I don't think it will be an issue IBM services are very expensive and only large enterprises would take advantage of their service. I think most of the Mac admin jobs out there are safe.

IBM has been posting a lot of Mac jobs, but noone I know who's tried said they got contacted.
But as Roger stated, this is for larger enterprise mostly, I don't think a lot of schools and many corporations will shift too much if at all.

I for one welcome our new IBM overlords ;)

Dan: "sudo make me a sandwich"
Watson: "I'm sorry Dan, I can't do that"

@dgreening you mean overlords! LOL

Haha yes I did mean that!

Hum, I wonder what becomes of IBM Tivoli for Mac?

mmm tivoli is i lov it spelled backwards.

Hum, I wonder what becomes of IBM Tivoli for Mac?

Likely nothing for quite a while. They certainly have an existing client base using that product under current contracts. Those existing customers will be slow or flat out resistant to switching client management platforms. Even if eventual run and maintain is cheaper, switching will be expensive to the client.

The immediate win will be that IBM can go to market looking for new work and confidently tell prospective clients that "Yes we can mange your Mac's too".

So here's a possible potential from this deal that would be good. Since Apple has stopped making Xserve a long time ago, maybe IBM will start offering a server solution. I would think they would have linux on it or possibly OS X if Apple allowed that.

But since IBM is stepping up, should mean more jobs for us admin...so I welcome our new overlords as well.

If I may propose another way to look at this:

IBM arguably has the broadest reach and most experience of any enterprise company out there. Their adoption of the Mac platform puts a stamp on what you all have known and been working on for years: The Mac is a major player in the enterprise computing space and it's no longer a matter of if Macs find their way into an org, but when and how.

That validation, and the conversation shifting to when and how means more jobs and more opportunities for everyone. Keep doing what you all do so well. This is progress.

@jonah gets a cookie for today's correct reading of the tea leaves.

Now bring me a server capable of running OS X which has LOM capability!

@dgreening YES to everything you have suggested!

Sounds like good news overall to me. I don't think any of our jobs are in danger. Remember, experience in this area is invaluable. How long has it taken most of us to get the level of knowledge and expertise we have? Its not overnight, so if anything, any of us working in the Mac in enterprise space (and with Casper) may have just become more valuable!

I'm sure this (Apple/IBM) means that a fix will be forthcoming for the Yosemite 802.1x Wi-Fi sleep/reconnect bug. Yep.

CGundersen - v9.73 addresses that.

Full disclosure: I'm a CCA, a Mac guy from way back, and (since fairly recently) an IBMer. I sat in on a regional town hall recently and listened to the new-ish IBM CIO describe a number of initiatives, including the new option of having a Mac portable as your IBM workstation. I also got a chance to chat with him afterwards, swell guy, clearly very smart.

That said, I think going forward this means more to the iOS side of things than it does to the Mac. It certainly shows that OS X is not "just for the creatives" anymore, like @jonah mentioned, but the partnership between IBM and Apple will almost certainly focus much more on enterprise uses for iOS devices - think American Airlines replacing its pilots' books with iPads.

In this case, I do think a rising tide lifts all boats.

@mdonovan

I believe JAMF mistakenly marked that as a defect that was fixed. Unfortunately Apple owns this and L-Cap has been identified as the fix. But I digress, the Apple/IBM/JAMF alliance is nice and I'll drop the snark. :)

Very interesting development. When Apple and IBM first announced the MobileFirst initiative, IBM was pushing their own product, Maas360. Now they have dropped all mentions of Maas360 from their MobileFirst marketing materials and have partnered with JAMF. I guess they figured out what we already knew.

Not saying it will ( hopefully not) but this can be viewed in 2 ways First: IBM puts a ton of admins and engineers out of jobs because they have the all in one solution no need to pay 401, health etc.

second: This creates opportunities for admins to work for big blue still putting out the guys/gals that don't want to work for IBM and needs to resort to working for small shops only.

Great thing for Jamf but this to me is a blow to Us mac admins.....

speaking from experience, trying to sell managed Mac desktops to existing customers we have, its very difficult to make it cheap enough that most corporations will swallow it. And my company does not seem to think going after education is worthwhile either. So, I would not get too worried yet.

This only appeals to companies that want to outsource their IT. If they didn't want to do it before, why now? To me the bigger deal would be if this was a pre-cursor to IBM buying out JAMF. Now that would be a terrible thing for the community. The only other part that would be of concern is that IBM and Apple will have a much bigger say into what features get implemented into the Casper Suite. The way Apple likes to do things doesn't always jive with the realities of many different organizations.

As a fan of Mac in the enterprise (as a user and an admin) I think this is great. I've fought the hard fights with management who ask "Why Mac?" for far too long. Now I can turn around and say "Because, IBM."

I don't think K-12 has anything to fear from this. I don't think small, medium, and even large companies have much to fear from this (<5000). The 5000+ organizations might be at the low-end of potential targets for IBM. If you're a 10,000+ organization, you're either already working with IBM, have worked with IBM, or are considering working with IBM. And I feel for those admins that might be effected by this, but they'll probably get an offer or a consideration for positions.

However, as a flying by the seat of my pants, self-taught, semi-feral/partially-domesticated, Mac admin I can't see myself in a suit and tie and joining the IBM monolith. ;-)

@jescala - Boy oh BOY - am I glad I didn't buy Maas360 instead of Casper last spring!

@dgreening Not sure if you were being facetious or not, but we have a pretty nice Mac Mini with SSD and a Pegasus Thunderbolt array, running headless Yosemite Server. We manage it with the Server app and ARD. Not sure if that is as LOM as Windows, but I think it's good enough. It goes from off to ready in well under 30 seconds, I can tell you THAT much!

That being said, I won't completely rely on MacOS Server until I can run it on a VM on a non-Apple vSphere cluster without hacking like Mr. Robot's crew.

@pete_c

...including the new option of having a Mac portable as your IBM workstation.

You mean this?!?

@JayDuff We used to have one of those "luggables" and it was a great macine. I wouldn't call it portable by today's standards, but it the job back in the day. Not only that, but it came with a build in trackball.

I'm hoping for good out of this IBM thing...but only time will tell.