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I wonder how this will affect MDMs like Jamf. So far it seems that Jamf is what most Mac-centric organizations use.

pknomad 5y ago
Probably some? I used to work in client platform engineering. Most teams recognized that this was going to happen back when Apple acquired Fleetsmith in 2020. It will most likely compete with non-enterprise MDM space (think Jamf Now) at first.
- Aaronstotle 5y ago
  Yeah, one issue with Jamf is that they were at the whim of Apple's OS updates (certain features would become deprecated). This has huge potential considering how many tech companies have fleets of Apple products
candiddevmike 5y ago
I think jamf is trying to be multi platform. Unfortunately for them MDM is a pretty crowded market, so they're probably going to struggle as Apple commoditizes their niche.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
It might clobber Jamf... however, compared to Fleetsmith or Small Business Essentials, Jamf is a Massive PITA to use and configure. If they had a better product, honestly, we might not see Apple making moves to replace a messy supplier that does plenty to embarrass Mac in the enterprise.
- astral303 5y ago
  Jamf is onerous to use. Are they still requiring two days of training with a purchase? Last time I tried to purchase the product, they would not let me skip two days of training. As a fast growing <10-engineer startup at the the time, I had negative time to spare — spending two working days in training for a glorified CPanel-like mishmash of obtuse software was a non-starter. We ended up going with a small MDM vendor, which was just barely passable enough to compliantly manage a fleet of Macs with somewhat minimal time investment. Still, it came with fully employee spy mode turned on (website monitoring on by default) and had promised features, such as FDE key escrow, that barely ever worked in practice. So thank god for Apple Business Essentials, this is a blessing for every startup that runs a fleet of Macs.
  - easton 5y ago
    JAMF Now doesn't make you do that. It is missing some features, nothing that important for provisioning Macs (I believe there's shell script support?).
simonjgreen 5y ago
We've recently binned Jamf in favour of Kandji and couldn't be happier
bradstewart 5y ago
I don't know how many small companies are using Jamf, but they may lose some of that business. I doubt Apple is going to make Essentials powerful enough for medium-large companies though, so Jamf is likely ok for a while. Anecdotal, but I recently picked Jamf over Essentials for a ~30 person company because Essentials was just too limited. I really, really wanted it to work. Not having another company involved felt so nice. But I just couldn't do most of what I needed. They have been adding features, but it's still way, way short of what Jamf can do. Particularly around enrollment options, although it seems they've finally added the ability to do user-based enrollment without wiping the machine?

Probably some? I used to work in client platform engineering. Most teams recognized that this was going to happen back when Apple acquired Fleetsmith in 2020. It will most likely compete with non-enterprise MDM space (think Jamf Now) at first.

Aaronstotle 5y ago
Yeah, one issue with Jamf is that they were at the whim of Apple's OS updates (certain features would become deprecated). This has huge potential considering how many tech companies have fleets of Apple products

candiddevmike 5y ago

I think jamf is trying to be multi platform. Unfortunately for them MDM is a pretty crowded market, so they're probably going to struggle as Apple commoditizes their niche.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

It might clobber Jamf... however, compared to Fleetsmith or Small Business Essentials, Jamf is a Massive PITA to use and configure. If they had a better product, honestly, we might not see Apple making moves to replace a messy supplier that does plenty to embarrass Mac in the enterprise.

astral303 5y ago
Jamf is onerous to use. Are they still requiring two days of training with a purchase? Last time I tried to purchase the product, they would not let me skip two days of training. As a fast growing <10-engineer startup at the the time, I had negative time to spare — spending two working days in training for a glorified CPanel-like mishmash of obtuse software was a non-starter. We ended up going with a small MDM vendor, which was just barely passable enough to compliantly manage a fleet of Macs with somewhat minimal time investment. Still, it came with fully employee spy mode turned on (website monitoring on by default) and had promised features, such as FDE key escrow, that barely ever worked in practice. So thank god for Apple Business Essentials, this is a blessing for every startup that runs a fleet of Macs.
- easton 5y ago
  JAMF Now doesn't make you do that. It is missing some features, nothing that important for provisioning Macs (I believe there's shell script support?).

simonjgreen 5y ago

We've recently binned Jamf in favour of Kandji and couldn't be happier

bradstewart 5y ago

I don't know how many small companies are using Jamf, but they may lose some of that business. I doubt Apple is going to make Essentials powerful enough for medium-large companies though, so Jamf is likely ok for a while. Anecdotal, but I recently picked Jamf over Essentials for a ~30 person company because Essentials was just too limited. I really, really wanted it to work. Not having another company involved felt so nice. But I just couldn't do most of what I needed. They have been adding features, but it's still way, way short of what Jamf can do. Particularly around enrollment options, although it seems they've finally added the ability to do user-based enrollment without wiping the machine?