Apple Makes Another Acquisition: IT Startup Fleetsmith

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple has acquired device-management startup Fleetsmith. The technology and personnel that will join Apple as part of the acquisition could help Apple expand upon device enrollment and introduce better ways to set up new devices like iPads and Macs within organizations. Fleetsmith's proposition to customers (and Apple) seems perfectly tailored to our times: the company offers a way for organizations to equip remote workers' (or workers otherwise not located in the central office) devices and have those devices automatically registered and set up for enterprise use as soon as they're first turned on. After that, Fleetsmith automatically ensures devices get needed software updates. It also provides IT managers with a dashboard for managing the fleet.

If you've used Jamf, a more widespread competitor, you get the general idea. But Fleetsmith already had a special focus on Apple devices, it has an Apple-like design sensibility, and it was likely a much cheaper option for Apple than Jamf, to boot. Jamf appears to be on a different path, with a $3 billion IPO planned. Speaking of money, though, neither Apple nor Fleetsmith has revealed the purchase price. Fleetsmith did publish a blog post about the acquisition, though. While the blog post notes that Fleetsmith will continue business as usual and serve both new and existing customers, Seth Goldin from Freethink Media claims that's not the full story. "Apple has completely eliminated core functionality from the app with absolutely no notice," says Goldin in a series of tweets, noting there are "hundreds of users" on the MacAdmins Slack workspace that are "totally outraged because Apple has pulled the rug out from under them."

apple could do a lot more

[ZERO1ZERO]

Apple could really build a nice bit of infrastructure by utilising these technologys to make some really integrated systems for deployment into small business, larger homes, and other similar places. After using the ubiquiti Unifi network stuff recently (cloudkey, APs, protect, Switches) The slickness and all -getherness of the solution is really quite nice. I don't have to dive into command line options to set settings its all in a fantastic web interface, accesible via the cloud from my phone anywhere, if i wish. Can apple do the same for multi user home setups and small business? Like easy to deploy software configs and policies ? Web configurated system settings applied to company wide machines ? Multi user ipads ? network based time machines for all users in the house ? 1 or 2 clicks away ? Proper local backups of original photos for 'optimised' photo libraries ? (this one is major) Centralised media playback and file sharing etc this is so basic there's a ton of stuff that they could do. I'd deploy apple all over my company if i could easily secure, lock down apply policies to users computers, deploy software, monitor etc. We know linux doesn't have anything to compete with AD certainly not pointy and clicky.

apple should have limited OS roll back for new har

[Joe_Dragon]

apple should have limited OS roll back for new hardware enterprise only.

Re:

[Anubis IV]

I was with you for most of your post, but then you actually started listing a lot of things that Apple already does. For instance...

Multi user ipads ?

This already exists, but isn't available to the general public. Enterprise and education users already have the ability to do so, but it comes with the usual caveats in those settings, like organization-level device management and profiles.

network based time machines for all users in the house ?

Apple got out of that business. They used to make a standalone device called a Time Capsule that was exactly what you describe: a router wit

Re:

[ZERO1ZERO]

thanks for your message. I was being lazy in my examples there are far better things than my suggestions they should be doing, and I don't take your points as disagreement.... but (not but) the points you made are the same points I make but from the other side : Yes - multi user ipads exist -- but Why can't I have a second account on my ipad so my daughter/ friend can use it without having to be a education establishment or corporate with an IT team ? And time machine yes they used to do this, they don't

Can I opt-out please?

[fluffernutter]

I just want to say no to upgrades and facetime and nuicense naggy popups on devices I only use as mp3 players, forever. That doesn't seem to be something Apple is capable of offering.

Apple recruiting top talent

[dfghjk]

Apple recruiting more top talent in a ground-up effort to develop revolutionary new technologies, right boys?

Re:

[Midnight_Falcon]

It is highly questionable if this is a talent acquisition. It may simply be because there's new companies springing up every day to do Apple corporate device management, and they have widely different levels of quality. Some are really scrappy and have questionable security. This move practically kills all those upstarts, and begins the slow death of the major player in the field JAMF.

Re:

[cusco]

"totally outraged because Apple has pulled the rug out from under them."

But they'll stand in line to buy the next piece of overpriced and underpowered shiny that Apple wants to foist on them. SMH

Why?

[Uldis Segliņš]

Nobody needs this. I as a worker do not need it. It restricts me on what software I use, it lags me with updates and what not spying software. They as work providers have never had capacity to do this. And their incentive is completely wrong. They do not need to control their workers, they need their work done. Putting spying software on their workers devices does not help that. Since I shifted to Linux (not that it is a Panacea), I have no obnoxious updates or lagmaking software, I can do the same I could

Re:

[Midnight_Falcon]

Fleetsmith does none of these things out of the box. It hooks into native Mac OS MDM hooks to enforce policies. It does not whitelist software unless you go through great lengths to install another product to do so. It does not have 'spying' functionality by default like other MDMs which come with screen capture etc.

. I have heard workers use this argument. Then, they lose their device in a cab. Without MDM, they "forget" if they had enabled encryption. It is unlikely they did. Now, data must be cons

Re:

[tlhIngan]

It's because Apple's MDM software is pathetic. At best it's a piece of demo software to show how you can use MDM to manage devices, but you've been better off using anything from BES (yes, Blackberry is still around) to many other products to manage deployment of iPhones and iPads and other things throughout the enterprise. With this, hopefully Apple's tools grow to be more usable for SMEs because really, the MDM stuff out there is geared towards large enterprises, Apple's is geared to demonstration on triv

Apple always does this

[phantomfive]

"Apple has completely eliminated core functionality from the app with absolutely no notice,"

The only surprising thing here is that this person is surprised.