https://jumpcloud.com/gdpr https://jumpcloud.com/gdpr. Where's your Privacy Shield certification and who's your EU representative according to art. 27 GDPR?
  - monocasa 6y ago
    > That sounds great, however, 'just launched' doesn't sound too promising. Just launched, as it's been out for months, and working very well. And we've been at the forefront of remotely managing Mac systems for years prior to this, we just anticipate that Macs will continue to be locked down in a way that will remove the ability for management software to continue to do it's job if it isn't tightly integrated with MDM. > Where's your Privacy Shield certification https://jumpcloud.com/blog/jumpcloud-supports-eu-data-protection https://jumpcloud.com/blog/jumpcloud-supports-eu-data-protec... > who's your EU representative according to art. 27 GDPR I'm not sure about the specifics of our GDPR compliance just being an engineer on a portion of the product that isn't in the backend, but can look into it and get back to you if you like. If you'd prefer to go through our main channels without an account sales@jumpcloud.com answers these questions. Edit: It's unfortunate you're being downvoted for asking totally valid questions. I upvoted you to try and counteract it a bit.
    - dreggie 6y ago
      The blog is problematic. It came out pre-GDPR and doesn't reference GDPR. It also has incorrect statements: "A simple attestation by the company along with referencing Privacy Shield creates compliance": No, really it does not. So yes, would advise you to get a real DPO and Art 27 Rep in. They aren't expensive and with CCPA present now too, will likely be a good investment.
a1nnai 6y ago
Hello my hot photos are here .. http://69chat.club http://69chat.club username annaxx))
olliepop 6y ago
I migrated our entire fleet to Fleetsmith a few weeks ago, largely due to their third-party catalog and features like Chrome extension deployment. All third-party apps have now been pulled and we have virtually no fleet management. Happy for them, but it's painful for us. Classic Apple move.
quadrifoliate 6y ago
Good news! I trust Apple with user privacy a lot more than the horde of "Device Management" solutions lately that are full of grotesque privacy violations. A world in which an IT person or contractor is able to run amok with random bash scripts on a user's laptop in the name of "device management", without any controls whatsoever is horrible for privacy.
viraptor 6y ago
Is Apple planning to really go in on the enterprise usage? This aquisition, locking down access behind T2, notary notifications of everything in Catalina. I've not seen that direction in marketing yet, not it's like they started putting the foundations in place.
czbond 6y ago
Does this mean they might get into the MDM full service game and add testpilot to it?
gsn 6y ago
Ok. So what exactly happens to Fleetsmith's coveted ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications? Barely four months ago Jesse Endahl promised: [0] "Achieving compliance with the SOC 2 and ISO 27001 standards means that we are committed not just this year or the next — we are committed to operating our business in compliance with these standards every year going forward. Our auditors will request evidence to prove that we’ve continued to follow the policies, processes, and technical controls we’ve put in place on an annual basis. We look forward to demonstrating, year after year, that we’re worthy of your trust. To get access to our SOC 2 report and ISO 27001 certificate, get in touch at sales@fleetsmith.com." Apple has an ISO 27001 certification for Apple Business Manager, but I don't exactly see them being so hot on an independent CPA auditing their accounting practices for an AICPA certifications. Personally, I think Fleetsmith being under Apple's control (a full service MDM solution provided solely by Apple), renders these certifications meaningless. But hey, do you think if I email sales@fleetsmith.com, they'll be happy send me Apple's ISO 270XX certifications now? 0: https://blog.fleetsmith.com/soc-2-iso-27001/ https://blog.fleetsmith.com/soc-2-iso-27001/
- ejcx 6y ago
  Nothing changes. No matter what certification, there’s a scope of what parts of the business and product are in and out of scope of the audit. Fleetsmith having SOC2 doesn’t bring the rest of Apple into scope
  - gsn 6y ago
    Sorry, perhaps I was a bit too pithy in the way I phrased that. I wasn't trying to call into question the certifications, as they were conducted, at the time they were conducted, or implying their scope would change. What I was (perhaps too snarkily) trying to point out is that by unifying—vertically integrating—a previously independent MDM provider with the company that provides the MDM platform, that the promise "we are committed to operating our business in compliance with these standards every year going forward" is highly questionable at this point, unless Apple is committed to maintaining Fleetsmith's independence. Perhaps I should loosen my point even further by asking: how many more papers like https://i.blackhat.com/us-18/Thu-August-9/us-18-Endahl-A-Deep-Dive-Into-macOS-MDM-And-How-It-Can-Be-Compromised-wp.pdf https://i.blackhat.com/us-18/Thu-August-9/us-18-Endahl-A-Dee... should we expect Mr. Endahl to be releasing in the future?
ksec 6y ago
May be a silly question. Does that mean JAMF is dead? I dont see how there would be a large enough market left once Apple enter the field to sustain their business.
ksajadi 6y ago
It is infuriating to see the entire investment we put into adopting and setting up Fleetsmith in our company to be done and they didn't even have the decency to send an email to tell us that. We had to find out here that this happened. Next time when you want to sign up for a VC backed service, remember how many times they pushed the companies behind the tools we use to this end leaving us holding the can.
pharaohgeek 6y ago
Only tangentially related, but if you're looking for a sufficiently challenging development project the iOS MDM protocol is a great one. It's well-documented, so you're not stuck banging your head against a wall. It lends itself to microservices very well, and is explicitly asynchronous for a lot of operations. I spent a week or so writing one in Java (and later ported to server-side Swift) and found it moderately challenging and a lot of fun to write.

246 points by gmemstr 6y ago

sup_ 6y ago

Congrats!

Wow. Apple seems to have gone out of their way over the years to not provide their own actual MDM service, or even a server for people to host themselves. "We look forward to continuing to deliver Fleetsmith to existing and new customers." sure sounds like the service will stay open, AKA this is not Apple's usual acqui-hire and shut down the company.

scarface74 6y ago
Apple has offered an MDM service for years. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement
- andreasley 6y ago
  While Apple has been publishing their MDM Protocol Reference, the only implementation they ever offered was "Profile Manager", a limited, unreliable service that only runs on macOS Server. Apple never provided MDM as a cloud service.
  - wcfields 6y ago
    Profile Manager works great* * , ask me how I know. * Until your hidden-from-view postgre SQL db gets corrupted and stops working and all the solutions on the Apple support forums are "couldn't find a fix so just flatten and reinstalled... now moving to Jamf", so every thing in PM is treated like a faberge egg and you're using a kludge of package managers and such to fill in the gaps. Your 2012 Mac Mini Server in a Sonnet Rackmac needs it's dying 5400rpm HDD switched over to SSDs, which, now you're also using 3rd party hardware + SAS PCIe controllers to connect to a RAID / Tape Drive to keep this thing going. * Every OS X update is held off because you're trigger shy of the last time it broke OS X Server and your 3rd party SAS controller drivers. Yet another server to manage on site and/or spend too much $$$ on a boutique "Mac Stadium" data center which is essentially a colo'd Mac Mini.
    - wpm 6y ago
      Beeg oof. I feel your pain. Jamf Pro is more like Jank Pro but fuck me, it's a million times better than PM. First time I met our now current Apple Systems Engineer for my region, he laughed when I said I had used PM in the past and said "Uhhh, yeah, don't use Profile Manager in production."
- samcat116 6y ago
  Apple doesn’t have an MDM. They create the base MDM protocol for iOS/macOS/tvOS that other vendors make systems on top of. You used to do some basic stuff using OS X Server and configuration profiles, however much of this is gone now and you really need a third party MDM to manage Apple devices in any meaningful way.
- chmars 6y ago
  Yep … but someone had (and has) to run the necessary services …
FireBeyond 6y ago
Except they completely disabled the app catalog this morning, without notice. That's fun.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
enos_feedler 6y ago
I also see this as more of a TestFlight style acquisition for product integration
chmars 6y ago
Most of the features are gone, i.e., support for third-party applications …
gregoriol 6y ago
Apple bought TestFlight some time ago, which ended up not as a standalone service but as an integrated service; this will probably happen to Fleetsmith too: it'll close as a standalone, be rewritten into something Apple likes, and be marketed as an Apple solution for MDM.

jedieaston 6y ago

Fleetsmith disabled their entire third-party app catalog this morning and disabled Bash scripting (that was reenabled 15 minutes ago), breaking workflows for a bunch of users (and, according to the MacAdmins slack, tons of end users got random popups asking for an administrator to fix kernel extensions that were previously loaded via Fleetsmith). [0] I can understand having to sunset the catalog, but how did Fleetsmith (or Apple) think that doing that without one peep was okay? Even a "we've been informed by legal that we can't host these packages, so within x days they will be removed from our catalog. we will provide functionality to replace them on your systems with packages you make yourself". 0: https://www.reddit.com/r/macsysadmin/comments/hf30qk/apple_buys_fleetsmith_mdm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macsysadmin/comments/hf30qk/apple_b... (discussion about fallout)

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
> Fleetsmith disabled their entire third-party app catalog this morning and disabled Bash scripting (that was reenabled 15 minutes ago), breaking workflows for a bunch of users (and, according to the MacAdmins slack, tons of end users got random popups asking for an administrator to fix kernel extensions that were previously loaded via Fleetsmith) So, they're already learning from Apple?
- apercu 6y ago
  I hate to have to sardonically upvote this but Apple has really been losing their way.I find both my iMac and my iPhone to be increasingly nagware-focused, especially because I have zero desire to use iCloud.
  - playingchanges 6y ago
    The insistence on bullying me into iCloud with notifications is my least favorite iOS feature.
    - enos_feedler 6y ago
      Curious, why not use iCloud?

Adaptive 6y ago

I deployed Fleetsmith a couple years ago after evaluating the field. Fewer features than the competition but well designed and clearly improving over time. Zach Blum (CEO/co-founder) would regularly follow up on issues and tickets himself, always friendly and helpful. I know transitions like this can be rough but I'm glad to see them achieve this success.

jasoneckert 6y ago

This is very likely bad news for companies like Jamf. Apple is likely wanting to bring macOS/iOS management into their own product suite and tightly integrate it in future products, much like what Microsoft did with Terminal Services, which nearly killed Citrix 20 years ago.

vondur 6y ago
Yes, it's puzzling. Apple had pretty much "blessed" JAMF as the goto way to manage Mac/iOS Devices in the enterprise. Most of the JAMF seminars/tech sessions I have been to usually had an Apple enterprise Rep on hand to work with.
cj 6y ago
This was also my first thought. It's surprising because JamF is recommended as the de facto (only serious) solution for people serious managing fleets.
- w0de 6y ago
  That’s simply not true, a marketing a line from jamf. There are several serious MDMs. Of big enterprises I know of just one that uses jamf, and they augment it with many, many questionable bash scripts.
  - cj 6y ago
    > a marketing a line from jamf My perspective comes from talking to anyone on the Apple Business team at the San Francisco union square location, and also reps from apple's general business support line. There are definitely a ton of other MDM solutions, but none that I've heard mentioned so frequently by apple employees as JamF.
    - w0de 6y ago
      Apple has long echoed this line (part of the reason their purchasing of fleetsmith, not jamf, is surprising). A sampling of MDMs that large companies you've heard of use: - vmware workspace one - bare metal micromdm - simplemdm - fleetsmith - kandji - jamf

terracatta 6y ago

CEO of Kolide here. This announcement couldn't have come at a crazier time...today I planned on announcing our intentions to enter the MDM product space. Our MDM is meant to be a new fresh take on device management that puts end-users in the driver seat. It's user focused device management and we are applying everything we've learned from our security product to the management space. https://blog.kolide.com/kolide-mdm-for-those-that-dont-need-to-be-managed-8f07a58319d2 https://blog.kolide.com/kolide-mdm-for-those-that-dont-need-... If you are interested in trying out what we are releasing later this year, read the post, and get on the list https://www.kolide.com/mdm/ https://www.kolide.com/mdm/

wrboyce 6y ago
Am I missing something, or by “crazier time” do you mean “standby while I advertise my product”?
- terracatta 6y ago
  I understand where you are coming from but it's more like, "standby while I share something my team and I have been working really hard on that is relevant to the news and who are interested in MDM".
  - Ecco 6y ago
    I'm genuinely curious: how is that not advertising your product?
    - vegcel 6y ago
      not all advertising is soullessly cynical
    - solarkraft 6y ago
      It's advertising, but perfectly legitimate in the context. Many people in this thread are probably looking for an alternative now, so they might well be happy to see this mention. Besides that it's also a personal story "I've been working on a competitor for a while and this is weirdly nicely timed". A few months ago burtonator was under almost every article advertising his project ("Javascript? During the development of Polar Bookshelf (getpolarized.io) I have used Javascript!"), which I personally found a lot more annoying. In the sea of close to 100% of pointless ads you quickly forget that they are actually supposed to make you aware of something you want. For many people in this thread that has probably succeeded.

languagehacker 6y ago

I worked with Zach and Ken back at Wikia. They were great to work with! When Zach showed me the first version of Fleetsmith I was beyond impressed and knew he had discovered a very cool market opportunity. It's really nice to see their efforts get recognized in such a fantastic manner. Way to go!

ohduran 6y ago

Can't not see the favicon they have is Ghost's instead of their logo.

Kye 6y ago
It appears to be fixed.

groobongithub 6y ago

Fleetsmith has always been one of the only two commercial products I've endorsed for Mac management. They do great work and have the right vision. I work a lot in this space on https://micromdm.io/ https://micromdm.io/ an open source service, and have industry experience doing device management at various organizations.

enos_feedler 6y ago
Thanks for sharing your take on this from a unique vantage point.
- enos_feedler 6y ago
  And thanks for the downvote! Will never again thank anyone with unique insights to take their time and offer perspective on this forum again!
jimnotgym 6y ago
Can you tell me the other one?
- groobongithub 6y ago
  SimpleMDM
  - devy 6y ago
    According to Wikipedia, SimpleMDM doesn't provide "Device Lockdown" and "Expense Management", whereas there are some vendors provide all (all green in a row). [1] Also as far as I know, SimpleMDM pricing[2] is not the cheapest in the market either, their feature set is similar to Mosyle's, but Mosyle's cheaper.[3] [1:] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mobile_Device_Management_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mobile_Device_Manageme... [2]: https://simplemdm.com/pricing/ https://simplemdm.com/pricing/ [3]: https://business.mosyle.com/pricing https://business.mosyle.com/pricing

monocasa 6y ago

I'll throw out there that I work for JumpCloud. We just launched our MDM service for Macs on top of the remote management of Macs we've supported for almost eight years now, and continue to support Windows, and Linux systems as well. If you manage a heterogeneous fleet you should check us out. (Or honestly, I think we're pretty great in homogeneous envs too). Accounts with less than 10 users are free. https://jumpcloud.com https://jumpcloud.com EDIT: Clarified that we've been remotely managing macs or the better part of a decade. The MDM piece is the new one.

chmars 6y ago
That sounds great, however, 'just launched' doesn't sound too promising. In addition, I'm not sure whether you are GDPR-compliant as claimed at https://jumpcloud.com/gdpr https://jumpcloud.com/gdpr. Where's your Privacy Shield certification and who's your EU representative according to art. 27 GDPR?
- monocasa 6y ago
  > That sounds great, however, 'just launched' doesn't sound too promising. Just launched, as it's been out for months, and working very well. And we've been at the forefront of remotely managing Mac systems for years prior to this, we just anticipate that Macs will continue to be locked down in a way that will remove the ability for management software to continue to do it's job if it isn't tightly integrated with MDM. > Where's your Privacy Shield certification https://jumpcloud.com/blog/jumpcloud-supports-eu-data-protection https://jumpcloud.com/blog/jumpcloud-supports-eu-data-protec... > who's your EU representative according to art. 27 GDPR I'm not sure about the specifics of our GDPR compliance just being an engineer on a portion of the product that isn't in the backend, but can look into it and get back to you if you like. If you'd prefer to go through our main channels without an account sales@jumpcloud.com answers these questions. Edit: It's unfortunate you're being downvoted for asking totally valid questions. I upvoted you to try and counteract it a bit.
  - dreggie 6y ago
    The blog is problematic. It came out pre-GDPR and doesn't reference GDPR. It also has incorrect statements: "A simple attestation by the company along with referencing Privacy Shield creates compliance": No, really it does not. So yes, would advise you to get a real DPO and Art 27 Rep in. They aren't expensive and with CCPA present now too, will likely be a good investment.

a1nnai 6y ago

Hello my hot photos are here .. http://69chat.club http://69chat.club username annaxx))

olliepop 6y ago

I migrated our entire fleet to Fleetsmith a few weeks ago, largely due to their third-party catalog and features like Chrome extension deployment. All third-party apps have now been pulled and we have virtually no fleet management. Happy for them, but it's painful for us. Classic Apple move.

quadrifoliate 6y ago

Good news! I trust Apple with user privacy a lot more than the horde of "Device Management" solutions lately that are full of grotesque privacy violations. A world in which an IT person or contractor is able to run amok with random bash scripts on a user's laptop in the name of "device management", without any controls whatsoever is horrible for privacy.

viraptor 6y ago

Is Apple planning to really go in on the enterprise usage? This aquisition, locking down access behind T2, notary notifications of everything in Catalina. I've not seen that direction in marketing yet, not it's like they started putting the foundations in place.

czbond 6y ago

Does this mean they might get into the MDM full service game and add testpilot to it?

gsn 6y ago

Ok. So what exactly happens to Fleetsmith's coveted ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications? Barely four months ago Jesse Endahl promised: [0] "Achieving compliance with the SOC 2 and ISO 27001 standards means that we are committed not just this year or the next — we are committed to operating our business in compliance with these standards every year going forward. Our auditors will request evidence to prove that we’ve continued to follow the policies, processes, and technical controls we’ve put in place on an annual basis. We look forward to demonstrating, year after year, that we’re worthy of your trust. To get access to our SOC 2 report and ISO 27001 certificate, get in touch at sales@fleetsmith.com." Apple has an ISO 27001 certification for Apple Business Manager, but I don't exactly see them being so hot on an independent CPA auditing their accounting practices for an AICPA certifications. Personally, I think Fleetsmith being under Apple's control (a full service MDM solution provided solely by Apple), renders these certifications meaningless. But hey, do you think if I email sales@fleetsmith.com, they'll be happy send me Apple's ISO 270XX certifications now? 0: https://blog.fleetsmith.com/soc-2-iso-27001/ https://blog.fleetsmith.com/soc-2-iso-27001/

ejcx 6y ago
Nothing changes. No matter what certification, there’s a scope of what parts of the business and product are in and out of scope of the audit. Fleetsmith having SOC2 doesn’t bring the rest of Apple into scope
- gsn 6y ago
  Sorry, perhaps I was a bit too pithy in the way I phrased that. I wasn't trying to call into question the certifications, as they were conducted, at the time they were conducted, or implying their scope would change. What I was (perhaps too snarkily) trying to point out is that by unifying—vertically integrating—a previously independent MDM provider with the company that provides the MDM platform, that the promise "we are committed to operating our business in compliance with these standards every year going forward" is highly questionable at this point, unless Apple is committed to maintaining Fleetsmith's independence. Perhaps I should loosen my point even further by asking: how many more papers like https://i.blackhat.com/us-18/Thu-August-9/us-18-Endahl-A-Deep-Dive-Into-macOS-MDM-And-How-It-Can-Be-Compromised-wp.pdf https://i.blackhat.com/us-18/Thu-August-9/us-18-Endahl-A-Dee... should we expect Mr. Endahl to be releasing in the future?

ksec 6y ago

May be a silly question. Does that mean JAMF is dead? I dont see how there would be a large enough market left once Apple enter the field to sustain their business.

ksajadi 6y ago

It is infuriating to see the entire investment we put into adopting and setting up Fleetsmith in our company to be done and they didn't even have the decency to send an email to tell us that. We had to find out here that this happened. Next time when you want to sign up for a VC backed service, remember how many times they pushed the companies behind the tools we use to this end leaving us holding the can.

pharaohgeek 6y ago

Only tangentially related, but if you're looking for a sufficiently challenging development project the iOS MDM protocol is a great one. It's well-documented, so you're not stuck banging your head against a wall. It lends itself to microservices very well, and is explicitly asynchronous for a lot of operations. I spent a week or so writing one in Java (and later ported to server-side Swift) and found it moderately challenging and a lot of fun to write.