Apple acquires Fleetsmith to enhance iPhone, iPad, and Mac enterprise features

Mobile Device Management is at the heart of every Apple enterprise customer’s network stack. Up until now, Apple has generally relied on third party companies when enabling its customer to deploy, secure, and manage devices in the corporate environment. Today, Fleetsmith announced they have been acquired by Apple. This acquisition will give Apple a first-party MDM solution to offer its customer.

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.

This announcement comes on the heels of Apple’s WWDC 2020 session about what’s new with Apple device management.

9to5Mac’s Take

Apple’s entire enterprise strategy for management has been around APIs, and therefore I think this announcement is good for the industry as a whole. Apple will be building a product on top of its own APIs so they will likely be even more robust for the other MDM vendors. Fleetsmith was an up and coming company in the MDM space, so it makes a lot of sense for Apple to purchase them. Apple’s commitment to the enterprise is continuing to grow, and I am excited about the future.

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