Apple has acquired Fleetsmith, a company that makes tools that enable businesses to more easily distribute corporate iPhones and Macs to their staff.
“We’re thrilled to join Apple,” the company said in a blog post. An Apple spokeswoman confirmed the acquisition. Deal terms were not disclosed.
The Fleetsmith acquisition will help offer a wider range of products and services to enterprise clients.
In 2017, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the enterprise market was the “mother of all opportunities.”
Fleetsmith’s software makes it easier to remotely configure, wipe and deploy these devices, a kind of product called mobile device management, or MDM, specifically focusing on Apple products.
I spoke with Fleetsmith co-founder Zack Blum in 2018, when he observed:
“Apple’s biggest accomplishment and contribution to enterprise technology has been bringing mobile to the enterprise. Apple has raised the bar in delivering well-designed product experiences, as well as hardware and OS security.”
He was also quite certain which company had changed things:
“I’d argue that Apple has played a leading role in enterprise trends such as BYOD, the future of work, and the consumerization of IT,” he said.
MacDailyNews Note: From the official Fleetsmith blog:
We started Fleetsmith to balance the management and security needs of IT with the experience users love about Mac, iPad, and iPhone. We’re proud of the incredibly talented team we’ve built, and that we’ve stayed true to our mission: to make powerful, secure Apple fleet management available to everyone.
We’re thrilled to join Apple. Our shared values of putting the customer at the center of everything we do without sacrificing privacy and security, means we can truly meet our mission, delivering Fleetsmith to businesses and institutions of all sizes, around the world.
To our community of customers and everyone who has been part of our journey so far, thank you! We look forward to continuing to deliver Fleetsmith to existing and new customers.
Doesn’t the enterprise still prefer Windows PCs because of the age-old Windows infrastructure and being able to buy Windows PCs for less money than Macs? Is there really any way possible Apple can knock down Windows from the top of the enterprise chain? I figure it’s also just a matter of IT people hating to change from old to new. There is also the fact that most consumers in the world use Windows laptop and desktop devices instead of Apple laptop and desktop devices. It just seems as though Apple has a huge mountain to climb in the enterprise no matter what they do.
Enterprise means IT Geeks right now they and the rest of Geekdom are still reeling from Apple Silicon, Apple is already in the most profitable areas of computing, Apple can pick off little bits of enterprise over time.