Apple’s expanding enterprise ecosystem

When it comes to Apple device management software solutions, the trickle is becoming a flood — and the number of service providers is growing exponentially as Macs, iPhones, and iPads expand across enterprise IT.

Apple’s expanding enterprise ecosystem

Evidence of this expansion is everywhere.

Apple’s most committed partner, Jamf, now manages 12 million Apple devices worldwide.

Despite this huge number of devices, it is now one of several device management solutions providers that serve the market, including firms like Addigy and Mosyle.

The presence of alternative providers is fantastic news for enterprise deployments, as it makes it far more likely they will be able to find a provider capable of personalizing their service to suit the needs of enterprise users.

This kind of enterprise-class personalization took a leap forward today when Mosyle introduced a new managed service provider (MSP) scheme that will let partners develop unique solutions to meet the needs of their clients.

The growing number of enterprise-focused Apple device management solutions providers reflects just how rapidly iPhones, Macs, and other ‘Designed in California’ Apple devices are proliferating across the enterprise sector.

To be quite frank, this means there is more than enough business to go round, and as enterprise IT grows accustomed to using Apple’s development tools to create unique productivity tools and systems, that need is only going to grow. It’s kind of like the old Windows enterprise ecosystem, only on a platform made by better designers — a platform that incoming employees already expect to use.

Millions of Apple devices across the enterprise

Apple blows its own trumpet on its growth in the sector now and then.

While overshadowed by weak iPhone sales, Apple’s Q1 2019 offered up a few really bright spots around enterprise growth.

As revealed by CFO Luca Maestri, exciting enterprise deployments included:

• Confirmation of iOS deployment across healthcare, including at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford Health Care, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
• A little insight into how SKF, the world’s largest producers of bearings and seals continues to succesfully transform its manufacturing processes on iOS and SAP. It has cut production errors from 20 percent to zero as a result.
• An app from Procore Technologies that enables construction workers to compare building plans and 3D models to what is actually being built in real time. 
• These deployments aren’t unique – FAO Schwarz recently moved to deploy Apple solutions across its business.

Apple is “no longer the platform used by a few rebels in the creative department,” said Apple’s Jeremy Butcher (Enterprise Product Marketing) recently. “Many customers are managing tens of thousands of Apple devices every day.”

The scale of these deployments makes the MDM market extraordinarily attractive to solutions providers across the enterprise space, and as they diversify their products within the sector, it becomes increasingly easy to adopt Apple’s tech in any business.

Enterprise-class solutions are also becoming more accessible to consumer users — Jamf recently launched its own SME-focused solution via Apple Retail stores.

Beyond enterprise IT, the healthcare market is also coalescing around Apple’s technologies in part because doing so reflects what people now expect from tech, in part because of the sophisticated sensor and solutions the company provides, and because the company’s core commitment to privacy protection is essential when trying to protect people’s most personal information.

Get used to the Apple enterprise

I’ve been reporting on Apple’s growing reach in the enterprise sector since before most people even noticed this to be the case.

It’s a trend I first became aware of when the iPad turned the world around to iOS and the BYOD shift led to more deployment of Apple’s tech across the sector.

Time passes, of course, but the steady expansion of service providers committed to helping enterprises move to, manage, and support the Mac and iOS platforms proves the market need and underscores the momentum that remains behind this seismic shift in enterprise IT.

The Apple enterprise is the new business reality. 

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