While Microsoft has made fantastic strides in their cross platform capabilities all around, the fact of the matter is when it comes to MacOS it flatly does not compare to other MDM providers that have offered Mac management for far longer. But it is true that with Intune, we can manage Windows, iOS, Android, and MacOS albeit with diminishing turn-key options as we go down the list. I’m not going to get into the licensing as (per usual) it’s complicated. It’s ready to integrate with everything Microsoft and if you already pay for SCCM/MEMCM, EMS, or M365 E3 or E5 you already own it! Well… sort of.

The all inclusive, one stop shop for your device management needs. Source: Desktop OS market share 2020 | StatistaĮnter the hero of our story: Microsoft Intune.

Platforms like JAMF or VMWare’s Workspace One are often considered too costly (whether that’s true or not) to implement for such a limited use case and Administrators are left to choose either leaving them un-managed or rejecting them in the environment entirely.

Despite their market dominance of the mobile world, Apple maintains a fractional foothold in the desktop OS space and thus are often neglected by organizations where the MacOS footprint is limited to a handful users. If you have ever managed an Apple device, you know this story all too well. In my experience, this ‘keep it simple’ approach is fine for most small organizations, however sooner or later we are all faced with a need to push the limits of what turn-key offerings can provide and look closely at the gears under the hood in order to move forward. With no on-prem infrastructure to build and maintain, we often learn just enough to make services like Intune do what we want and move on without a second thought to why or how. With the advent of MDM in the cloud, very little has changed in this regard except the exposure we receive to the inner workings of the platform. No matter if you used ConfigMan, DesktopCentral, Smart Deploy, or even good ol’ fashioned MDT the underlying premise has always been the same: Distribute a payload and run it. Always approach information you find outside (or inside for that matter) official documentation with skepticism and follow the golden rule: Never test in production.įor many Administrators, MDM for Windows has historically been a smattering of scripts, agents, group policy, and registry changes. As the name suggests, these accounts are based on experiences I’ve had in my own lab. Disclaimer: This blog is not intended to be advice on how to manage your environment.

Create mac admin account