Apple Device Management Firm Jamf Ties In Closer With Microsoft

The company’s ‘big move’ will share data from Jamf’s management of iOS devices with Microsoft Endpoint Manager, CEO Dean Hager told CRN.

Apple device management software maker Jamf announced that its solutions will tie in more closely with Microsoft Enterprise Mobility and Security, in a move to “take a lot of complexity away from the customer,” Jamf CEO Dean Hager said in an interview with CRN.

The new offering from Jamf, iOS Device Compliance, enables organizations to use Jamf for management of iOS devices while still sharing device data with the widely used Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

[Related: Jamf CEO: Channel Expansion Planned Amid IPO, Apple Enterprise Growth]

Data that might be shared in this situation could include compliance status of devices, Jamf said. The iOS Device Compliance offering is now in preview, the company said.

While Jamf has already partnered with Microsoft for years, the announcement shows the two companies have together “continued every year to release innovations that take the burden away from customers,” Hager told CRN. The announcement has come in connection with the company’s virtual JNUC 2020 (Jamf Nation User Conference) this week.

“Our research shows that the overwhelming representation of devices in the workplace are either Microsoft or Apple,” Hager said. “If we are the standard for the Apple enterprise and Microsoft is the standard for the Windows enterprise, by us working together we take a lot of complexity away from the customer.”

With iOS Device Compliance, Jamf is taking a similar approach to a solution launched previously for macOS, which has involved sharing inventory data from Jamf with Microsoft Endpoint Manager. That allows Microsoft Endpoint Manager with Azure to measure the compliance of that Mac and decide whether that Mac should have access to enterprise resources, Hager said.

“One of the benefits you get from doing it is since we share the inventory of the Mac with Microsoft Endpoint Manager, all inventory is consolidated in Microsoft Endpoint Manager,” Hager said. “This year we’re expanding it also to iOS and iPad. So now all iPhones and iPads benefit from that as well.”

This “big move” means that “all inventory gets be consolidated now,” he said.

“Let’s say you have Jamf running the Macs and the iPads and select iPhones. You can have Microsoft running the Windows devices, the Android devices, and maybe some other iPhones. But yet to the user, it doesn’t matter because all inventory is consolidated in Microsoft Endpoint Manager,” Hager said. “And the device compliance checking that’s done by Microsoft is done the same on all of them. And if it’s a Jamf-managed device, and Microsoft notices something that’s out of compliance, it can link into Jamf to satisfy that compliance solution.”

Minneapolis-based Jamf completed its initial public offering in July, and Hager said previously that the IPO shows that “we are a unique and strong company for channel partners to work with.”