Yes, it's puzzling. Apple had pretty much "blessed" JAMF as the goto way to manage Mac/iOS Devices in the enterprise. Most of the JAMF seminars/tech sessions I have been to usually had an Apple enterprise Rep on hand to work with.
This was also my first thought.
It's surprising because JamF is recommended as the de facto (only serious) solution for people serious managing fleets.
That’s simply not true, a marketing a line from jamf. There are several serious MDMs. Of big enterprises I know of just one that uses jamf, and they augment it with many, many questionable bash scripts.
What enterprise management isn't chock full of questionable scripts?
Shit, my org has over 15,000 group policy objects that have been collecting, getting linked across OUs, and duplicated for over 15 years. The whole thing is questionable.
It works though.
> a marketing a line from jamf
My perspective comes from talking to anyone on the Apple Business team at the San Francisco union square location, and also reps from apple's general business support line.
There are definitely a ton of other MDM solutions, but none that I've heard mentioned so frequently by apple employees as JamF.
Apple has long echoed this line (part of the reason their purchasing of fleetsmith, not jamf, is surprising).
A sampling of MDMs that large companies you've heard of use:
- vmware workspace one
- bare metal micromdm
- simplemdm
- fleetsmith
- kandji
- jamf
My experience also. Apple business team recommended jamf every time.
Right but Jamf is what enables you to deploy those bash scripts reliably.
Apple is likely wanting to bring macOS/iOS management into their own product suite and tightly integrate it in future products, much like what Microsoft did with Terminal Services, which nearly killed Citrix 20 years ago.