Jamf cost money, Intunes is 'free'

[cpominville]

I would like to know what Jamf will do to fight their "friend" microsoft, which is going around school boards advertising a free mdm. I know of 2 major school boards in my city that have either dropped Jamf, or refused to use Jamf, because InTune is "free"

In fact, most school boards in Ontario Canada, are steering away from Jamf as well, so its not just my town.

How long will it take to wake up?

I personally pushed very hard to have Jamf on site where I am, the smallest school board in Ontario, and I can tell you I LOVE JAMF!! EXCELLENT stuff, but if others won't give you a chance....

[Hugonaut]

Jamf Cost Money, Jamf manages macOS & iOS better than Intunes.

[crbeck]

Intune doesn't manage Apple devices anywhere near the degree that Jamf does, last I saw. So Jamf doesn't really have to do anything unless Intune seriously improves.

Those school districts either don't care about technology, or don't know what they're giving up.

[andrew_nicholas]

This is a usually a good example of the sunk cost fallacy in my opinion: "Why spend money on the new tool when the one we already have works with some extra elbow grease and swearing". For some things Intune works, and dare I say, works well, and Jamf has plenty of room for improvement but in my opinion it always boils down to the fact that it is a product from a competing OS/Company. You can use a standard wrench to turn a metric bolt in a pinch, but if you're turning a lot of bolts, its probably best to just buy the right tool for the job.

[Cayde-6]

To echo others, Intune is free for a reason it has nearly zero control on macOS devices

[AGolphin]

Google also has IOS MDM capabilities.

[larry_barrett]

The only thing free 'round here are smiles.

JAMF means we don't have to hire another person. Its pretty simple math.

I'm sure Microsofts product is fine for some. But if we gotta hire another person is it really free?

[AGolphin]

Why would you hire someone else to manage Intune?

[larry_barrett]

JAMF saves me time. If I run out of time someone else needs to help out. Intune wouldn't help me. But that's not why you're here, right?

[AGolphin]

I'm still not following anything you're talking about.
Why are you running out of time?
Why would do you need someone else to help? Help who?
Intune (which I'm using for windows devices) work great for what it does. Still investigating its integration on my part but I don't see why you hate it so much.
Jamf has been counter intuitive from the original MDM I was on but this is the move my organization made so I can only follow suit. Google also advertises it's MDM usage as well and that does very basic control.

[dan-snelson]

On the macOS side, Microsoft Intune doesn't meet our current use-cases (and I've repeatedly told our Microsoft rep as much; Hopefully you didn't have to endure the Microsoft Silverlight version.) We use both Jamf Pro and Intune for device compliance.

On the iOS side, it does meet our current use-cases, which are minor; I can't imagine trying to pull off a school's requirements with Intune.

P.S. LOL @andrew.nicholas; swearing is strongly discouraged by my employer.

[cpominville]

I get Jamf is better, but that's not the point. CRBECK hit the nail on the head. These school districts don't know what they are giving up. If the choice for managing 2,000 iPads is 40,000 dollars (made up number) or zero. They will go with the zero with lots swearing and grunting. After all they have peons, to do the swearing and grunting.

Isn't this the very same argument that happened with Apple and Microsoft 30 years ago? Apple was better, but PC's were cheaper, hence they won the business world. Most managers don't care about quality, they only care about numbers. Sad but true. The great managers found in an organization like Jamf, may have a hard time understanding that they are the exception and not the rule and not every manager out there thinks like them.

When board after board after board here in Ontario are going to InTunes....

[Gabrielson]

My problem is I am the only Macintosh Pro in our environment. We are woefully understaffed and overworked (do more with less - sound familiar?) I am lucky to be able to spend maybe two hours a week on Jamf admin. A lot of things are not working that Jamf Support has not been able to resolve. So in my situation I do not find Jamf easy to manage at all.

[hdsreid]

I am being asked to re-evaluate InTune for Mac use, after spending time on Jamf....InTune is MDM ONLY while Jamf still has "traditional management" capabilities. This is often overlooked by business leadership that do not understand anything other than the $$$.
Lets just say none of the compliance policies actually do anything. MS advertises that their product will lock devices that are out of compliance....then when it doesn't work and you pay for their premium support, all they tell you is that that feature isn't supported........
PKGs only....you can make it work, but more work for some things
Can't run scripts
Can't make custom EAs
It doesn't hold a candle to Jamf in Mac management. Now if these are iOS/iPadOS devices, InTune will get the job done. We manage those in InTune since it is free. Jamf sales reps have told me repeatedly when doing comparisons that the iOS features are the same.

also love the "intune is free" argument....no, your company/organization got swindled into MS's ELA stack and is paying for a half baked product.

[andrew_nicholas]

@dan-snelson Theres a joke about carpenters, especially the one handed variety, being the best at that but I'll leave it unsaid.

[tomhastings]

"Google can be used as an iOS MDM..." I left a K-12 district that after 6 years of 1 to 1 iPads switched to Chrome books, "because they are cheaper". I completely lost the argument about how much we had invested in the apps, systems, and control we had with Jamf and the iPads. All cost comparisons that were presented to the board of education and to the public only focused on the hardware purchase price. All other costs were hidden from the public; enterprise enrollment, Go-Guardian, third-party consultants that were flown in to setup management, third-party Google admins to audit the management console, ChromeCasts to replace Apple TVs, etc. Printing costs soared to a level they haven't seen in over 5 years as teachers returned to paper in the classroom.
I recently heard that the first-year costs just in replacements and repairs alone was over $34,000! All costs that proved that Chrome books were actually more expensive were swept under the carpet.

[AGolphin]

That's so sad Tom.
Chromebooks aren't even cheaper anymore.

[AGolphin]

@Gabrielson What couldn't jamf support solve? So far I only have a device in prestage and apple icloud api bugging me.

[tomhastings]

AGolphin, Chrome books are so much cheaper than iPads, if you ignore the hidden costs.

[snowfox]

I also had to do a feature comparison for my senior mangement on Jamf vs Intunes.

If you are only managing iOS devices, Intunes has average to decent feature support.
If you have to manage macOS devices, Intunes is next to useless in terms of device management features.
You can't manage macOS devices with InTunes full stop and they takes MONTHS to implement feature support for new versions of macOS that come out. Macs are treated as second third class citizens by InTunes platform development priorities. Windows devices first, iOS devices second, macOS devices third/'we'll get around to it at some stage'. I'm not joking, it's that bad.
It doesn't have to be Jamf but you will need a proper MDM platform that fully supports macOS devices and the Apple MDM framework for macOS. InTunes isn't it in that regard.

For those who are about to manage macOS devices with InTunes, we salute you. Good luck.

[tlarkin]

We use Intune for Win10 + Autopilot management. I can tell you right now MSFT licenses this in extreme tiers. To get what we needed, we require both an AAD P1 and Intune E3 license. So, what does their "free tier," do?

[pbowden]

Microsoft Office ❤️ Jamf

‘nuff said.

[bofh]

Just a few words.

Nothing is free, you pay with your data.
If I got it right, you gotta run an AzureAD aswell, thats the point where you usually pay, atleast if you want to have some kind of support.
And then you'd probably need another tool along with intune to manage macOS.

What I've seen so far was a nice UI, but that doesn't count if you need functionality.
And in the end intune is probably for you if you already
- have lots of Windows clients & SCCM running
- have an AzureAD
- wan't to manage some (<50) Apple Devices

[cpominville]

Great discussions!! The point of my post is to make Jamf realize that for those who only manage iPads, as most boards I know are a windows shop, InTunes (Can't even come up with an original name...ie iTunes?) being "free" will kill Jamf. There is no doubt Jamf is the best or at the very least striving to be the best, and I LOVE using Jamf. But if you are a board with 2,000 iPads, and the cost of Jamf is 20,000 per year, and In Tunes is 'zero', there will be a lot of swearing, cursing and gnashing of teeth.

Most boards I know of when you ask their IT managers about how the iPad implementation is going, roll their eyes, and I had one say to me, and I quote, "the best possible thing that can happen, is that these iPads just go away!"

What is happening with the Zuludesk acquisition? I think Jamf needs to assess their customer's needs and realize that if the customer does not need any Mac OS management, then provide them with a simpler or "half of Jamf" solution at a price point that is extremely competitive. Better to have some business than NO business!!

In Ontario, Canada school boards (72 of them, if I am not mistaken) we are only one of two boards (I could be wrong) that use Jamf for iPads. The others will not even consider it. Example, the Toronto school board, with some 40,000 to 80,000 iPads, the cost of managing iPads was 80,000 dollars per year for Jamf...or In Tunes 'free'........ NOT A CHANCE Jamf is in there!!

The writing is on the wall!

[Hugonaut]

Writings on the wall for your institutions maybe but you can't speak for the rest of Jamfs demographic @cpominville. The institutions I've worked for want the best for their target audience whether it be students, patients, doctors, etc. We are willing to pay the money no matter what, Jamf is the best and will always be the best. For instance, Apple uses Jamf. Just go into anyone of their stores and poke around a computer. Now why would they do that?

[Matt_Roy93]

Expensive is always a relative term, and cost is dependent on the organization using the product. Jamf has the capability and support from Apple to justify the cost associated with the product, it is the premier solution for managing iOS and MacOS devices. If the "Free" solutions accomplish what you want or your organization cannot afford to pay the premium for Jamf, there is nothing wrong with that, just remember labor isn't cheap and a tool that allows one employee to accomplish the tasks of many is an appealing proposition to many organizations. I have been lucky enough to work for multiple school districts using Jamf products and there is no way I could switch back.

[jaellington]

The fact that Microsoft uses Jamf rather than Intune to manage their own in-house Apple devices speaks volumes....

[andrew_nicholas]

@cpominville In the interest of being that guy, the product is spelled Intune, not InTunes. And Intune isn't free, it is part of a portfolio of other things likely already purchased and licensed.

<tinfoil_hat> with Jamf and Microsoft already in partnership to support conditional access/AAD authentication and the obvious love the MS Office for Mac team gets, it really wouldn't shock me to hear talks about acquisition and assimilation. </tinfoil_hat>

[Cayde-6]

@andrew.nicholas I’ve been having the same thoughts of Microsoft buying Jamf. It makes sense because Microsoft will not invest time in designing a MacOS agent for intune.

[jaellington]

@andrew.nicholas I've heard a rumor in that direction, so it wouldn't surprise me at all....

[tlarkin]

Also from a tech debt perspective, Intune has way more. jamf itself is riddled with tech debt and I can tell you, using both, Intune has way more tech debt. You cannot even schedule something on a regular basis with out manipulating the objects via API (or powershell module) in code to hack around it.

Intune does some things out of the box better than jamf though. I will say their SAML/SSO with MFA to enroll devices into Autopilot just freaking works out of the box and it syncs the IdP password right to AAD joined systems pretty seamlessly. Both jamf and Apple can take a lesson from that.

However, all things considered, Intune is not a great tool for macOS.

[stmyers]

Canada...'nuff said.

They STILL haven't apologized for the whole Justin Bieber atrocity. Then again...I don't know if something like that can actually be forgiven.

[gachowski]

Why would you want to work for someone who asked/suggests to use any product beside Jamf?

C

[gachowski]

With Vista Equity Partners 2017 purchase/investment I don't see MS buying Jamf... I also don't think it would be smart for Apple to allow MS to buy Jamf.

That said, it's beyond stupid that Apple didn't buy Jamf years ago.

C

[tlarkin]

@gachowski uh MSFT is valuated at 1Trillion dollars, they can buy jamf if they wanted to. They also would complete their cloud model in Azure for device management if they did acquire jamf. There could be a lot of money to be made.

Apple would have zero say it, nor would Apple care. When was the last time Apple did anything that was "Enterprisey?"

[gachowski]

@tlarkin

:)

Valid point about the MSFT money and I do agree with the premise. I just didn't say it very well, I think both companies should have bought Jamf years and years ago and let Jamf run as its own company like FileMaker... I don't think Apple should "let" MSFT have that kind of access to its customers or that much control its future.

I am the last person to argue that Apple supports the enterprise because I know they don't care....however, there are a few points, Enterprise Connect in Catalina and ABM corp accounts.???? ( yes it's both are 1/2 baked... alright 1 is 1/2 baked and the other is MIA) but they show somebody in Cupertino is "trying"... : )

In fact, I agree with the premise so much, I am still trying to figure out why either company hasn't bought fleetsmith from what I have seen they look like they know what they are doing.

C

[FutureFacinLuke]

Our argument went along the lines of I've been using JAMF to manage iPads do you want me to learn how to manage iPads in inTune or train the guys that manage InTune to be able to manage iPads? Didn't think so. Here's the approval to buy JAMF iOS licences.

JAMF iOS Conditional Access would help this look less like the wrong decision...

[jameson]

Since when is Intune free ? - you have to pay a license for each user

But no. Intune cannot cover apple devices if it should be professional enviroment. If it is only few devices that give it a go

[LNGU1203]

call seattle school district and ask about why they botched the intunes and went back to Jamf.

[jandrewartha]

Here's someone on reddit who's just been dropped into Intune: I feel we've made a huge mistake by moving our MDM to INTUNE...