Jamf announces new BYOD tool for business and employees

As Apple’s enterprise share expands fast, Jamf is rolling out a new tool to help organizations manage and secure personally owned devices that employees bring to work, while upholding employee’s personal privacy.

Making the personal professional

“The modern work world has changed dramatically in that employees are working from anywhere and everywhere. At the same time, employees are relying on personal devices they feel comfortable on to access company resources,” said Dean Hager, CEO, Jamf. “Because of this, organizations are now revisiting BYOD and looking to strike the right balance between organizational security needs and end-user privacy.”

Apple recently announced Service Discovery, a feature that drives account-driven user enrolment, which is a workflow that streamlines the way end users enrol their personally-owned devices while also separating user data from corporate data.

This is done by associating a personal Apple ID with personal data and a Managed Apple ID with corporate data and also allows for limited management of devices using a set of configurations that associate management with the user, not the entire device.

This makes for more security, but also protects an employee’s personal information against enterprise overreach. IT admins can still manage and secure corporate data on the device by automatically deploying configurations for access to Wi-Fi, VPN, Email and other corporate services. It does so through a suitably easy to use system, as you’d expect from Jamf.

Why this matters

“Workers don’t want to be over-managed, and IT departments don’t want security breaches. To meet in the middle, employers should find the sweet spot,” said Nick Amundsen, SVP, strategy at Jamf. “In addition to creating a robust BYOD policy, an MDM-enabled user enrollment service sets up both parties for success. By separating user data from work data, employees are encouraged to use their devices productively — without feeling as though their privacy is being invaded.”

Jamf’s new BYOD offering is available now for iPhone and iPad. Customers can access this offering through Jamf’s Business and Enterprise plans at no additional charge, or for $6 per device per year.

“We’ve seen the greatest movement of the workforce into their homes in all of history,” Hager told me last year. “Will this accelerate the consumerization of technology or decrease it?” he said. “I think it will accelerate, because all of a sudden technology isn’t just part of the employee experience, it is the entire employee experience.So employers are going to want to make it a good one.”

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