Download - COMPUTER WEEKLY BUYER’S GUIDE HOME A Computer Weekly …docs.media.bitpipe.com/.../CWE_BG_0714_Apple.pdf · Today, Apple is strongly focused on the consumer market. The popularity

computerweeklycom buyerrsquos guide 1

HOME

POPULARITY OF APPLE PRODUCTS

DRIVES ADOPTION IN THE

ENTERPRISEIPADS IPHONES

AND MACBOOKS ARE ALL NOW

WIDELY USED IN BUSINESSES

PROS AND CONS OF IPADS IN THE

ENTERPRISEAPPLErsquoS MARKET-

MAKING TABLET INSPIRES USER

DEVOTION BUT IMPOSES A HEFTY

PREMIUM

THE BIG APPLE REVOLUTION

THEY MAY HAVE BEEN NICHE AT ONE TIME BUT

APPLE PRODUCTS ARE NOW

WORKPLACE COMMONPLACES

COMPUTER WEEKLY BUYERrsquoS GUIDE

A Computer Weekly buyerrsquos guide to apple in the enterpriseThe popularity of Apple products with consumers has led to their spillover into the enterprise with the consumerisation of IT and the rise of bring your own device computing IT departments may have as little support experience of Apple as Apple has of business support and the premium on the companyrsquos products will have CIOs shaking their heads but the Apple enterprise management ecosystem although not as broad as the PC world has tools worth exploring some of them free And once single-mindedly focused on the high street Apple itself has started to add enterprise IT features to its OS

These articles were originally published

in the Computer Weekly ezine


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COMPUTER WEEKLY BUYERrsquoS GUIDEBUYERrsquoS GUIDE

Apple first made an impact in the gadget market in 2001 with its innovative iPod Prior to that the company was considered mainly as the brand behind an alternative somewhat trendier version of PCs with devices such as the Macintosh Classic and the original iMac But in April of this year Apple reported revenue of

$456bn in the first three months of 2014 with the sale of 437 million iPhones making up more than half of this According to analyst company Gartner the company secured 156 of the smartphone market share in 2013 coming second to Samsung

Today Apple is strongly focused on the consumer market The popularity of Apple products such as the iPad iPhone and MacBook Air has meant these devices are also finding their way into mainstream business use But Apple has only recently shown efforts to add enterprise IT features to its products such as the security enhancement iCloud Keychain in iOS 7

APP

LE

Is Applersquos iOS ready for

the enterprise

Apple adds home and

health access to iOS 8

Popularity of Apple products drives adoption in enterpriseApple is focused on the consumer market but iPads iPhones and the MacBook Air are now being used by mainstream businesses Clare McDonald reports

BUYERrsquoS GUIDEApple in the enterprise


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Consumers make the decisionsThe take-up of mobile computing devices does not show any signs of slowing down Juniper Research has predicted that more than one billion devices globally will be used as part of a bring your down device (BYOD) initiative by 2018 Clearly given Applersquos strong financial results people are buying Apple devices both for home and work use As organisations allow employees to use their own technology in the workplace consumers are making more conscious decisions when buying a handset ndash they want something that their enterprises will allow

Dimensional Research recently found that 60 of businesses are supporting more than 100 Apple devices and 78 of users say they use Apple because they prefer it over other devices Dale Vile research director at analyst Freeform Dynamics says departments and individuals within organisations have requested Apple devices in the workplace but under a corporate-owned personally enabled (Cope) scheme But he added that this is often because of the devicesrsquo aesthetics and not necessarily how they perform

ldquoCustomer-facing employees such as sales people and consultants are often the ones pushing for use of Apple equipment because of the image It looks good it feels good and so onrdquo says Vile

Traditional IT or bustAlthough Macs have been used as an alternative to Windows PCs since the mid-1980s they have largely been used only in niche departments and certain kinds of organisations where Apple-specific software is needed such as publishing video production and creative industries

While it is easy to see that home IT consumerisation has driven the adoption of iPads and iPhones in business Macs are also making a comeback Mobile device management (MDM) provider MobileIron has seen not only an increasing trend of iPhones and iPads entering the enterprise but also an increase in requests for Mac support

Supporting Apple technologyMobile device management provides a security wrapper around mobile devices whether they run iOS Android or Windows But one of the main reasons IT departments are wary of Apple is because they have little experience in supporting Apple devices

ldquoApple resisted the idea of it being a business player for a few years That meant it got away with a lot in terms of supporting the IT departmentrdquo says Vile

ldquoBut this meant Apple was appalling at providing IT support compared with other players such as Microsoft and Oracle and companies that provided businesses with technical information available to IT departments or bug reports and fixesrdquo

According to the AppleCare website it can cost IT departments almost $50000 a year for enterprise-class Apple support The risk for IT is that unless they take support seriously

MAIN CONCERNS OF USING APPLE IN THE ENTERPRISE

Expense ndash iPads iPhones and Macs are expensive so wide-scale roll-outs are difficult to implement under budget

Support ndash IT departments are not 100 clued up on how to manage Apple in the enterprise and Apple provides limited support for business users

Security ndash There are limited options for securing Apple devices in a bring your own device (BYOD) scheme There are third-party mobile device management or containerisation products available but these come at an additional cost


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users may end up buying their own support and charging this back to the business BYOD support can cost up to $49 for Macs and $29 for iPads or iPhone per incident which could mount up to a large sum if CIOs do not prevent individuals taking support into their own hands and contacting Apple directly for help

Will Mayes marketing manager at Apple premium reseller Albion says Apple is focused on supporting its own products and tends not to provide support within the enterprise because there are so many other aspects to take into account such as software installations and networks ldquoFor us itrsquos about the integrationrdquo says Mayes ldquoMac is one part of our whole solution so from the view of support Apple supports the Mac but it doesnrsquot cover training or expertise in how everything links uprdquo He also says many new businesses will outsource whole IT systems and where this is the case those organisations need long-term support that Apple does not provide

Cost issuesThe price of Apple products can also throw a spanner in the works when attempting to scale devices across an organisation Peter Scott director of end-user technology at BT admits that although some of its teams have iPhones it ruled out Apple when considering BTrsquos wider Cope scheme because the handsets were too pricey to deploy on a wider scale

ldquoWe havenrsquot given up on the iPhone In our field engineering community wersquove deployed a lot of iPhones and that project has gone well for us We chose the iPhone because we started the project a number of years ago and at the time it was the only real smartphone that gave a great user experiencerdquo says Scott ldquoHowever the iPhone is a relatively expensive device and when we looked at doing this more widely rather than picking a phone that was pound400 or pound500 we found we can do it with a device thatrsquos more like pound100rdquo

Consumer focusldquoThere is a good chance Apple will continue to take an ever greater share of the total laptop market but anyone predicting where the laptop market will go in the next few years is a brave personrdquo says Nigel Hawthorn MobileIronrsquos director of European marketing

Ultimately though Hawthorn believes the workplace will no longer be dominated by one type of device but will involve a mixture of whatever IT individuals feel more comfortable using which may well lead to more Macs in the office

ldquoWe the consumers are able to influence IT more than ever before and the IT departments therefore need to take heed of what users want and expectrdquo he says ldquoWersquore going to see a more diverse set of apps and devices depending on what the userrsquos requirements are what department they work for and their job rolerdquo

Despite its lack of focus on enterprise needs it is clear Apple will remain part of the enterprise IT mix In some ways

IT is hoping the feel-good factor associated with Apple products rubs off on corporate IT ldquoThat whole paradigm of consuming applications has been changed by Applerdquo says Sumit Dhawan vice-president of desktop at VMware ldquoWhat every enterprise wants is to recreate that but for the enterprise and its own environmentrdquo

He says consumers have decided and made the choice to bring the devices to work and IT has not dictated which devices they are allowed to use for work ldquoThe more great products Apple makes for consumers the more consumers will like its products and they will continue to bring them to workrdquo n

ldquoWe the consumers are able to influence it more than ever beforerdquonigel haWthorn

mobileiron

rsaquo Apple lsquoarrogancersquo offers Huawei opportunityrsaquo Technology focus in BYOD security a mistakersaquo Apple in $3bn Beats deal to boost music sales


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April 2014 marked the fourth anniversary of the release of Applersquos iPad the device that created the modern tablet market Tablets are transforming computing as IT departments business units and workers buy the devices for work and personal computing While it might sound odd to refer to a four-year-old form factor as

ldquotraditionalrdquo the pillars of the tablet market stand beneath the 97in Apple iPad and its mostly sub-11in competitors such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 (101in version) or the Micro-soft Surface (106in Windows RT version)

Many information workers today use tablets which typically contain an ARM-based micro-processor or in some newer models an Intel Atom processor Generally weighing less than 2lb these devices feature always-on operation and long battery life They offer easy-to-use hyper-portable productivity in a wide variety of environments

Why AppleCertainly iPad users show a great deal of devotion to the platform Among global informa-tion workers a sub-segment use both a work-provided iPad and a personal iPad in a typical week There are a number of reasons for Applersquos continued success in the tablet market

First innovation often comes first to iOS Developers target the platform for many of the most innovative applications Partly this is pecuniary Developers reap higher revenue in general from iOS than from Android Even though Android is also a key platform for tablets (as opposed to smartphones) the iPad is the first release choice for the most innovative apps An example is the MindMeld application which ldquolistensrdquo to multi-user conversations takes notes raises key themes of the meeting and brings in web content to form a radically new content-generating collaboration experience While the system is now on Android the earliest versions were all developed for the iPad

Managing the iPad in

the Enterprise

How to strategise enterprise

device management

The pros and cons of iPads in the enterprise

Applersquos tablet inspires devotion among users and it is often the first platform for which

developers produce apps ndash but it is substantially more expensive

than its competitors J P Gownder

reports



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Second service providers make iOS devices enterprise-friendly An underrated part of the iOS ecosystem is the service provider categories Mobile device management (MDM) suppliers such as AirWatch Good Technology and MobileIron help IT professionals manage numerous endpoint devices but all three of those suppliers say iPads are the most common tablets they manage

Apple-owned FileMaker provides a platform for developing applications and an ecosystem of hosting service providers has sprung up to project FileMaker applications from the cloud

In addition vertical industries are adapting iPads to their own uses Each enterprise vertical tailors the iPad to its own needs For example in healthcare providers have developed ser-vices for discharging patients and moving them to outpatient care on the iPad platform As enterprises devote developer talent to proprietary iOS applications vertical adaption will become even more widespread

A related trend is that enterprise apps take advantage of tablet features These proprietary applications will take advantage of the tablet-specific features of the iPad including sensors gyroscopes GPS and LTE wireless services For example field-service applications can location- and time-tag activities to track worker productivity Not that iOS holds a monopoly here ndash it doesnrsquot ndash but many of these apps prove themselves on the iPad first

Finally the iPad can be used as a hybrid device with external keyboards from Apple Logitech and Zagg Indeed itrsquos not hard to find an author who has written an entire novel on an iPad The flexibility of the ecosystem around the iPad extends even to peripherals that workers can employ as needed

The alternativesBut Applersquos iPad doesnrsquot win all the enterprise app battles Logitech developed a propri-etary app for its salespeople in China who visit retail outlets to evaluate current inventory sales trends and inventory planning They offered the app on iPad and Android tablets but their Chinese salespeople overwhelmingly chose the latter

Further Applersquos iPad doesnrsquot monopolise developersrsquo attention Among mobile developers iOS and Android run neck and neck in terms of tablet prioritisation Among all mobile devices (including smartphones and tablets) 48 of mobile developers list the iPad as one of their top three priorities while 45 list Android tablets

Then there is the question of cost Compared with an entry-level iPad Mini in the US ($329) an HP Slate 7 Android tablet ($169) offers a significant discount The open-source multi-supplier nature of Android leads to a wide array of device form factors and price points

Samsung in addition to other hardware heavyweights such as Lenovo and HP joins Google in its advocacy of the platform Samsung touts its S-Pen as a differentiator in the functionality and performance of its Android tablets even as the Korean manufacturing giant leads the smartphone market as well However IT professionals should beware the complexity of Android The fragmentation of the operating system continues to present a significant chal-

lenge with so many devices on the smartphone-tablet spec-trum employing disparate versions of Android from 16 to 42 MDM suppliers report that managing Android complexity represents a substantial challenge for most of their enterprise customers who want to accommodate Android in their bring your own device (BYOD) programmes

Wersquore enjoying a period of great experimentation in the device market offering workers and consumers unparalleled form factor diversity and choice Some of these devices will succeed quickly as Applersquos iPad did Others will take time to develop as witnessed by the first suc-cessful Android tablets Still others will peak and fall quickly like netbooks Particularly in the diverse Windows 8 and Android device ecosystems there will be mass die-offs in the com-petition for survival in the tablet market n

This article is based on Forresterrsquos report Orchestrating An Enterprise Tablet Strategy That Drives Business Value by J P Gownder

rsaquo Virtual solution to consumerisationrsaquo Bring your own IT department

rsaquo Buyerrsquos Guide to consumerisation


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Not long ago the idea of managing Apple machines in the enterprise would have been met with confusion and an answer along the lines of ldquowe donrsquot worry about a couple of desktops used in marketingrdquo Apple devices desktops in particular have been viewed as expensive limited in application choices and best suited to more

creative roles ndash design photography video editing and so on They have often been seen as ahead of the market for ease of use (hence the old joke what do Apple users call Windows 98 Mac 89) but real computer users want a machine you can upgrade customise and install drivers on donrsquot they Not any more

Not any moreA mid-sized utilities company recently revealed in an internal survey that when asked what sort of computer they would like more than two-thirds chose a Mac Add this to the consumerisation of mobile IT and the bring your own device (BYOD) trend and suddenly there are more Apple devices in the organisation than ever before

This only adds to the existing challenge faced by most IT departments of controlling a mass of PC desktops and laptops that are likely to have multiple versions of Windows despite

APP

LE

Applersquos iOS 8 set to

improve Wi-Fi privacy

How to support Apple

in the enterprise

The big Apple revolution

Applersquos products were once niche devices Now following a consumer-led initiative they are widely used across the enterprise Rob Bamforth reports



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the recent discontinuing of updates for Windows XP There will be plenty of other mobile devices and operating systems adding to the confusion but here at least tools are starting to appear that support different mobile platforms

Desktops tablets smartphonesApple has two primary operating systems OS X and iOS Upgrade costs for the former are low compared to a traditional PC ndash in fact the latest Yosemite operating system will be free to Apple customers OS X is also Unix-based which leads to a solid operating system platform for running and managing systems

The operating system for iPads and iPhones iOS shares many basic frameworks with OS X but has adaptations for example in the user interface so it is better suited to touch interaction There are also restrictions and limitations that prevent it from being fully compatible with Unix Originally designed and optimised for consumers there are challenges for enterprise deployment and management

Deploy or BYODMoving from a few Macs to a widespread corporate deployment is a big jump The basic OS X setup process using the Migration Assistant to transfer settings from another system is straightforward but unfeasible when working on several computers Mass deployments usually require a corporate standard image to be used and installed on all hardware

While the Apple enterprise management ecosystem is nowhere near as broad as that of PCs there are some decent tools worth exploring First Apple includes some rudimentary image-management capabilities through NetInstall in its Server app for OS X server (superseding the earlier Server Admin Tools) along with other tools for managing users sharing backups and so on

There are also free tools such as DeployStudio that will fill some gaps and more complete packages such as JAMF Softwarersquos comprehensive Casper Suite which integrates well with Applersquos own tools and Symantecrsquos Client Management Suite (although this requires Windows on the server side)

Managing the mobile side of products throws up many more options This is because mobile device management (MDM) suppliers have had to support at least iOS and Android as their first platforms followed by Windows Mobile and perhaps BlackBerry Improvements

to iOS have given it better integration with third-party MDM systems not only for enrolment and deployment but for managing apps Enrolment can be fully automated via the Apple device enrolment programme for corporate-owned devices And those who have chosen a BYOD approach can allow users access to a self-service enrolment with opt-in and opt-out options

Managing softwareMac software can be bought through the App Store delivered automatically and cached through the Apple server

TOOLS TO MANAGE MACS

Software deployment Symantec Client Management Suite DeployStudio JAMF Software Casper Suite

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) from VMware View Citrix DesktopPlayer AWW Workspaces desktop as a service

Tools for user admin Centrify User Suite Mac Edition and Thursby Software ADmitMac

mac softWare can be bought through the app store delivered automatically and cached through the apple server platform


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platform (for both OS X and iOS devices) and controls can be applied to automate updates in the background or delay restarts until suitable times As the App Store is now part of Applersquos volume purchase programme there are significant commercial benefits for enterprise software licensing These apply to BYOD as well as traditional corporate device deployments

Not everyone is impressed with Applersquos enterprise support Indeed Facebook and Google developed their own management approach to Macs For Google this includes building on the use of open-source tools such as Munki for software installation and Puppet for configuration management It also added its own work with CanHazImage for managing system images and Cauliflower Vest to automate OS Xrsquos FileVault2 Google also used Crankd to respond to system or network events Facebook meanwhile has pushed into security with an intrusion-detection framework called Project Midas (Mac Intrusion Detection Analysis System) working with Etsy

Further commercial software-management tool options are available in addition to the capabilities from JAMF and Symantec mentioned above including other management suites such as FileWave and LANDesk

Integrating with the enterpriseFor individual Macs there are virtual machines such as Parallels and VMwarersquos Fusion and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) systems from VMware View or Citrixrsquos DesktopPlayer which deliver centrally controlled and managed Windows desktops on a Mac Taking this a stage further into the cloud Amazonrsquos WorkSpaces a desktop as a service (DaaS) also delivers a managed virtual desktop to most devices

Most enterprises however have existing models to structure user access to IT systems through groups user name and password and very often Microsoftrsquos Active Directory Configuring and setting up user accounts logins and groups can be accomplished for Mac users through preconfiguration but in different ways to those employed in Windows environments because the server side tools differ OS X server tools have some of the necessary functionality but can be supplemented further with tools such as Centrifyrsquos User Suite Mac Edition and Thursby Softwarersquos ADmitMac which extends basic Mac capabilities to turn a Mac into a full Active Directory client

Mobile devices replacing desktops and laptops bring further physical problems although these are not unique to Apple There are of course security concerns but the loss or theft of the device can be mitigated by good insurance A choose your own or bring your own device

policy where employees take more care of devices they have a stake in could also alleviate these concerns But there still needs to be suitable management of data applications and mobile devices to protect the digital assets

Finally individuals might have their own chargers and devices but when the model moves to widespread enterprise

deployment further assistance may be of benefit A quick glance on the Apple store indicates a range of third-party ldquorack stack sync and chargerdquo products from suppliers such as Bretford LocknCharge and XtremeMac which may go some way in aiding automation

In a few short years Apple has moved from a specialist minority device provider popular in certain creative applications through a consumer-led initiative into general-purpose enterprise use Organisations now have to build up the expertise and tools to help manage this fleet and suppliers including Apple itself are starting to recognise the challenges and address the opportunity n

apple has moved from a specialist minority device provider into general-purpose enterprise use

rsaquo Apple beats expectations and woos investorsrsaquo Apple shares down on flat profits

rsaquo Apple acquires Kinect developer PrimeSense


HOME










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Apple first made an impact in the gadget market in 2001 with its innovative iPod Prior to that the company was considered mainly as the brand behind an alternative somewhat trendier version of PCs with devices such as the Macintosh Classic and the original iMac But in April of this year Apple reported revenue of

$456bn in the first three months of 2014 with the sale of 437 million iPhones making up more than half of this According to analyst company Gartner the company secured 156 of the smartphone market share in 2013 coming second to Samsung

Today Apple is strongly focused on the consumer market The popularity of Apple products such as the iPad iPhone and MacBook Air has meant these devices are also finding their way into mainstream business use But Apple has only recently shown efforts to add enterprise IT features to its products such as the security enhancement iCloud Keychain in iOS 7

APP

LE

Is Applersquos iOS ready for

the enterprise

Apple adds home and

health access to iOS 8

Popularity of Apple products drives adoption in enterpriseApple is focused on the consumer market but iPads iPhones and the MacBook Air are now being used by mainstream businesses Clare McDonald reports



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mobileiron



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