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Business Essentials
- N_A_T_E 5y agoLooks great. I recall Apple held out for a long time to play ball with enterprise IT, focusing on consumer. It seems like they've fully embraced the massive enterprise market.
- colechristensen 5y agoApple has supported enterprise device management for a long time, it has just been third parties like Jamf doing most of it until now.
- nkotov 5y agoIf I'm not wrong, I think this is the Fleetsmith acquisition that happened last year.
- alberth 5y agoAgreed though it's weird you can still purchase Fleetsmith directly. https://www.fleetsmith.com/pricing https://www.fleetsmith.com/pricing
- Thaxll 5y agoSo enterprise is the next target for Apple?
- eyelidlessness 5y agoGiven the pricing, this strikes me more as “we’re confident enough that we’re going to grow the Mac business, that we need to offer something to enterprise to check a box so we don’t artificially limit sales.”
- acdha 5y agoIt makes sense given that this is both an area where they've historically had to deal with the competitive disadvantage of Windows having a large “built-in” market and one where they've made huge inroads with iOS. For a small business this is especially interesting since an iPad / ChromeOS device is a better call for an awful lot of workers and this makes that switch even easier.
- justusthane 5y agoThere are already plenty of Configuration Management and MDM solutions that can handle MacOS and iOS. This is targeted at small businesses that don't have an existing MDM solution.
- jhickok 5y agoSeems like a work in progress over the past year-ish: https://www.techradar.com/news/apple-buys-mdm-specialist-to-bolster-business-credentials https://www.techradar.com/news/apple-buys-mdm-specialist-to-...
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoI hope not. You can see from Microsoft that it is hard to do that without tainting the consumer side.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoEven roll your own apps to your employees, bypassing the AppStore review? Upd: the video suggests that there are 'collections' which distribute apps to users, but it is not clear if own apps can be included in these using Enterprise certificates.
- sigzero 5y agoNot enough information on that page but...doubt it?
- syspec 5y agoAlready possible
- Nextgrid 5y agoAs far as I know you can already do that with enterprise certificates?
- joshstrange 5y agoYou can sign apps without Apple being "in the loop" and distribute them via the web with an enterprise cert. As far as pushing out updates I think you have to build your own system for that. My company uses enterprise certs and our app will notify the user when there is an update, redirect them to a web portal where they click a link, are prompted to install the app, and then the app is installed.
- skoskie 5y agoYou could already do that. Facebook notoriously abused the process.
- cpg 5y agoAhhhhhh. Ohhhhhhh. A film!
- teddyh 5y agoThat’s how it starts. Later there’s running and screaming.
- drfuchs 5y agoIt is curious that on this page, Apple says "Watch the film to learn more" and "Watch the announcement film" whereas they always use the term "video" (or "movie" where appropriate) everywhere else in all their messaging, as far as I've noticed. I wonder what they're thinking?
- barelysapient 5y ago2TB of storage for $12 a month? Plus the multi-device management options? Sign me up.
- pavs 5y agoGoogle One has 9.99/ month for 2TB Option. Which also comes with a VPN. If Price is the differentiator, I think google provides the best value, but also provide additional services with their storage plans.
- scoopertrooper 5y agoEntirely different product though. Apple is providing a MDM solution for SMEs in addition to the storage. The value of a VPN that doesn't allow you access to a corporate network is... dubious to a company.
- dexterdog 5y agoGoogle One only works for gmail.com accounts
- zylent 5y agoAllowing an advertising company to scan all of my traffic is extremely unappealing
- airpoint 5y agoApples and oranges. Google One is a consumer product for sharing holiday pics with your family mate. The closest offer in the same target market from Apple is iCloud+, with same services for same price! Or as part of Apple One which is slightly pricier but includes a an array of additional consumer entertainment services. Apple Business Essentials is a set of business services with guaranteed SLA’s.
- asdff 5y agoGoogle drive business also offers infinite storage
- amelius 5y ago
- odshoifsdhfs 5y agoThis will be huge. There is a product I have been wanting to make, there is demand (customers have been asking for it), but would never work with the distributed personal iCloud accounts before. This will allow to consolidate all of it under businesses accounts. Interesting enough, have other people in my circles that also have wanting to port somethings to be native like this and haven't due to being business apps and the 'individual accounts' being a show stopper to share licenses.
- alberth 5y agoTough day for Jamf.
- tyingq 5y agoThe announcement is a little light on details around directory integration for things like AD. I'll be curious to see a feature comparison with Jamf. Edit: Ahh, I see. "small businesses in the U.S. with up to 500 employees"
- rbanffy 5y agoSo, every day will continue to be a tough day for all Jamf users...
- kylehotchkiss 5y agoThere’s a few headlines talking about backups - does apple finally have a cloud based time machine replacement? I’d be so excited to see that as a general consumer too.
- chrisseaton 5y agoI think that's unlikely to be a thing they're working on. You can get that from storing your files in iCloud already, and these days is there any good reason to back up the rest of your system? If I had to rebuild a system due to hardware failure the absolute last thing I'd want to do would be restore all the accumulated system cruft!
- sigjuice 5y agoIt depends on one's preferences and circumstances. I got a new M1 MacBook recently and I took my time setting it up from scratch. A few years ago, I had my MacBook stolen. I was up and running within a few hours after getting a new Mac and restoring from my Time Capsule. Dealing with the aftermath of a car break-in (thanks San Francisco!) and a new computer at the same time was going to be a bit much for me.
- dewey 5y agoStoring files in iCloud Drive is very different from a backup I would argue. What a business would want in this case is Backblaze like functionality with versioning / restore. iCloud drive also doesn't really help you with restoring a full system like it is possible on iOS where all your settings, passwords and apps are just like you left them.
- fsflover 5y ago"Privacy"? Sounds like false advertising to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28309202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28309202.
- smoldesu 5y agoAt this point, I think Apple's PRISM compliance is common knowledge. I hope.
- fsflover 5y agoLooking at the downvotes, it seems, it isn't. More info: https://www.cultofmac.com/230358/everything-you-need-to-know-about-apple-and-prism https://www.cultofmac.com/230358/everything-you-need-to-know... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
- sbuk 5y agoThe downvotes are coming because this has nothing to do with the topic at hand and you are both blatantly trying to start a flame war. You both have form on Apple threads. If they bother you that much, stop reading articles about them.
- mixmastamyk 5y agoOne of the main cards was explicitly about privacy and security. Find out more…
- smoldesu 5y agoClicking through your comments, I think you're setting a double standard. I'm not trying to start a flame war, I'm holding a trillion-plus-dollar company accountable for a claim they made on the webpage this thread was based on. You're welcome to refute these claims or ignore them altogether, but arguing that people shouldn't post about Apple's history of privacy abuse only makes you look bad. Tanking the downvotes is just the cost of making a subversive claim on Hacker News.
- samstave 5y agoA few comments: 1. I was paying for iCloud and apple service for *YEARS* but then suddenly when I lost my phone, iCloud had no record of it. 2. I have had multiple employers in Silicon Valley who had the BYOD (Bring you own device) policy implemented but then they attached a SECONDARY DEVICE to my iCloud account and were slurping all personal records from that. 3. Show me a way to FUCKING MANAGE WHO IS ACCESSING MY DATA. 4. I have too many more issues at level 4 that @dang will get mad if I share (and FB and others will sue me again if I dare)... think paul stamets on the secrets of mushrooms -- If you have any sort of work phone, know they are slurping ALL the deets.. Never take a personal phone/device into a workplace environment. In my case - I was going through a verry messy divorce, and my employer had been surveilling my texts and everything because when I joined I made the mistake of adding my apple ID -- and then the employer added a fucking device to my account and was surveilling everything. Yeah - if you get a job in tech these days, the ironic thing is to be an off-grid person. #KazinskiWasRight
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- j16sdiz 5y ago> 2. I have had multiple employers in Silicon Valley who had the BYOD (Bring you own device) policy implemented but then they attached a SECONDARY DEVICE to my iCloud account and were slurping all personal records from that. I don't think MDM allow the admin to hijack your icloud account. Are you sure it's your employer, not some other?
- wpietri 5y agoWow, what a change! Apple spent many years holding the corporate market in mild contempt. Given the dominance of Windows, I totally get that; Apple was right to focus on the niches where they were successful. But it's amazing how much circumstances have changed to make this plausible.
- Someone1234 5y agoSo they advertise AppleCare+ features (24/7 support, on-site repair) but they don't currently offer that nor do the prices reflect those services. Page seems deceiving (have to read the small print to really understand the offering). With those two removed, you're paying for an MDM solution and cloud storage.
- lelandfe 5y agoThe small print, for posterity: > Plans with AppleCare+ for Business Essentials will be available in spring 2022.
- jedberg 5y agoAh! I thought it was way too cheap for the AppleCare part. I was about to sign up for just my devices at home just for that, because it seemed like a really cheap way to get iCloud and AppleCare!
- baggy_trough 5y agoWhat do you do if you need more than 2TB of storage?
- kalleboo 5y agoYeah I guess for "business" users who are only storing office documents 2 TB is plenty, but as a home user, I bought into iCloud Photo Library and I'm about to pass the max 2.2TB storage limit of iCloud and will have to switch to Synology Photos or something
- manquer 5y agoGraphics and design pro users may need more that that easily.That is an important business segment for Apple .
- jguimont 5y agoI mean... I'd like to use that to manage my family's macs/iphone!
- lostgame 5y agoYou know what would piss me off, if I had kids; would be the lack of support the iPad, in particular - has for multi-user logins. It would be huge for families, and it would also make parental controls way more of a breeze. Does anyone know why this is the case? I was positive when they made iPadOS its own thing, we'd finally see this.
- bradfa 5y agoI don't know why it's the case, but it is very frustrating to me. I have 3 kids and 3 iPads, not assigned per kid, just a pool they all and my wife use. Current implementation is a common "family" account logged in as a "child" on all 3 iPads with app purchase approval going to me and my wife (we both have iPhones). This "works" just kind of OK. But it would work MUCH MUCH better if my wife could have her iCloud account sign in from the unlock screen when she wants to use it and have the kids sign in from the unlock screen on the shared kids account. The way it is now my wife ends up signing into various services she wants to use on random iPads, which isn't really ideal. Apple's solution to my family's problem would be to buy my wife her own iPad. But we don't have a shortage of iPads, there's almost never a time when someone doesn't have an iPad available to them when they need/want it. We have enough hardware, just the software doesn't provide a way to share that hardware in a nice way.
- sigspec 5y agoAgree! Even Apple TVs have user profile switching.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoThey would rather you bought an iPad for each member of your family.
- duxup 5y ago
- walterbell 5y agoCould this allow per-app VPNs via MDM, e.g. one browser goes to corporate VPN, rest of device uses standard network connection?
- simoncrypta 5y agoSo, is a rebranding of Fleetsmith with the Apple magic
- encryptluks2 5y agoYou'd think if they were going to rebrand it, that they'd redirect you to the new site. Instead, now they are managing competing products.
- judge2020 5y agoPerhaps it’ll be shut down closer to when or shortly after the product actually launches.
- encryptluks2 5y agoAfter seeing what happened after the Fleetsmith acquisition, it is unlikely. They made several questionable decisions after the acquisition and as far as I can tell haven't really made any significant updates since.
- dylanz 5y agoI just signed up for Fleetsmith yesterday, so this is pretty timely. I'm interested to see if/how this changes things.
- teeray 5y agoAll I want from Apple is a separate environment for corpware and all of its associated baggage to run. I’d love for that profile to even acquire its own EPS bearers so that its traffic is distinct from personal traffic.
- jonathantf2 5y agoOn-site repairs sounds interesting, although their computers are all glued together and every component is soldered to the board so I have no idea how they'll manage that.
- CaptainJustin 5y agoI have no evidence for this but I expect the experience would be similar to visiting an Apple store.
- stefan_ 5y agoMake an appointment 2 weeks from now, go there to hand it in, return in another 2 weeks to be handed a refurbished machine with your data gone? Sorry to say, that's not competitive with what other vendors offer as business support.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> Make an appointment 2 weeks from now, go there to hand it in, return in another 2 weeks to be handed a refurbished machine with your data gone? Every time I've visited an Apple store with a problem I've left within 30 mins with either it fixed or a replacement. What you're describing sounds more like the traditional Dell or HP approach! One of the best things about Apple is being able to visit a store in almost any major city and getting your problem fixed.
- criddell 5y agoMy daughter's Alienware laptop had a keyboard problem. Contacted support over phone and it went nowhere. Contacted support via Twitter and after a bit of back-and-forth they scheduled a next-day on site repair in Toronto even though we live in Texas (where the computer was purchased).
- EvanAnderson 5y agoI can't speak to the Apple store, but I do have years of experience with on-site repairs for both Dell and HP. Both Dell and HP business on-site repair service is really good (though I prefer Dell to HP). Depot warranties for consumers are horrible, no matter the company. I've been advising friends and family to purchase business-oriented equipment and pay for on-site warranties (for the intended duration of the lifetime of the product). It makes life ridiculously easier. Consumer warranties on PCs are universally awful in my experience.
- isodev 5y agoI work as a freelancer and together with a few colleagues we are essentially a "small product studio". We all have "business only" devices and we are definitely going to try this Business Essentials thing. It kind of reminds me of how easy it is to setup a macOS Server. Very cool!
- zylent 5y agoI'm gonna be real with you, macOS server is a complete joke. Avoid and kill with fire.
- ag56 5y agoDoes this mean I can finally have multiple user accounts on my iPhone?
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoUnlikely. Current MDM works with just one account on a device, I don't think this will be changing.
- tehalex 5y agoiPads can be put into a "shared iPad mode" that is managed from MDMs. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-overview-dep9a34c2ba2/1/web/1.0 https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-overv...
- nlh 5y agoSo just to make sure I'm reading this correctly (this is not my area of speciality so bear with me): This is Apple-hosted MDM, yes? I took a brief spin through this world on a consulting project a few years ago and I found it SUPER weird that Apple didn't do this already. You had to do this weird dance between Apple Business Manager and the MDM solution (we ended up with SimpleMDM but looked at a bunch). I kept saying "Am I missing something? Why doesn't this service come directly from Apple?" and everyone was as puzzled about this as I was. So I guess they're finally closing the loop here.
- encryptluks2 5y agoThey already have Fleetsmith. This is their response to Jumpcloud and what not who are offering lower per user plans, as fleetsmith was around $8/device/mo.
- mike_d 5y ago> This is their response to Jumpcloud and what not who are offering lower per user plans They couldn't care less about a few dollars. This is about heading off business adoption of Chromebooks, and "winning" small-medium businesses as primarily Mac shops before they become big-enterprise.
- encryptluks2 5y agoI don't see how they really compete. Google has an array of business apps that far surpass anything Apple is offering here. They would need to partner with Microsoft in order to compete against Google.
- roody15 5y agoAgree I manage 500+ Apple devices and have been in disbelief that Apple recommends using JAMF to manage their own devices. I use profile manager included with the Server App of MacOS and it is functional but limited in scope. I have expressed for years frustration that Apple recommends using MDM/ profiles to manage their devices … and then doesn’t even really offer an enterprise version of the software. Google by contrast offers a great admin console to manage chromebook and google devices. Surprised apple has dragged their feet here for so long.
- roody15 5y agoWonder if an education version of this product will be released?
- simonebrunozzi 5y agoIn your experience, would it make sense to use this to manage 4-5 family members and their devices?
- connordoner 5y agoI’d be thinking about Family Sharing for that usecase.
- supernovae 5y agoI wish they had a better MDM for kids... All I want to do is ensure that NextDNS is installed/forced and that they can't remove it. Somehow, if you block store, block adding apps and block removing apps and hide the icons, kids still figure out how to remove the damn thing and the only thing you can do to block it is set a 1 minute time limit (why can't you set 0 minutes? wtf apple?) and hope they don't stay up until midnight to click through in 1 minute and slide the slider to off (or figure out how to get into settings/network/dns and disable - which why can't the limits limit that??)
- ryanianian 5y agoThe "at your own peril" strategy is effective for some. Or go the panopticon route: "I have software on the router that can see everything you do, but I don't usually look at it."
- noway421 5y agoUnless you're running a MITM proxy for SSL traffic with root certificates installed on the home devices, this statement can not be true. And if you're running such a proxy, you would need to have a guest WiFi for people coming into the house who would like to use internet without installing the certificate. At that point, circumventing the tracking is the matter of connecting to the guest WiFi.
- thealistra 5y agoThis sounds like fueling anxiety in the kids that they are being watched. Doesn’t sound okay
- ryanianian 5y ago> kids that they are being watched They already are though. Usually by tech companies without the kid's best interests at heart. Tailor it to the kid. Certain amounts of anxiety in developing minors around surveillance seem healthy, especially given the risks associated with unfettered access to the dangerous fire-hose that is the internet which itself has tracking at every corner.
- vxNsr 5y agoI can’t tell exactly but this seems to be going down the compete with Active Directory route. Which honestly, isn’t a bad thing. AD is getting long in the tooth and AAD is a mess, we can absolutely use a few clever apple innovations to this space.
- vxNsr 5y agoHappy to see they came up with a use for their HQ: largest and most expensive sound stage ever.
- vondur 5y agoThis certainly seems like a direct attack on something like JAMF, which Apple has basically blessed to be the Enterprise management tool for Apple Devices. (Ok I guess since it's less than 500 users, maybe not quite in the same ballpark as JAMF, but I'm JAMF has plenty of customers with less than 500 installed devices, and this service offers more than just management)
- artful-hacker 5y agoYou just wait, I am sure that after Apple tests this plan, knows it works reasonably well and can make money, they will start crippling JAMFs' capabilities and slowly take over the market.
- iJohnDoe 5y agoWow! Apple is now doing 4-hour onsite repairs?!? It’s an early Christmas miracle!
- gnrlst 5y agoThis is really cool, and a very necessary offering from Apple. But dear god their promo video (at the end of the page) is unwatchable. Is it just me or have these videos gotten worse? For example, despite being impressed with the new MacBook Pro announcement (which I have purchased), I had to mute their live Apple event because of all the cringe over-edited script. Maybe I've just become allergic after working for a corporation for years. Sorry for the rant.
- arianvanp 5y agoIf you can use the Managed Apple ID as an OIDC server (what Login with Apple essentially is) then this would be a pretty nice complete solution
- aejnsn 5y agoIt’s like Apple has started listening to customers again.
- thih9 5y agoSlightly off topic, check out the HTML code next to the "Onsite repairs" box; the formatting uses strikethrough, but there is a hidden element with "Not" text before each crossed out line. I assume this is for accessibility or copy-paste compatibility; as a result the raw text still reads: > Onsite repairs: Not someday Not next week Not soon ASAP. I find this kind of attention to detail very cool. (Too bad "ASAP" is not very specific either and can mean "someday", "next week", or "soon" too...)
- polycaster 5y agoI suppose this is more about the concern the wrong meaning could be indexed. Nice highlight in search results: "Apple BE: Onsite repairs someday".
- CityOfThrowaway 5y agoThis is for the visually impaired! Screen readers will announce the hidden element
- dahfizz 5y agoCan screen readers not figure out that a 1px x 1px element with a clip-path: inset(0px 0px 99.9% 99.9%) is invisible?
- londons_explore 5y agoScreen readers are a lot dumber than you'd expect... And now web designers have come to rely on this dumb-ness, so making them smarter breaks stuff.
- steve_adams_86 5y agoThe trouble is, I think, that typefaces vary so much that some could appear to have a strike through when they don't. Or take for example the number 0 which sometimes has a fairly horizontal slash through it. Do you program the screen reader to check if the struck letter is a 0, and if so, consider it not to be struck? But... What if it actually is, and that typeface doesn't have a slashed 0? Do you only check perfectly horizontal strikes? How thick? At which height in the type? How much overhead is it to parse all of this? etc. This also requires rendering the document and inspecting the image with object detection, I would think? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm only trying to imagine potential problems.
- wejick 5y agoWow, company where I work just rolled out kandji what a timing. However I don't think online storage is necessary for most business that already using either Google or Microsoft office products.
- bengale 5y agoLooks good, roll it out to the UK and we'll switch from Jamf pretty quickly.
- motohagiography 5y agoSmart play to focus on businesses with fewer than 500 employees, as those are the most likely to grow in the next 3-7 years into larger accounts, and they don't have the 12-18mo sales cycle and shennanigans of an enterprise. It's a strategic departure from being a consumer luxury product company, and the shift to enterprise suggests they're out of ideas, but at the rate they're losing consumer growth I'd say they've still got another 150 years. Leveraging the apple store as a service point is a huge deal, as it may compensate for the additional hardware premium their products cost. I've worked in a large number of organizations as a consultant and the microsoft ecosystem is basically unusuable to me now. Between performance issues and thoughtless design, I switch back to my apple devices to do simple things and get real feedback from actions while I'm waiting for the microsoft platform to respond. As a result, I manage client work on MSFT, and do real work on my mac. With Apple getting into this space, I can't see buying another microsoft product unless I actually hated the people I was hiring to use it. The essence of the apple experience is that by their products being designed to be responsive no matter what, you are always engaged and working on them for the feedback, whereas some MSFT error message means I'm going to go do something else for 15-20m while I get past the gumption trap. Current one is having to reboot the machine to reset a VPN driver just to check client site email. MSFTs problem isn't from lack of a solution, it's that the problem exists at all and as a user I am even aware of it. I have lots of issues with Apple's social decisions, and am switching out of their ecosystem because of it so I'm not an uncritical fan, however, this announcement means they aren't just getting into enterprise, they're getting upstream of it and in 10-20 years they will have replaced a lot of it. They're dropping in on a macro trend wave that is how work itself is going to be different.
- intricatedetail 5y agoDo they also help setup tax avoidance structure?
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoSounds like a huge upgrade to Apple Business Manager. Two big complaints here: 1. Apple Business Manager refuses to work in Firefox due to an arbitrary user agent block, and they apparently still haven't fixed this. 2. "If accepted, your existing Apple Business Manager account will be upgraded with additional functionality that cannot be undone." - This is a really good way to ensure we don't try this. What if it causes our organization new problems? Why would your beta product be impossible to roll back out of?
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoThe first thing I thought when I saw that block was wtf, apple? You have non-standard compliant html/css there? Utter disgrace.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoIt works entirely fine if you set Firefox to lie about the user agent. It's probably one of those cases where someone just didn't want to have to take the 'risk' they had a browser issue with a browser they don't directly support.
- Gentil 5y agoHeavy blow to JAMF folks! It would be interesting to see how thing go from now onwards for them.
- ksec 5y agoThis is what you get when part of Apple's Services Revenue is at risk . Finally doing something that it should have been since Day 1. Along with AppleCare+ Monthly option. Instead it took them the whole 2019 and 2020 before they act. I would imagine similar play will be made for Education market as well. As they are battling with Chromebook and now Windows 11 SE. This is easily another billion dollar ARR. Oh I would not be suspired if Johnson & Johnson are switching to using Mac sometimes in the future. Edit: I would bet the on site repair is the only good thing ever came out of Butterfly keyboard fiasco.
- sabujp 5y agoJAMF is overbought anyways, time to sell
- benrockwood 5y agoIn 2020 Apple bought FleetSmith (https://www.fleetsmith.com/ https://www.fleetsmith.com/), we all knew that would become the basis of an Apple MDM, this is the result.
- sna1l 5y agoI see a lot of comments where people are saying this is a killer blow to JAMF but almost every single org has a heterogeneous set of devices (PCs, Macs, iPhones, Androids, etc), so how will this work with that? Unless they support all types of devices why have yet another tool?
- mataug 5y agoNot necessarily true, if a small business wants to keep MDM simple, they could adopt Apple's Business Essentials to get a lot of value quickly. These small businesses may like paying for apple care and MDM in a single payment rather than paying two separate companies. You're correct in that large businesses have heterogeneous devices and JAMF will still be relevant there.
- surye 5y agoI thought JAMF was Apple Only Ecosystem as well. So it's a lateral movement from the perspective of heterogeneous set of devices, but if you had to go with Apple or third party, given the same features and limitations, most would go first party.
- binaryblitz 5y agoJAMF is Apple only.
- numbsafari 5y agoThe challenge for Apple is going to be their unwillingness to integrate with others. Business Manager only integrates with MS Azure Active Directory for IAM. The vast majority of small business do not have Azure Active Directory. They either have nothing, or they have Google Workspace. Apple needs to not just launch a competitor for AD. They need to properly support integrated directory services with a broader range of systems. Aside from that, they don't have an endpoint security solution, which is a necessary part of this package, ultimately, if they care going to replace JAMF, who is the real target/loser here. If Apple can do those two things... well... I'd switch in a heartbeat. Why? Well, their support story is going to be way better than JAMF. Also, I hate having multiple vendors when I can have just one. For those saying that Apple has no room left to grow... I expect this isn't the end of this for Apple going after business users. They need to roll Claris into the mix, stop acting like Numbers is a spreadsheet, and finally launch a cloud platform. There's many billions for them to make here.
- borski 5y agoI suspect integrating with Google is just a v2 feature.
- r00fus 5y agoNot to mention Okta, etc. Though for Apple's target market Azure was probably the best initial integration.
- easton 5y ago> vast majority of small business do not have Azure Active Directory Where are you from? On the east coast of the US, I find it uncommon to find small businesses who aren't still all in on Office, which if you've bought it in the last five years, was probably via a subscription that gives you Azure AD (and Exchange, Teams, etc). GSuite is still very uncommon in my experience outside of schools.
- sigmaml 5y agoNot GP, but in India (where I am from), Google Workspace is fairly common in SMBs. Also: https://www.statista.com/statistics/961105/japan-market-share-of-office-suites-technologies/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/961105/japan-market-shar... That report seems to indicate that Google Workspace is actually the leader even in the US!
- m0llusk 5y agoThough the whole setting has changed, this harkens back to NeXT's stated mission prior to merging with Apple: To be the preferred business alternative to Microsoft.
- rootsudo 5y agoWonder why JAMF hasn't been bought out yet.
- minusSeven 5y agoThis should be offered for free! But then I live in a country where I can't even afford an apple device.