Apple’s Enterprise Device Growth

With the continued growth and differentiation of Apple devices, organizations need to simplify the management of an increasingly fragmented and complex device landscape.


Up until very recently, the PC truly dominated the enterprise marketplace. When Apple products first emerged, they were a niche product, “just” for marketing or design teams. Today, industry estimates suggest that more than half of all organizations issue Apple devices to employees who prefer them. On the heels of the most recent Apple Event, the growth in enterprise Apple device use cannot be ignored.

In this post, we’ll examine the emergence of Apple devices in the enterprise and how to overcome the challenges with managing today’s complex device landscape.

Apple’s Enterprise Growth

Starting out as a niche enterprise product, Apple devices are a perfect example of the “consumerization of IT,” with user demand driving the increase in enterprise Apple devices that we’ve seen over the last decade. Today, it is estimated that Apple’s enterprise business is worth more than $40 billion per year with iOS dominating 79% of mobile business on both iPhone and iPad.

Apple’s enterprise growth has not been a linear progression, and thus the response to Apple devices in the enterprise was more reactive rather than planned. The initial push for Apple devices was often employee-led or BYOD and many organizations chose to leave devices unmanaged or to allow employees to provision and manage their own devices. In other cases, an independent Apple-only team emerged to manage Apple devices.

Earlier this year, Apple announced the introduction of iPadOS, breaking away from iOS to differentiate the experience of iPad and iPhone users. This September, Apple further solidified this move with the release of the seventh-generation iPad, a device now packed with more power, a full screen, and a full-sized Smart Keyboard. It sounds a lot like a laptop, yet from an endpoint management perspective, iPadOS is just one more piece in an increasingly fragmented and complex device landscape.

Now that Apple devices have a larger enterprise footprint, and with the introduction of a whole new iPadOS to manage, this “divide and conquer” approach to endpoint management becomes even more costly and time-consuming, not to mention the oversight challenges associated with siloed platforms and solutions.

When it comes to endpoint visibility, simple is better. Unified endpoint management platforms such as FileWave emerged to consolidate IT teams and provide greater oversight over the devices being used in the enterprise, regardless of device type or OS.

Conquering Enterprise Challenges for Apple Devices

FileWave helps remove the management siloes associated with different devices and operating systems. Rather than view iPadOS as a whole ‘new’ OS to learn and manage in an ever-widening device landscape, FileWave users experience a seamless transition that simply adds a new category within a single, unified dashboard for managing computers, tablets, and mobile devices.

Closing the complexity gap on endpoint management requires a shift in focus: away from the device and its operating system and instead focusing on relationships: between users, the company, the apps, and the technology ecosystem. This new focus allows us to optimize the delivery of apps or re-assignment of app licenses without impacting the user experience.

With over 25 years of Apple experience, FileWave offers a well-established, native solution for managing macOS and iOS devices. Our rich history and commitment to supporting Apple technologies means our products are designed from the start to fully leverage the newest management frameworks, leveraging tools such as DEP, VPP, MDM, and more. This native Apple management approach continues to be a driving factor in our development – ensuring complete support for Apple’s unique systems.

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