Apple acquires Mac, iPhone, iPad MDM company, Fleetsmith

Apple has acquired enterprise device management company Fleetsmith, which provides Mac, iPad and iPhone management solutions.

Apple expands its MDM offering:

The sale was announced today.

A Tweet from CEO and co-founder Zack Blum explained:

“Fleetsmith is now part of Apple! Our mission from day one was to balance the needs of IT with the experience users love about Macs, iPhones and iPads. We’re beyond thrilled to continue that work at Apple.”

https://twitter.com/FleetsmithHQ/status/1275809209683021827?s=20

A blog post on the Fleetsmith site states:

“Our shared values of putting the customer at the center of everything we do without sacrificing privacy and security, means we can truly meet our mission, delivering Fleetsmith to businesses and institutions of all sizes, around the world.”

In the case of Apple, it’s likely this reflects the latter company’s recognition of the need to support zero configuration deployment for its enterprise customers.

Apple changed this industry

I spoke with Fleetsmith co-founder Zack Blum in 2018, when he observed:

“Apple’s biggest accomplishment and contribution to enterprise technology has been bringing mobile to the enterprise. Apple has raised the bar in delivering well-designed product experiences, as well as hardware and OS security.”

At that time, he echoed Box CEO Aaron Levie’s comments this week around enterprise software design, arguing, “There’s no excuse for poorly designed software. Being ‘enterprise’ certainly is not a good excuse.”

He was also quite certain which company had changed things:

“I’d argue that Apple has played a leading role in enterprise trends such as BYOD, the future of work, and the consumerization of IT,” he said.

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