JAMF Software Adds MDM Support for Latest Apple iOS Release

How to Minimize the Impact of BYOD and Improve Security

Now that Apple devices are widely deployed across many enterprises, managing them has become a mainstream IT challenge. The question that often arises is whether it’s better to manage those devices using a mobile device management (MDM) framework specifically optimized for them or to use a framework that can manage both Apple and Windows devices via a common pane of IT management glass.

JAMF Software CEO Dean Hager says the answer to the question becomes obvious every time Apple delivers a major upgrade to its operating systems. In this day and age, end users will not wait for IT to tell them when they can take advantage of new features and functionality on an Apple device.

With that issue in mind, JAMF Software today announced that the spring release of its Casper Suite supports the just released version 9.3 of Apple iOS. Apple iOS 9.3 provides a new facility through which Apple users can share access to the same application for the first time.

In addition to providing support for iOS 9.3, the latest update to Casper Suite includes an ability to recover a lost device without having to turn on a continuously running location-based service that, by definition, violates the privacy of an end user. Instead, Casper Suite issues a command that temporarily disables a device, displays a customizable lost iPad message, and then reports the GPS location of this lost device to IT.

Hager says it’s pretty clear that the consumerization of IT is forcing organizations to rethink how IT is managed. The days when IT departments could dictate what functions end users could invoke are pretty much over. The challenge now is finding an MDM framework that allows the internal IT organization to not only accept that new reality, but also actually remain relevant.