Apple device management is the beating heart at the heart of the mobile hybrid enterprise, and vendors that support Apple’s MDM (Mobile Device Management) platform are investing to build for future growth. At this stage of the evolution of Art Apple Device Management Industryit seems like we’re on the cusp of an M&A frenzy as players in this space look to create unique identities designed for future growth.
Industrial activity is being activated
Yampharguably one of the largest firms in the Apple MDM business deep investment in companies and services to expand the tranche of security and device management tools it can provide to its customers. These extend to powerful content monitoring, zero trust and endpoint management.
Jamf CIO Lin Lam recently noted the acceleration of Apple’s status in the enterprise market, prediction: “As demand grows and the expectations of younger generations joining the workforce, Apple devices will be the number one endpoint by 2030.”
More recently, we’ve begun to see entities outside of Apple’s device management space begin to look for a way forward. VMWare The $1.17 billion acquisition of AirWatch in 2014 showed what was to come. Ivanti acquired MobileIron in 2021. More recently, GoTo is in the works acquisition cloud-based cross-platform device management provider Miradore. And perhaps one of the largest illustrations of this kind was Apple 2020 acquisition MDM vendor Fleetsmith, whose solutions are now included Apple Business Essentials.
elsewhere Six-knot has joined the company with Keeper Security; JumpCloud in February purchased by MYKI expand its cloud catalog platform; Kandi continues attract investment capital as it plays its long game; Adige works with Acronis (latest also works with Jamf); and Mosil recently closed a $196 million funding round introduced new solutions for corporate clients.
An irresistible force
There is a purpose to this activity, of course. As enterprises become more digital, the value of the device management market is expected to increase to reach $28.7 billion until 2027.
To put that number into context, that’s roughly four times the existing value, meaning there’s huge growth opportunity in the space, especially around Apple devices.
Previously, we looked at the acceleration there, which is now the Mac and iOS combined about 23% shares of the global consumer mobile/PC market and a larger share of the enterprise/skilled worker markets. When it comes to the Mac, Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa Apple was recently predicted to capture 10.7% of the PC market in 2026, when Windows share slips. And sure enough, Dimensional Research’s 2021 survey showed that 85% of IT decision makers Apple devices are more secure.
With hundreds of millions of PCs to replace, as legacy Windows installations expire and companies seek to protect all endpoints from catastrophic business failure, Apple’s side of the equation remains a very attractive target for all of these parties (and some, which I probably forgot about).
Carving out space in these markets means that Apple MDM vendors are under some pressure to expand the functionality of the solutions they offer while defining their own unique position in the market.
Many hope to achieve this by augmenting their core products with security, remote support and collaboration tools, or by specializing in the needs of vertical markets such as education, healthcare and manufacturing.
Why there might be a wave of takeovers
Of course, from SAP, BlackBerry, Cisco, Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Sophos, SOTI and others. also compete for some or all of the same business, smaller sellers must work hard to develop their own unique propositions. This suggests (at least to my jaded mind) that at some point relatively soon we will see a wave of mergers and acquisitions as larger organizations snap up some of the smaller firms in an attempt to offer enterprises more effective cross-platform MDM tools. customers and secure growth in a challenging market.
What’s next?
Now a lot depends on the platform providers, including Apple. MDM solution providers live and die by the power of the APIs available to them, meaning that adding features and functionality is equally dependent on such system-level support.
However, if there is a seemingly uncharted space associated with these technologies, it likely extends to remote collaboration and autonomous security solutions.
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