@Huber Might have something for you, shoot me an email. My contact details are in my profile

@kevinfriel and @seansb spoke about SCCM vs Casper at the last NYC JAMF User Group. They have not had a chance to post their slide deck, But i'll send them this way. They are also on the Slack channel often.

@calumhunter sounds great...no email in your profile, but I sent you an invite on LinkedIn. @mmdowjones thanks for the connect to @kevinfriel and @seansb This is a great opportunity to get JAMF deployed in a very large government agency, so looking to equip them with all relevant and necessary comparison info up front.

Bringing it back up...I know this has been talked about forever in various ways, but...

So we are finally deploying the new SCCM 2016 client to our Windows systems and one of our Windows Desktop Engineers said, "Now we can work on pushing apps to the Macs in the future." Needless to say, after being on that team back in the day and as stretched as they are, I cannot imagine managing Macs with SCCM 2016. I am a firm believer in best tool for the job.

Has anyone worked with SCCM 2016 and checked it out in terms of Macintosh support? I am curious if the deficiencies are still there. What will SCCM 2016 NOT do in terms of supporting the Macs in a Casper like way?

Thoughts?

Hey guys-

So sitting in the same boat now as a lot of you. I've been able to successfully shoot down using SCCM on our macs in the past, but we have new management now who is pushing it pretty hard. Most of the information here is about 2-3 years old, so I was wondering if everything is pretty much the same? Or has Microsoft made some strides in Management for Macs? I know JAMF will always be the better Mac management tool, but I need some more firepower to convince the big wigs.

Thanks!

Our environment is very hybrid 25000/Ipads 15000+ PC`s/Laptops with lab setups and 3000 macbooks and only 1.5 people to manage them we use SCCM along with Parallels for Macbook management for Macbooks and JAMF for Ipads, it has worked extremely well and the Parallels streamline integration into SCCM was straightforward. Cost differential is minimal and re imaging of Macbooks is less than 15 minutes. Our focus was on getting the devices into the hands of the users in the least amount of time.
Just some food for thought is all.

@pdye I'm not sure if anything has changed with MS and how they handle Macs. When I had to defend our use of Casper, we worked with some MS engineers and what SCCM could do was eclipsed by what it couldn't do. It's not feature for feature the same as with Windows clients. And what it could do was basically accomplished by using scripts to fill the holes of what is could not do natively. I'm pretty sure I know that Mac management is not a priority for them. I'm not familiar with the Parallels addition...but that to me basically means that SSCM can't do it on its own. (my opinion, yours may vary)

Again, the most important thing to do is to define what Mac Management means in your organization. What are your requirements?
Is FV2 key escrow important? Can SCCM handle MDM yet? On it's own?
And if cost or a single pane of glass is the reasoning for Mgmt, you'll need additional tools to do the work and @bake33 proves the point with the addition of Parallels they use.

From personal Experience, we are a 'Microsoft Shop' and wanted a single pane of glass to manage all our devices. After reviewing a few options, we chose JAMF over Parallels Mac Management for SCCM. Our product team sat through sales pitches from all vendors and we settled with JAMF. I couldn't even imagine trying managing those Macs on SCCM without Parallels.

SCCM is powerful, but seems archaic as it's been in development for so many years. JSS is clean, and simple to use yet extremely robust.

Being an SCCM Admin for 10 years and a Casper Admin for 6 years now. I can honestly say..... Let SCCM manage windows, and JAMF manage Macs.

It's becomes very clear who the Windows people are on Mac's and Mac people who are on windows writing scripts, packaging, and in general just managing. They generally follow or lean towards one or the other. (trying not to sound too cocky) I, myself that are the rare breed that don't mind learning either and are a breed that is few and far between.

In contrast to the whole "letting SCCM manage Mac" question. You wouldn't ask JAMF to manage Windows. The instant response going through you now is "hell no". Why?... Because they don't specialise in that platform. They "dabble" but really have no interest.

To my fellow SCCM guys out there, layoff trying to sell SCCM to manage Mac's. It's Microsoft's play thing that they "dabble" with and don't put much resources into. Yes it can do (very lite if that) mac management, but its a drop in the ocean when compared to JAMF and other products.

JAMF is the most popular tool for managing the Mac platform
SCCM is the most popular tool for managing the Windows platform

The question you should be asking is. "Do I want to seriously manage x platform properly" if yes. The choice is made....