Microsoft Intune has positioned itself as a leader in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM), focusing on simplifying management and enhancing the overall experience for enterprises. The recent transformation of Mac management within Intune reflects a commitment to providing a unified solution across platforms. Collaboration with Apple has played a crucial role in aligning Intune with Mac management needs.
The endorsement from Jeffrey Ward of EY highlights the positive impact of Intune on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for Mac services. The revamped Mac management in Intune emphasizes simplicity, value, and secure productivity through features such as tool consolidation, simplified operations, and enhanced data protection.
Key Features of Intune Mac Management:
- Tool Consolidation: Intune consolidates management tools into a single solution, reducing the complexity of task-switching and providing complete visibility over the estate by having a single source of data.
- Simplifying Operations: Intune Mac management facilitates data protection, flexible app deployment and updates, security settings configuration, Conditional Access policies, multifactor authentication, and integration with Microsoft Defender.
- Enhancing Secure Productivity: Intune focuses on reducing friction from provisioning through daily use, offering day zero settings catalog updates for defining new macOS configurations.
- User-Centric Features: User-centric enhancements include Single Sign-On (SSO), Microsoft Entra ID password usage for Mac login, pre-configured user accounts in Office apps, and streamlined account creation during provisioning.
- Apple-Native Apps Optimization: Intune ensures optimization of Apple-native apps for Apple processors, including Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Edge, Office apps, Microsoft Defender, Company Portal, and the Intune agent.
- Remote Help for macOS: Remote Help for macOS is integrated into the Microsoft Intune Suite or available separately as an add-on.
- Admin-Centric Features: Admin-centric capabilities include Declarative Device Management (DDM) protocol support, simplified SSO configuration, provision of apps from Intune, Setup Assistant customization, and remote actions like restart, merge, wipe, or erase.
- Future Enhancements: Anticipated updates in Q1 2024 include improvements in user-centric features like automated local primary account creation, support for Entra ID passwords, and additional Setup Assistant customizations. Admin-centric enhancements include the incorporation of Microsoft Cloud public key infrastructure (PKI) for certificate lifecycle management.
In conclusion, Microsoft Intune’s revamped Mac management aims to provide a unified and streamlined experience, incorporating user-centric and admin-centric features for enhanced productivity and security. Ongoing collaborations with Apple and planned updates demonstrate a commitment to staying at the forefront of UEM.
More details on Microsoft documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/fundamentals/deployment-guide-platform-macos
