Apple announces free Business Essentials session

It looks like this to an end user

Apple Business Essentials has emerged from beta and is now available to business users across the US, though it’s easy to imagine the company will extend this service internationally in due course.

Apple has now announced an online session during which it will explain how the service may benefit your business.

Find out more about the service

Apple’s Events page invites anyone who is interested in Apple Business Essentials to join the event which takes place 11am-12pm (PDT) on April 5.

A sign language interpreter will be available during this session.

The Introducing Apple Business Essentials session is described as follows:

“You’re invited to an exclusive online session to learn how Apple Business Essentials can help small businesses like yours manage every aspect of your Apple devices. Join Apple product experts to dive into the details and see it in action.”

What is Apple Business Essentials?

Apple Business Essentials consists of iCloud+ for Work, device, application, and user management and 24/7 support. The service lets you manage apps, VPN configurations and Wi-Fi access, and offers an attractive AppleCare+ scheme to help ensure your systems work and keep working.

Maribel Lopez at San Francisco-based Lopez Research told me of the benefits of the SMB-focused service:

“While business essentials can scale to companies with hundreds of employees, it’s been a real win for smaller businesses (the sub 100 category) where combining ease of management with security is essential. ABE makes it easier for smaller companies that lack IT staff and the repair credits simplifies repairs and streamlines costs,” she said.

The service already supports Managed Apple IDs and lets you authenticate with Microsoft Azure, Active Directory and Google Workplace (the latter later this spring).

Business Essentials is aimed at businesses with up to 500 employees, prices range from $2.99/month per user for a single device with up to 50GB storage to $12.99/month per user for up to three devices and 2TB of storage.

You can join Apple’s seminar to find out more about the service here.

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