The Apple-focused enterprise services market continues to evolve. Case in point: Apple-only value-added-reseller Appogee is now offering a fully-managed iOS hardware deployment thanks to an arrangement with TRUCE Software.
A one-stop enterprise mobile shop
At its simplest, this means enterprises choosing to deploy iOS devices across their business can approach Appogee to purchase, deploy, and create contextually-aware management tools for these new fleets. The system integrates tools from both TRUCE and Jamf and means businesses can accelerate their mobile strategy, and do so while ensuring their own policies can be enforced on a device and user basis.
“This partnership delivers a 360-degree suite of services to get enterprises up and running with iOS devices with the added benefit of the TRUCE platform to dynamically manage and empower the workforce to the full extent,” said Tim Hassett, co-founder of Appogee.
Perhaps this is not a story designed to set the Apple-focused internet ablaze, but it’s significant. Think about it. It reflects, once again, how Apple’s ‘Think Different’ DNA can deliver resonant long-term change, as well as short-term thrill. Would we even be here (or one day, there) without it?
Think about the nature of the enterprise market just 10 years ago, when C-class execs, already curious about iPhones, dove directly into the iPad pond just as the first BYOD waves crashed against what was then a PC monocultural business computing shore. Netbooks drowned beneath the iDeluge.
In reality, what Appogee’s move represents is profound. Not only does it mean businesses can easily deploy Apple’s mobile solutions, but it speaks to the growing maturity of the Apple-in-the-enterprise markets.
[Also read: OmniPlan 4 offers powerful project management for Mac, iPhone, iPad]
Services like these don’t evolve in a vacuum. As Apple’s share in the space grows, providers have evolved to feed real market needs.
As they do, they deliver on many of the challenges (both genuine and ideological) that inhibited iPhone, iPad, and Mac use in the enterprise. It wasn’t so long ago we first noted Apple’s growth in the sector — and critics would complain at the absence of such services.
Now you can manage Apple devices using Microsoft Endpoint Manager and Azure and Jamf Connect, and you’ll find the best way to run Windows is on an M1 Mac.
Beyond the Mac, the enterprise has become mobile. We know COVID-19 has accelerated this transition; we just need to look at the data (much of it reported here) that shows the extent to which people have begun — and want to continue to — work from home.
Not only that, but in a recent survey more than a third of knowledge workers say their mobile device usage at work has increased significantly over the last year. With more than 40% claiming to be working more now than they were then. We know productivity has climbed.
We’re also becoming smarter to the need to manage context to better secure distributed endpoint devices, such as iPhones or Macs in people’s homes (or parks and gardens). Enterprise data needs to be secured on a user, device, and location-aware basis. This is the kind of information companies choosing to adopt the Appogee/TRUCE/Jamf solution can provide.
TRUCE CEO Joe Boyle explains: “To fully realize the benefits of workforce mobile device usage, businesses need policy tools that take contextualization into account as an employee’s environment changes throughout a shift,” he said in a statement. “Context allows businesses to solve the need to maintain contro,l but in a situationally aware way…. Our solution adds another layer of depth for customers looking to advance their mobility strategies.”
It also illustrates irrevocable change in the nature and ecosystem of enterprise IT.
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