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Yep. People who have never tried to add Mac support to an existing organization do not realize how freaking expensive it is.

There are basically two cases. If you use Microsoft, you are often already paying for Entra ID and Intune, then still adding the Apple-side pieces for Mac support: Apple Business Manager and often Jamf or Kandji. If you do not use Microsoft, you are buying the full stack yourself: Okta or JumpCloud for identity, Jamf or Kandji for device management, and Apple Business Manager for enrollment. Apple Business Manager is free, but the rest is not, and the cost adds up fast.

This means that, in practice, a managed Mac can easily end up costing close to twice as much to support as a Windows device.

by 9dev1 hours ago|

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Actually Intune handles MacOS reasonably well, you don’t need Jamf; that’s the way we went, and it’s okay-ish for the most part. By far the annoyingest thing is getting Macs bought before we went down the Business Manager integration route into MDM.

You think there’s a standard way to do that? Just install company portal? That worked in exactly 1/20 cases. It’s an exciting new error on every single device. Awful. Just awful.

by wpm3 hours ago|

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The only thing you need out of any of those to correctly support the Mac is an MDM, of which there are free ones and expensive ones and everything in between. So long as it can deploy configuration profiles and declarative management configs, you can spin up Munki to be your pkg/script runner and script the rest. Installomator to install and patch applications.

But if you also wanted identity, there are plenty of free selfhostable SSO/ID providers out there. If you're just starting out and not at the scale where a big Microsoft CoPilotM365OfficeWhatever contract makes sense, you probably don't even really have a need for a lot of this stuff. A minimum contract for Jamf Pro is like $5k a year or something. That's two well kitted developer MacBook Pros per year in license costs.

by xbryanx4 hours ago|

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Totally agree on the hidden costs. We've seen some great value in going with Mosyle for this. Lots cheaper, and it "just works."

https://mosyle.com/

by awakeasleep5 hours ago|

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Big yes. Enterprises need support and a relationship with their supplier where their needs can change product direction.

Jamf will do that. Apple will not.

by drcongo5 hours ago|

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Dunno if you've ever had a business relationship with Apple but they're really good on that front. Proactive and helpful, along with always trying to sell you stuff, but proactive and helpful nonetheless.

by bigyabai5 hours ago|

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A B2C relationship and a B2B relationship are not the same thing. Apple does well with the B2C pipeline, but they will only surpass Jamf in the B2B department if they play dirty.

by drcongo4 hours ago|

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By business relationship I meant B2B. They're excellent.

by awakeasleep3 hours ago|

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I have managed multiple relationships with Apple business and the only thing I can think you could possibly be talking about is having a local store reserve devices for you to buy.

As far as identifying a bug in the software and getting it fixed, or requesting a feature, you run into a brick wall. Taking that feedback from customers is not the Apple way. This is why there is a market for third party MDM companies in the first place.

by drcongo2 hours ago|

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I've decided you're probably right, I retract my earlier comments.

by bigyabai1 hours ago|

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Relative to what? The top comment in this thread is a 3-person chain explaining how their B2B accounts were locked with no communication or recourse.

by ibejoeb1 hours ago|

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It's not apparent that this apple mdm will do internal distribution or just provide for encouraging a set of installed apps already on the app store. If it does, that would be the biggest reason for me to jump to the free product.