Eh, it kind of depends imo. Apple’s MDM is pretty great, they just don’t offer any real alternatives to AD, Exchange, etc. and integrating Macs into a Windows environment definitely does make some of the “it just works” magic evaporate quickly.
For a small business willing to go all in and do everything the Apple way I can see it being quite attractive though. Managed Apple IDs through Apple Business Manager for use with iCloud, Automated Device Enrolment with zero-touch provisioning straight out of the box and a robust MDM solution like Jamf make for a pretty neat package. It’s just not one that will appeal to every business, especially large ones or ones with a desire or requirement to keep things on-prem and in-house.
Apple definitely has a very long way to go to become any kind of real competition to Microsoft in the enterprise market, but with MS pushing more and more cloud stuff themselves (O365, Azure) I reckon it’s only a matter of time before they start neglecting things like AD and Exchange. And more people using Apple at home means employees and decision makers will start wanting to use that stuff at work too, for better or worse.
I’m not saying Apple will dethrone MS or anything, in fact I don’t think a future with Apple being a significant player in the enterprise market is particularly likely. But I think if MS screws up enough and Apple play their cards right, it’s not impossible.
Eh, it kind of depends imo. Apple’s MDM is pretty great, they just don’t offer any real alternatives to AD, Exchange, etc. and integrating Macs into a Windows environment definitely does make some of the “it just works” magic evaporate quickly.
For a small business willing to go all in and do everything the Apple way I can see it being quite attractive though. Managed Apple IDs through Apple Business Manager for use with iCloud, Automated Device Enrolment with zero-touch provisioning straight out of the box and a robust MDM solution like Jamf make for a pretty neat package. It’s just not one that will appeal to every business, especially large ones or ones with a desire or requirement to keep things on-prem and in-house.
Apple definitely has a very long way to go to become any kind of real competition to Microsoft in the enterprise market, but with MS pushing more and more cloud stuff themselves (O365, Azure) I reckon it’s only a matter of time before they start neglecting things like AD and Exchange. And more people using Apple at home means employees and decision makers will start wanting to use that stuff at work too, for better or worse.
I’m not saying Apple will dethrone MS or anything, in fact I don’t think a future with Apple being a significant player in the enterprise market is particularly likely. But I think if MS screws up enough and Apple play their cards right, it’s not impossible.