June 17, 2024 • 39 mins
Ready to unlock the secrets of seamless mobile device management with Microsoft Intune? This episode of the Enterprise Mobility Roundup features Brian Grant, solution architect at Atea, and Patrick McGlynn, BlueFletch lead system engineer, sharing invaluable lessons from their hands-on experience with Intune deployments. We explore why organizations are increasingly gravitating towards Intune, highlighting its cost benefits and advanced features that provide a unified endpoint management approach for both mobile and Windows devices. Brian also shares insights into the tight integration with other Microsoft services, making Intune an exceptionally appealing choice.
Managing mobile devices across various sectors is no small feat. Brian and Patrick discuss the unique challenges faced when deploying Intune, especially compared to other management tools like SOTI and Workspace ONE. They offer real-world solutions to common hurdles, such as deploying non-Play Store applications on Android devices and navigating the intricacies of organizational changes within Intune. The conversation underscores the importance of modern app deployment practices, driven by customer demands and Google's evolving requirements, to ensure a smooth transition and enhanced device management.
To wrap up, we explore practical tools and techniques that make managing Intune easier. Brian emphasizes the power of Microsoft Graph and APIs for reporting, while highlighting the EBF Onboarder tool for efficient migrations from other MDM systems. We discuss the role of Azure Automation and RBAC features in streamlining administrative tasks, alongside the continuing growth of Intune in Android enterprise management. Whether you're a seasoned IT professional or new to Intune, this episode is packed with actionable insights to optimize your deployment strategy and leverage Intune's robust capabilities fully. Join us for this enlightening conversation and take your device management to the next level!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome again to the Enterprise
Mobility Roundup podcast.
Today we're chatting with BrianGrant, who's a solution
architect with Atea, aboutlessons learned from deploying
Intune in the real world.
In addition to Brian, we alsohave Patrick McGlynn, who's one
of our lead system engineers,who will be talking through this
(00:20):
process with Brian.
So, Brian, turning it over toyou, what do you do specifically
with Atea and what do you focuson there?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, thanks for inviting me.
First of all, yeah, brian Grant, solution Architect at Atea,
I'm actually located in Sweden.
In Sweden we attend as a Nordiccompany.
It's a leading provider of ITinfrastructure solutions Over
8,000 employees spread around 88offices in Sweden, norway,
(00:58):
finland, all the Balticcountries like Lithuania, latvia
, estonia, etc.
So what we do is we provideprofessional services.
We have, like where I'm located, in the digital workplace area
and we also have solutionsaround data center and
(01:20):
networking solutions, etc.
And networking solutions, etcetera.
So my main focus as a solutionarchitect at ITEA is around
mobile device management.
That's pretty much what I'vebeen doing the last five, six
years.
Prior to that, I was very muchinto Windows deployment with
(01:42):
SCCM, et cetera.
So my focus right now isproviding solutions to our
customers.
We have both public customers.
We have private customers indifferent areas and the last two
, three years has been really alot focused around frontline
workers.
So that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So, Brian, thanks for that, I appreciate it.
So I mentioned we're going tobe talking about Intune today
and a little more framing aroundthat.
I think what we'd like to talkabout is why you've heard people
are moving to Intune, what sortof device types the folks are
moving to, what are the roletypes that you see using Intune
and how common is it becomingversus some of the other MDMs
(02:28):
you've worked with?
So yeah, I think I'd like tohear a little bit more about
that.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Okay, yeah, Obviously , Microsoft has made a lot of
progress in that area,especially a lot of these
customers that we have here inthe Nordic countries.
They are Microsoft heavy, youknow, with the licensing and
everything.
They have the Microsoft 365license, E3, E5s, F1s, F3s.
(02:54):
There are a lot of peoplethey're looking at costs, of
course, and a lot of thesecustomers they've already had
another MDM, they probably hadMobileIron or AirWatch, et
cetera.
So what's happening now?
What we're seeing is thatthey're looking more to Intune,
(03:16):
of course, because you have thefeatures that are provided there
pretty much is on par with mostof these other providers and
some instances actually areahead of these providers as well
, and so what they're looking atis kind of consolidating into
(03:39):
one product or to one provider,and that kind of triggers a lot
of migrations, so to speak, froma lot of our customers right
now.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Are you seeing that these customers already were
using Intune or Endpoint Managerto manage their workstations
and laptops and now they'rebringing mobility into that
space?
Or is this more of a newinstall, usually with Mobility
Plus Intune?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, it's both ways.
Actually, what we're seeing iswith the mobility part is they
already manage their Windowsdevices.
Of course, a lot of thesecompanies and the public sector
are getting more aware of thesecurity breaches with the
mobile devices.
They're kind of looking at howdo we manage these devices more
(04:35):
efficient, how can we get morecontrol and also provide
services that would benefit theend users?
I don't know really, it's 50-50.
Some of them already have, ofcourse.
They've managed their Windowsdevices.
(04:56):
They want to manage their mobiledevices and they're seeing why
we use three, four tools tomanage the same.
We can have everything in one,like the unified endpoint
management.
That's what they're kind ofstriving towards.
So mobile devices is basicallywhat they're getting more into.
(05:18):
That I think they're seeing thebenefits of having managing
devices right now.
They're seeing the benefits ofhaving managing devices right
now and especially in thedifferent spaces of the
frontline workers.
That's kind of triggered a lot.
That's why I've been havingsome contact with you guys
(05:44):
looking at different solutionsthat probably Intune might not
be able to provide fully and themobile device management
solutions can't even they can'teven provide that.
So I think Bluefletch is onereally good tool, together with
Intune as well.
Nice.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
So I know you mentioned some.
Cost savings is a big reasonpeople are jumping to Intune.
Cost savings is a big reasonpeople are jumping to Intune.
What are the other perceivedbenefits or advantages that you
see customers being able to takeadvantage of when they jump to
Intune?
Are there other things that aredrawing people or other
(06:18):
features that, out of the boxwith Intune, you think are nice
to have out?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
of the box or then to you think are nice to have, I
think, since the Elk Team has awide range of the possibility to
manage different platforms,that rouse their intention for
us.
Lately, as you probably heardabout previously with managing
(06:47):
Macs, microsoft have been likeokay, just use Jamf or whatever
if you want to have moreadvanced management.
But the customers have actuallybeen requesting Microsoft.
You have to step up here Now.
You have to do something aboutthis.
We want to have Intune tomanage it.
(07:09):
We can't have like two or threedifferent tools.
So I think that's somethingthat kind of has made it bigger
or more requested.
Made it bigger or morerequested.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I think, the other thing that I'm hearing is just
the tighter integration withMicrosoft, as you called out.
I already have the licensings,but if you're using Microsoft
apps or conditional accesspolicies or ID, there is tighter
integration there.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, it's all the security thing, All the security
solutions with Entra.
You have Azure, you haveeverything integrated into Entra
.
Id Benefits of, as you said,conditional access is one big
thing, of course, and whatMicrosoft has been doing with
(08:12):
the shared device mode part isalso a big thing that they have
integration with SimSign on fortheir shared devices.
So you can see, on the Appledevices you have the iOS, you
have the macOS as well.
I think they're pretty much onpar with all the other providers
.
That's what we're seeing rightnow and a lot of these customers
(08:35):
are asking for.
You know, can you help us getstarted with Intune?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
That brings up an interesting question.
So you mentioned that a lot ofthe reason you're seeing
customers, at least initially,move to Intune is because of the
perceived cost savings andbecause of just the systemic
integration and the decisionsare being made maybe more at a
(09:01):
fiscal level than necessarily apractical day-to-day on the
ground administrative level.
How are you coaching yourcustomers when they're making
that move, say from another MDMto Intune?
Is there a playbook you runthrough with what to expect when
you're moving, or is there aframework that you use like a
(09:27):
common questions that you knowthey're going to be asking, that
you have to be prepared for?
I'm just curious from theperspective of, as they're
making that move, what do theyneed to think about?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, we that kind of depends because we have such a
range of different kinds ofcustomers you know, if you go to
the public sector, range ofdifferent kind of customers.
You know, if you go to thepublic sector, they have kind of
different challenges.
So it all depends on what kindof tool it is they're using
today and where they're goingand what advanced level they are
(09:59):
on.
Because some of these customersare they're managing their
devices on a very basic leveland we're seeing, you know, we
can tell them straight away.
You know, if you're just goingto do one-on-one, it's no
problem with Intune, you can dothat, no problem.
(10:20):
But you can add these benefitsif you go to Intune as well, if
you have, you know, with theconditional access part, and
there you go, wow, okay, so wecan get this and that, and
that's that's something where Ithink when we have these
discussions, it's that's wherethey kind of get a little bit
excited.
They're excited, of course, anduh, to see that they're
(10:44):
actually getting some more valuefrom having those tools.
But of course there's the otherway around.
We have customers that aresaying, okay, but we want to
have these specific features,because if we don't have these,
it's going to be very hard forus in the scenarios that we have
(11:04):
or the use cases.
So I think we're going to stickwith SODI on these use cases,
but let's go to Intune on theother use cases and we'll see
what happens in the future withIntune, if it's going to develop
a little bit more into thatdirection that we can actually
meet up, going to develop alittle bit more into that
(11:31):
direction that we can actuallymeet up.
So, um, uh, yeah, I think itdepends on which the consultant
that is actually delivering thisas well, um, and where the team
that that is delivering it.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
uh, depending on know who it is, okay, yeah, no, that
makes sense.
So with a let's say, let's takea private customer, for example
, would you say there's onequestion that you know they're
always going to ask, or is it?
You know, is there a biggesthurdle?
I guess, if you had to identifyone, for example, you think you
hear more than any other.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yeah, so I think from an Android perspective, what I
hear most is how can we deployapplications that are not in the
Play Store to devices, and Ithink that's a big shift in the
way companies have to thinkabout Android management.
Intune is very much alignedwith the Android Enterprise
(12:31):
standards around pushing thingsthrough the Play Store and
getting away from thefunctionality that Sodia and
Workspace ONE have done foryears with installing APKs and
doing that from an agent andpushing files, and it's
definitely a shift in thinkingof how you deploy software, and
(12:53):
I think that's probably thebiggest hurdle.
There are questions around thatI hear, and then I think the
other one, brian, you touched onearlier was organization of
devices inside of the EMM,workspace One and SOTI have a
very good tree structure andfolder structure and all these
(13:15):
dynamic assignment rules and Ifound those are pretty easy to
use.
But Intune, it takes a lot morework to get those groups
populating and it's a lot moredifficult to view the structure
of how your device is segmented.
And yeah, brian, I know youtalked on that earlier.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
You might have some more to add no, but that's very
true part is probably one of thebiggest ones I would say as
well when you're saying it,because a lot of these customers
are used to, or actually theones that deliver the apps.
(13:56):
They're still in the mode of,you know, delivering APKs.
Yep, they don't have them inthe Play Store.
They're customer specific apps.
They don't provide them throughthe managed Play Store.
So that's actually true, that'sactually one of the biggest
ones.
But delivering apps any otherway than the managed Play Store
(14:23):
is it's not possible really inIntune right now.
That's just the reality of it.
And because Microsoft hasdecided, you know, they're going
to go with the Google standard100%, and that's the way it is.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So does that mean a customer is stuck at that point?
If they have to deploy anapplication through the Google
Play Store but say, for example,their vendor is not able to
supply the application that way,what are the workarounds for
that?
Or they just can't use thatapplication anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
And the workaround is pretty much that the vendor has
to.
They really pretty much have tolook at the more modern way of
using apps and that's the waythat Google they want them to go
with the Play Store.
So they're pretty much forcedto go that way because the
(15:19):
customer is demanding it, and ifthe customer is not going to
get that from their vendor,they're going to go somewhere
else.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yeah, I agree with that, Brian.
If a vendor gives you an APKand you try to upload it, it's
going to say this APK is blockedbecause it's already been
reserved by namespace.
You're not going to be able todo your one-offs, so having to
work with vendors probably alittle more closely is something
(15:51):
that we see with Intune, andthen one of the kind of like the
fringe benefits of that, though, is that I think it forces
people to think in a more, be alittle more forward thinking
with their Android deployments.
It's a big shift, but by youknow, stripping away a lot of
(16:14):
those tools and adding theseconstraints, it's forcing people
to think differently aboutdevice management, and, you know
, in a way, I think that mightultimately be a good thing
because of all the thingsAndroid and Google are doing
around Android management andsecurity, and it's definitely
(16:37):
work that has to be done, but Ithink, ultimately, it'll help
people get to that better, moremodern state sooner but what
I've seen here in the nordiccountries is that they're, you
know, we're pretty advanced intechnology and it etc.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
So it's been a lot of these uh apps that they already
have or they're using the.
These customers in the privatesector, in the public sector,
they're already, they're alreadythere in the, in the google
play store, so, uh, so most ofthe times, you know, it's not
that often that we kind of getinto that kind of a problem or
(17:15):
an issue or a challenge.
Wouldn't be so to say uh but um, uh, we had one customer that
actually is a public sector,that uh had that issue with this
uh, you know, a unique app forthis specific the public sector
uh company.
(17:36):
Um but um, they solved thatwith uh, you know, with the
developer.
They gave them the, they solvedthat with the developer, they
gave them the delegated rightsin their developer portal, in
the Google developer portal, andthrough that it solved itself
so they could actually publishthat APK that way.
(17:59):
So we help customers to findways of doing things.
Well, you know, we helpcustomers to find ways of doing
things.
So I think it's, as you say,it's a more forward way of
working.
Today, you know, google wantsus obviously to have more
control of security definitely,and I think companies and
customers are really into thatas well, so they don't get an
(18:22):
APK that they don't really knowwhat's in there.
Yep, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
I know one of the things thatis common for these customers
that we've seen to do is, tosome extent, some file
manipulation on the devices, thedevices and with Intune.
I know that there's some gapsthere.
How are you, when you encounterthose types of questions,
(18:52):
what's the best way to handlethat, that scenario?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
well pilot, that we haven't actually touched that
much on that, but more of moreon the actually firmware.
That's been a big challenge.
We have a few customers thatare using Honeywell devices For
doing that.
It's not that it's reallyreally super basic in Intune.
(19:19):
You can't do any maintenancewindow thing with those firmware
updates.
You have to when you do theassignment in the OEM config.
You have to do it straight awayfor the updates, and it's not
good.
So in those cases then we haveto turn to like for Honeywell.
(19:40):
They have the what do you callit, operations intelligence.
You have to go with that andthat's an extra license.
So you know, you see there aresome challenges with it.
I know Zebra, there's a goodintegration right now with Zebra
and Intune, but still they'relacking some stuff regarding the
(20:00):
file distribution, firmwareupdates etc.
So that's something that Ithink they can improve a lot
more on.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, I agree with that, Brian.
I think especially from atimeliness, being able to
deliver those OTA updates orfirmware, os upgrades or even
application updates.
Being able to do that in atimely manner is extremely
important for workforce devicesbecause you need to limit that
(20:32):
outage time.
You need to know a device isgoing to be operational or a
shift or a worker.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
And Intune does, I think, lack in that area a lot
because they are at're used tothe way SOTY and they can, due
to costs and, as we were talkingabout before, with licensing
costs et cetera.
So they're willing to make thatsacrifice for a while because
they know Microsoft will meet upwith better features for that.
(21:42):
Reporting is one part that islacking big time, I think in
Intune.
But they're picking up there.
They know they have it on theroadmap.
Reporting is going to getbetter.
That's what I'm seeing at least.
It has some improvement to makethere definitely.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Yeah, I've seen customers have to build a lot of
their own custom reporting.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, that's what you need to do.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I mean, there's the graph APIs and those are
available and have data, butMicrosoft doesn't have a great
out-of-the-box dashboarding orreporting layer, so it's very
much API driven and sort ofcustom yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
And I have to have as you called out, brian.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
That's something that I think they can easily add in
the future.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Definitely, I think you have to have the developer
skills.
That's something I'm lacking.
I don't have the developers, soI have to rely on my you know
my colleagues that are prettymuch developers.
They can do those API calls andGraph API things with scripts,
powershell, whatever.
But yeah, they can make a lotmore improvement there,
(22:55):
definitely for Microsoft's part.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So from a resourcing perspective, if you're the
customer and you are moving from, say, a Workspace ONE or a SODI
over to Intune because what wejust alluded to from a reporting
perspective and gettingeverything set up might be a
little bit more depth-heavy arecustomers having to reconsider
(23:20):
who previously was doing the MDMside of things.
Do they have to round out thatstaffing at all, or is it just a
matter of training?
I'm thinking from a resourceperspective, if you can service
your devices on Intune withbasically the same headcount
resource mix or if you need tobe thinking about what skill
(23:40):
sets might not be there.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, that's kind of the difference as well.
Most of the time they can usethe same resources.
It depends on what kind ofskills they have.
But obviously that's why we'rehere as consultants, those
(24:06):
specialities and all those, um,you know, special cases where
they need that extra, uh, extrafeatures or enhanced features
and um, but in most times theycan, you know, keep the same
resources and I've I haven'treally seen that they've kind
had to, or it was needed to, cutany resources.
They could cut any resources,but I think they could go with
(24:28):
the same ones.
That's pretty much what I'veseen.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Well, yeah, Brian, you mentioned we talked about
you know Graph and runningMicrosoft Graph and running APIs
to build the reporting.
Are there any other tools ortricks that you have found that
can make life a bit easier withIntune?
And I'll just cue up oneexample that you and I have
(24:53):
talked about in the past, therewas a company based in, I
believe, scandinavia as well,that specialized in migration
MDM, migration from one MDM toanother and I think it's a
company you've worked with inthe past, if I'm not mistaken.
I'm blanking on their name.
(25:14):
Wasn't there a tool to helpseamless migration over to
Intune?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, I'm trying to remember exactly which one that
was.
Yeah, I'm trying to rememberexactly which one that was.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Gosh.
Yeah, I forget as well.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I know we as Bluefudge have a process that we
can help apply I know which Yep.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
It is really limited to just Zebra devices at this
time.
I think the tool was EBFOnboarder.
Is that right yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
EBF Onboarder.
That's the one.
I think it's a German companyactually.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Oh, okay, it's a German company, sorry.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, no problem.
Yeah, that tool is somethingthat we've used some of our
customers to do, that migrationand they have a good, it's a
good way of I think they support, you know, migration from all
the major MDM, EMMs today to goto Intune and also actually the
(26:21):
other way around, but most ofthe customers are going towards
Intune.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Yep, I would say more than half, maybe even 75% of
new customers we talk to engagewith us because they are moving
to Intune and either they haveanxiety about it or they have
concerns about it or they'relooking for enhancements on top
(26:47):
of it.
And that's where our BlueFletchlauncher comes in is just
trying to improve that enduser's experience on the device.
I think of what BlueFletchoffers is what users see and
touch and feel every day whenthey're on their device to make
that a smooth experience.
(27:07):
And then Intune is kind of theguy behind the curtains pulling
all the strings and pushing thesoftware.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Are there other tools , I think, besides what Blue
Fletch offers and all of our SSOand device finding stuff that
you see as a good fit withIntune?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Not at the moment, actually.
No, I would say.
You remember we were discussingabout the possibility to the
renaming of AdWord devices.
Yep, yep, we have a whole bunchof samples where we're using
Azure Automation accounts or anAzure Automation process for
(27:51):
script for renaming devices ordoing whatever you need to do.
That's actually when we'reutilizing the Graph API.
We had a big customer that weactually did this with.
They wanted to have, dependingon the location of the devices,
(28:12):
they needed to have a namingstandard that was connected to
those specific sites, and byusing the script that we
developed together with AzureAutomation, we were able to do
that.
So within an hour, the devicewas renamed according to the
(28:36):
enrollment profile that was usedand Intune that was connected
to those specific sites.
So there are tools that you canuse within Microsoft Sphere, as
we were talking about withGraph APIs and Dash Automation.
I think is a great thing to useas well.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Yeah, it sounds like there are resources available.
It's just do you have the rightskill sets to take advantage in
it?
Exactly from what we've seen,it's scripting, it's api
experience, um, a knowledge ofthe android enterprise and, yeah
, how google is pushing things,and I think you know combination
(29:22):
of those tools can allow Intuneto work for you in my
experience.
But it's also not as out of thebox, as easy just to click
through as like a SOTY orWorkspace ONE.
And that's just my experience.
I know Intune's working on thatbut I think it takes a bit more
(29:46):
experience with that, thatecosystem yeah, I'm coming from
the in-tune side because I, youknow, that's where I was
introduced into mdm.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
So, um, I'm kind of biased on that.
But I've seen, I've beenworking a little bit with soOTI,
with Workspace ONE.
I've seen how it works withMobileIron and especially with
SOTI.
It's very, very specializedinto the frontline worker space.
(30:15):
We have the Android-specificthings and it's a great tool.
Nothing to say about that.
And it's a great tool.
Nothing to say about that.
But we have this large customerthat actually they've kind of
been looking at both of them.
They're saying well, we'regoing to manage a whole bunch of
other things in Intune as well,so why not manage the frontline
(30:38):
workers as well there?
So we've actually createdsolutions for it to work.
But then we have to have thosethings with the developers to do
certain things and that's what.
That's what's needed prettymuch.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Yeah, I definitely see the desire to want a single
pane of glass to manage all ofyour devices, one licensing cost
for all your endpoints, be thatlaptops or Android.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
But at the same time.
It's not the same people thatare managing the entire fleet
the entire fleet.
Then you have one team that'smanaging the Android devices,
one team that's managing the iOSdevices and another team
managing the Windows devices.
So that's a natural thing,because they've been used to
having different tools fordifferent teams.
(31:29):
All of a sudden they're goingto have one and same tool.
But that's one good thing withIntune as well is the
possibility to do the RBAC,role-based access, the thing
there where you can actuallydelegate certain things to local
(31:50):
IT but they don't have to havethe entire Intune administrator
role.
They can have like a specificroles you can create there with
scope tags, et cetera.
So if you can use that or knowhow to use it, it's a great way
of delegating tasks to, you know, to service desk, et cetera, to
(32:12):
service desk, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Brian, have you just learned the ins and outs of
Intune just over years ofexperience, or have you found
any good training resources orcourses online to help with this
?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Both.
I think most of it is what I'vebeen kind of learning myself
together with my colleagues.
We have a great team where wecollaborate and have sessions
together.
We kind of share ourexperiences and within atea and
that's a really good thing it'snot just the local, our local
(32:49):
office here.
We kind of share with you knowthe entire at least in sweden
that's.
It's kind of more, even if Ateais in the entire Baltic or in
the entire Nordic countries andthe Baltics.
We tend to collaborate with ourown peers within our country
(33:10):
but at the same time Atea iskind of pushing more for one
Atea.
That's been their way ofthinking and working now the
last two years at least, to tryto think a little bit broader,
to get help from your colleagueswherever they are and kind of
help each other.
And from my perspective it'sbeen.
(33:33):
Everything that I've been doingis more or less what I've been
learning myself, but same timeI've had a lot of help from my
colleagues, of course yep, yeah,I.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I think my two cents on that is uh, I.
I've found online trainingmaterials, but most of the
content seems to be focused onWindows management and less on
the iOS or the Android side.
And that will change as they'retaking market share of those
(34:08):
Android devices, but I've feltthat there was a bit of a
steeper learning curve for me,just because I found less
content specifically aroundAndroid, which is where
Bluefletch focuses.
So it's more of me kind oflearning as I go on the tool
yeah exactly it's.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
You know, since we're in a very close partnership
with Microsoft, we have thoseresources as well from the
product team and the productgroup.
We have monthly meetings,bi-weekly meetings with the
(34:52):
contact there that we can askquestions, we can get straight
answers directly from theproduct team.
So that kind of we can, youknow, ask questions, we can get,
you know, straight answersdirectly from the product team.
So that kind of helps as well.
But uh, not, you know, not allcompanies or partners or don't
have that kind of though.
Yeah, yeah, that's a bigadvantage for sure.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, um, so I think you know, maybe closing here,
what we're hearing is the marchtowards Intune is not going away
, both from a perceived costperspective, but then also from
probably from a security suiteside of things as well.
The, you know, the CISOs inthese organizations are going to
(35:33):
be looking for something that'smore streamlined and more
systemic in terms of integration, easiness of management.
So it's going to continue.
And then I guess the migrationthings to think about are the
different structures inside ofIntune versus the more branch
(35:53):
and tree-like structure withinsome of the other MDMs.
But Android definitely is thefuture in terms of Android
enterprise management, thatstyle.
So I think it's probably fairto say that Intune is definitely
going to continue to grow.
Patrick or Brian, do you guyshave objections to that or do
(36:14):
you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I agree with that 100%.
That's pretty much what we'reseeing and it hasn't stopped.
Objections to that?
Do you agree with that?
I agree with that 100 percent.
That's pretty much what we'reseeing and it hasn't stopped.
It can be more, evenaccelerated Last couple of years
since Microsoft has made a lotof great strides and providing
new features and enhancingfeatures within Intune.
That makes it even moreappealing for our customers.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Definitely Sure, okay , you know that makes perfect
sense.
So in closing Patrick, is thereanything that you wanted to add
from your perspective thatyou've seen or you know working
with Brian on questions he'sasked that force you to learn
some things too from an Intuneperspective, yeah, I think.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I'm learning today that he's asked that force you
to learn some things too from anintune perspective.
Yeah, I I think I learningtoday that you know intune
definitely has its constraints,but they're.
They can be overcome withdifferent tools and tricks and
scripting and things like that.
Um, the benefits of intune candefinitely outweigh that if
(37:18):
you're willing to adopt thosemodern ways of Android
management, the deep integrationwith IntraID and other examples
, with conditional accesspolicies and shared device mode
and single sign-on to Microsoftapps.
I think it's definitely whypeople are moving that way.
(37:40):
They're they're fine with the,the constraints.
They either have ways to workaround it or they're confident
Microsoft's going to makechanges in the future to to make
their life a little bit easier.
They and ultimately they'relooking for that single pane of
glass to manage all theirdevices.
So, yeah, I think it'sdefinitely going to keep growing
(38:00):
and we're going to keep hearingmore and more requests to help
with Intune management.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, thanks a lot, patrick, and so I think you know
in terms of where we are now.
We'll just expect this cancontinue to grow and, like you
said, microsoft is probablygoing to continue to mature,
make the product more mature,and that features to it.
Based on what they're hearingfrom you know, folks like Atea
and Brian and your team but alsofrom end customers as well.
(38:29):
So you know, I think what wecan say is expect to hear more
about Intune going forward and,if you do, plan on adopting it,
plan on a bit of a learningcurve, but it's not something
that isn't insurmountable orsomething that can't be overcome
with some of the other toolsthat we discussed.
So I think, for today, I'd saythanks again for joining another
(38:52):
episode of the EnterpriseMobility Podcast and make sure
you reach out to us with anyquestions that you have about
what you heard today or anyother subjects you have on MDM
or endpoint management.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Thanks, Thanks, brian , appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Thanks, thank you, thank you.
Hey everybody, welcome again to the Enterprise
Mobility Roundup podcast.
Today we're chatting with BrianGrant, who's a solution
architect with Atea, aboutlessons learned from deploying
Intune in the real world.
In addition to Brian, we alsohave Patrick McGlynn, who's one
of our lead system engineers,who will be talking through this
(00:20):
process with Brian.
So, Brian, turning it over toyou, what do you do specifically
with Atea and what do you focuson there?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, thanks for inviting me.
First of all, yeah, brian Grant, solution Architect at Atea,
I'm actually located in Sweden.
In Sweden we attend as a Nordiccompany.
It's a leading provider of ITinfrastructure solutions Over
8,000 employees spread around 88offices in Sweden, norway,
(00:58):
finland, all the Balticcountries like Lithuania, latvia
, estonia, etc.
So what we do is we provideprofessional services.
We have, like where I'm located, in the digital workplace area
and we also have solutionsaround data center and
(01:20):
networking solutions, etc.
And networking solutions, etcetera.
So my main focus as a solutionarchitect at ITEA is around
mobile device management.
That's pretty much what I'vebeen doing the last five, six
years.
Prior to that, I was very muchinto Windows deployment with
(01:42):
SCCM, et cetera.
So my focus right now isproviding solutions to our
customers.
We have both public customers.
We have private customers indifferent areas and the last two
, three years has been really alot focused around frontline
workers.
So that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So, Brian, thanks for that, I appreciate it.
So I mentioned we're going tobe talking about Intune today
and a little more framing aroundthat.
I think what we'd like to talkabout is why you've heard people
are moving to Intune, what sortof device types the folks are
moving to, what are the roletypes that you see using Intune
and how common is it becomingversus some of the other MDMs
(02:28):
you've worked with?
So yeah, I think I'd like tohear a little bit more about
that.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Okay, yeah, Obviously , Microsoft has made a lot of
progress in that area,especially a lot of these
customers that we have here inthe Nordic countries.
They are Microsoft heavy, youknow, with the licensing and
everything.
They have the Microsoft 365license, E3, E5s, F1s, F3s.
(02:54):
There are a lot of peoplethey're looking at costs, of
course, and a lot of thesecustomers they've already had
another MDM, they probably hadMobileIron or AirWatch, et
cetera.
So what's happening now?
What we're seeing is thatthey're looking more to Intune,
(03:16):
of course, because you have thefeatures that are provided there
pretty much is on par with mostof these other providers and
some instances actually areahead of these providers as well
, and so what they're looking atis kind of consolidating into
(03:39):
one product or to one provider,and that kind of triggers a lot
of migrations, so to speak, froma lot of our customers right
now.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Are you seeing that these customers already were
using Intune or Endpoint Managerto manage their workstations
and laptops and now they'rebringing mobility into that
space?
Or is this more of a newinstall, usually with Mobility
Plus Intune?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, it's both ways.
Actually, what we're seeing iswith the mobility part is they
already manage their Windowsdevices.
Of course, a lot of thesecompanies and the public sector
are getting more aware of thesecurity breaches with the
mobile devices.
They're kind of looking at howdo we manage these devices more
(04:35):
efficient, how can we get morecontrol and also provide
services that would benefit theend users?
I don't know really, it's 50-50.
Some of them already have, ofcourse.
They've managed their Windowsdevices.
(04:56):
They want to manage their mobiledevices and they're seeing why
we use three, four tools tomanage the same.
We can have everything in one,like the unified endpoint
management.
That's what they're kind ofstriving towards.
So mobile devices is basicallywhat they're getting more into.
(05:18):
That I think they're seeing thebenefits of having managing
devices right now.
They're seeing the benefits ofhaving managing devices right
now and especially in thedifferent spaces of the
frontline workers.
That's kind of triggered a lot.
That's why I've been havingsome contact with you guys
(05:44):
looking at different solutionsthat probably Intune might not
be able to provide fully and themobile device management
solutions can't even they can'teven provide that.
So I think Bluefletch is onereally good tool, together with
Intune as well.
Nice.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
So I know you mentioned some.
Cost savings is a big reasonpeople are jumping to Intune.
Cost savings is a big reasonpeople are jumping to Intune.
What are the other perceivedbenefits or advantages that you
see customers being able to takeadvantage of when they jump to
Intune?
Are there other things that aredrawing people or other
(06:18):
features that, out of the boxwith Intune, you think are nice
to have out?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
of the box or then to you think are nice to have, I
think, since the Elk Team has awide range of the possibility to
manage different platforms,that rouse their intention for
us.
Lately, as you probably heardabout previously with managing
(06:47):
Macs, microsoft have been likeokay, just use Jamf or whatever
if you want to have moreadvanced management.
But the customers have actuallybeen requesting Microsoft.
You have to step up here Now.
You have to do something aboutthis.
We want to have Intune tomanage it.
(07:09):
We can't have like two or threedifferent tools.
So I think that's somethingthat kind of has made it bigger
or more requested.
Made it bigger or morerequested.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I think, the other thing that I'm hearing is just
the tighter integration withMicrosoft, as you called out.
I already have the licensings,but if you're using Microsoft
apps or conditional accesspolicies or ID, there is tighter
integration there.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, it's all the security thing, All the security
solutions with Entra.
You have Azure, you haveeverything integrated into Entra
.
Id Benefits of, as you said,conditional access is one big
thing, of course, and whatMicrosoft has been doing with
(08:12):
the shared device mode part isalso a big thing that they have
integration with SimSign on fortheir shared devices.
So you can see, on the Appledevices you have the iOS, you
have the macOS as well.
I think they're pretty much onpar with all the other providers
.
That's what we're seeing rightnow and a lot of these customers
(08:35):
are asking for.
You know, can you help us getstarted with Intune?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
That brings up an interesting question.
So you mentioned that a lot ofthe reason you're seeing
customers, at least initially,move to Intune is because of the
perceived cost savings andbecause of just the systemic
integration and the decisionsare being made maybe more at a
(09:01):
fiscal level than necessarily apractical day-to-day on the
ground administrative level.
How are you coaching yourcustomers when they're making
that move, say from another MDMto Intune?
Is there a playbook you runthrough with what to expect when
you're moving, or is there aframework that you use like a
(09:27):
common questions that you knowthey're going to be asking, that
you have to be prepared for?
I'm just curious from theperspective of, as they're
making that move, what do theyneed to think about?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, we that kind of depends because we have such a
range of different kinds ofcustomers you know, if you go to
the public sector, range ofdifferent kind of customers.
You know, if you go to thepublic sector, they have kind of
different challenges.
So it all depends on what kindof tool it is they're using
today and where they're goingand what advanced level they are
(09:59):
on.
Because some of these customersare they're managing their
devices on a very basic leveland we're seeing, you know, we
can tell them straight away.
You know, if you're just goingto do one-on-one, it's no
problem with Intune, you can dothat, no problem.
(10:20):
But you can add these benefitsif you go to Intune as well, if
you have, you know, with theconditional access part, and
there you go, wow, okay, so wecan get this and that, and
that's that's something where Ithink when we have these
discussions, it's that's wherethey kind of get a little bit
excited.
They're excited, of course, anduh, to see that they're
(10:44):
actually getting some more valuefrom having those tools.
But of course there's the otherway around.
We have customers that aresaying, okay, but we want to
have these specific features,because if we don't have these,
it's going to be very hard forus in the scenarios that we have
(11:04):
or the use cases.
So I think we're going to stickwith SODI on these use cases,
but let's go to Intune on theother use cases and we'll see
what happens in the future withIntune, if it's going to develop
a little bit more into thatdirection that we can actually
meet up, going to develop alittle bit more into that
(11:31):
direction that we can actuallymeet up.
So, um, uh, yeah, I think itdepends on which the consultant
that is actually delivering thisas well, um, and where the team
that that is delivering it.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
uh, depending on know who it is, okay, yeah, no, that
makes sense.
So with a let's say, let's takea private customer, for example
, would you say there's onequestion that you know they're
always going to ask, or is it?
You know, is there a biggesthurdle?
I guess, if you had to identifyone, for example, you think you
hear more than any other.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yeah, so I think from an Android perspective, what I
hear most is how can we deployapplications that are not in the
Play Store to devices, and Ithink that's a big shift in the
way companies have to thinkabout Android management.
Intune is very much alignedwith the Android Enterprise
(12:31):
standards around pushing thingsthrough the Play Store and
getting away from thefunctionality that Sodia and
Workspace ONE have done foryears with installing APKs and
doing that from an agent andpushing files, and it's
definitely a shift in thinkingof how you deploy software, and
(12:53):
I think that's probably thebiggest hurdle.
There are questions around thatI hear, and then I think the
other one, brian, you touched onearlier was organization of
devices inside of the EMM,workspace One and SOTI have a
very good tree structure andfolder structure and all these
(13:15):
dynamic assignment rules and Ifound those are pretty easy to
use.
But Intune, it takes a lot morework to get those groups
populating and it's a lot moredifficult to view the structure
of how your device is segmented.
And yeah, brian, I know youtalked on that earlier.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
You might have some more to add no, but that's very
true part is probably one of thebiggest ones I would say as
well when you're saying it,because a lot of these customers
are used to, or actually theones that deliver the apps.
(13:56):
They're still in the mode of,you know, delivering APKs.
Yep, they don't have them inthe Play Store.
They're customer specific apps.
They don't provide them throughthe managed Play Store.
So that's actually true, that'sactually one of the biggest
ones.
But delivering apps any otherway than the managed Play Store
(14:23):
is it's not possible really inIntune right now.
That's just the reality of it.
And because Microsoft hasdecided, you know, they're going
to go with the Google standard100%, and that's the way it is.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So does that mean a customer is stuck at that point?
If they have to deploy anapplication through the Google
Play Store but say, for example,their vendor is not able to
supply the application that way,what are the workarounds for
that?
Or they just can't use thatapplication anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
And the workaround is pretty much that the vendor has
to.
They really pretty much have tolook at the more modern way of
using apps and that's the waythat Google they want them to go
with the Play Store.
So they're pretty much forcedto go that way because the
(15:19):
customer is demanding it, and ifthe customer is not going to
get that from their vendor,they're going to go somewhere
else.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yeah, I agree with that, Brian.
If a vendor gives you an APKand you try to upload it, it's
going to say this APK is blockedbecause it's already been
reserved by namespace.
You're not going to be able todo your one-offs, so having to
work with vendors probably alittle more closely is something
(15:51):
that we see with Intune, andthen one of the kind of like the
fringe benefits of that, though, is that I think it forces
people to think in a more, be alittle more forward thinking
with their Android deployments.
It's a big shift, but by youknow, stripping away a lot of
(16:14):
those tools and adding theseconstraints, it's forcing people
to think differently aboutdevice management, and, you know
, in a way, I think that mightultimately be a good thing
because of all the thingsAndroid and Google are doing
around Android management andsecurity, and it's definitely
(16:37):
work that has to be done, but Ithink, ultimately, it'll help
people get to that better, moremodern state sooner but what
I've seen here in the nordiccountries is that they're, you
know, we're pretty advanced intechnology and it etc.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
So it's been a lot of these uh apps that they already
have or they're using the.
These customers in the privatesector, in the public sector,
they're already, they're alreadythere in the, in the google
play store, so, uh, so most ofthe times, you know, it's not
that often that we kind of getinto that kind of a problem or
(17:15):
an issue or a challenge.
Wouldn't be so to say uh but um, uh, we had one customer that
actually is a public sector,that uh had that issue with this
uh, you know, a unique app forthis specific the public sector
uh company.
(17:36):
Um but um, they solved thatwith uh, you know, with the
developer.
They gave them the, they solvedthat with the developer, they
gave them the delegated rightsin their developer portal, in
the Google developer portal, andthrough that it solved itself
so they could actually publishthat APK that way.
(17:59):
So we help customers to findways of doing things.
Well, you know, we helpcustomers to find ways of doing
things.
So I think it's, as you say,it's a more forward way of
working.
Today, you know, google wantsus obviously to have more
control of security definitely,and I think companies and
customers are really into thatas well, so they don't get an
(18:22):
APK that they don't really knowwhat's in there.
Yep, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
I know one of the things thatis common for these customers
that we've seen to do is, tosome extent, some file
manipulation on the devices, thedevices and with Intune.
I know that there's some gapsthere.
How are you, when you encounterthose types of questions,
(18:52):
what's the best way to handlethat, that scenario?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
well pilot, that we haven't actually touched that
much on that, but more of moreon the actually firmware.
That's been a big challenge.
We have a few customers thatare using Honeywell devices For
doing that.
It's not that it's reallyreally super basic in Intune.
(19:19):
You can't do any maintenancewindow thing with those firmware
updates.
You have to when you do theassignment in the OEM config.
You have to do it straight awayfor the updates, and it's not
good.
So in those cases then we haveto turn to like for Honeywell.
(19:40):
They have the what do you callit, operations intelligence.
You have to go with that andthat's an extra license.
So you know, you see there aresome challenges with it.
I know Zebra, there's a goodintegration right now with Zebra
and Intune, but still they'relacking some stuff regarding the
(20:00):
file distribution, firmwareupdates etc.
So that's something that Ithink they can improve a lot
more on.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, I agree with that, Brian.
I think especially from atimeliness, being able to
deliver those OTA updates orfirmware, os upgrades or even
application updates.
Being able to do that in atimely manner is extremely
important for workforce devicesbecause you need to limit that
(20:32):
outage time.
You need to know a device isgoing to be operational or a
shift or a worker.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
And Intune does, I think, lack in that area a lot
because they are at're used tothe way SOTY and they can, due
to costs and, as we were talkingabout before, with licensing
costs et cetera.
So they're willing to make thatsacrifice for a while because
they know Microsoft will meet upwith better features for that.
(21:42):
Reporting is one part that islacking big time, I think in
Intune.
But they're picking up there.
They know they have it on theroadmap.
Reporting is going to getbetter.
That's what I'm seeing at least.
It has some improvement to makethere definitely.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Yeah, I've seen customers have to build a lot of
their own custom reporting.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, that's what you need to do.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I mean, there's the graph APIs and those are
available and have data, butMicrosoft doesn't have a great
out-of-the-box dashboarding orreporting layer, so it's very
much API driven and sort ofcustom yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
And I have to have as you called out, brian.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
That's something that I think they can easily add in
the future.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Definitely, I think you have to have the developer
skills.
That's something I'm lacking.
I don't have the developers, soI have to rely on my you know
my colleagues that are prettymuch developers.
They can do those API calls andGraph API things with scripts,
powershell, whatever.
But yeah, they can make a lotmore improvement there,
(22:55):
definitely for Microsoft's part.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So from a resourcing perspective, if you're the
customer and you are moving from, say, a Workspace ONE or a SODI
over to Intune because what wejust alluded to from a reporting
perspective and gettingeverything set up might be a
little bit more depth-heavy arecustomers having to reconsider
(23:20):
who previously was doing the MDMside of things.
Do they have to round out thatstaffing at all, or is it just a
matter of training?
I'm thinking from a resourceperspective, if you can service
your devices on Intune withbasically the same headcount
resource mix or if you need tobe thinking about what skill
(23:40):
sets might not be there.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, that's kind of the difference as well.
Most of the time they can usethe same resources.
It depends on what kind ofskills they have.
But obviously that's why we'rehere as consultants, those
(24:06):
specialities and all those, um,you know, special cases where
they need that extra, uh, extrafeatures or enhanced features
and um, but in most times theycan, you know, keep the same
resources and I've I haven'treally seen that they've kind
had to, or it was needed to, cutany resources.
They could cut any resources,but I think they could go with
(24:28):
the same ones.
That's pretty much what I'veseen.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Well, yeah, Brian, you mentioned we talked about
you know Graph and runningMicrosoft Graph and running APIs
to build the reporting.
Are there any other tools ortricks that you have found that
can make life a bit easier withIntune?
And I'll just cue up oneexample that you and I have
(24:53):
talked about in the past, therewas a company based in, I
believe, scandinavia as well,that specialized in migration
MDM, migration from one MDM toanother and I think it's a
company you've worked with inthe past, if I'm not mistaken.
I'm blanking on their name.
(25:14):
Wasn't there a tool to helpseamless migration over to
Intune?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, I'm trying to remember exactly which one that
was.
Yeah, I'm trying to rememberexactly which one that was.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Gosh.
Yeah, I forget as well.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I know we as Bluefudge have a process that we
can help apply I know which Yep.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
It is really limited to just Zebra devices at this
time.
I think the tool was EBFOnboarder.
Is that right yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
EBF Onboarder.
That's the one.
I think it's a German companyactually.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Oh, okay, it's a German company, sorry.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, no problem.
Yeah, that tool is somethingthat we've used some of our
customers to do, that migrationand they have a good, it's a
good way of I think they support, you know, migration from all
the major MDM, EMMs today to goto Intune and also actually the
(26:21):
other way around, but most ofthe customers are going towards
Intune.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Yep, I would say more than half, maybe even 75% of
new customers we talk to engagewith us because they are moving
to Intune and either they haveanxiety about it or they have
concerns about it or they'relooking for enhancements on top
(26:47):
of it.
And that's where our BlueFletchlauncher comes in is just
trying to improve that enduser's experience on the device.
I think of what BlueFletchoffers is what users see and
touch and feel every day whenthey're on their device to make
that a smooth experience.
(27:07):
And then Intune is kind of theguy behind the curtains pulling
all the strings and pushing thesoftware.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Are there other tools , I think, besides what Blue
Fletch offers and all of our SSOand device finding stuff that
you see as a good fit withIntune?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Not at the moment, actually.
No, I would say.
You remember we were discussingabout the possibility to the
renaming of AdWord devices.
Yep, yep, we have a whole bunchof samples where we're using
Azure Automation accounts or anAzure Automation process for
(27:51):
script for renaming devices ordoing whatever you need to do.
That's actually when we'reutilizing the Graph API.
We had a big customer that weactually did this with.
They wanted to have, dependingon the location of the devices,
(28:12):
they needed to have a namingstandard that was connected to
those specific sites, and byusing the script that we
developed together with AzureAutomation, we were able to do
that.
So within an hour, the devicewas renamed according to the
(28:36):
enrollment profile that was usedand Intune that was connected
to those specific sites.
So there are tools that you canuse within Microsoft Sphere, as
we were talking about withGraph APIs and Dash Automation.
I think is a great thing to useas well.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Yeah, it sounds like there are resources available.
It's just do you have the rightskill sets to take advantage in
it?
Exactly from what we've seen,it's scripting, it's api
experience, um, a knowledge ofthe android enterprise and, yeah
, how google is pushing things,and I think you know combination
(29:22):
of those tools can allow Intuneto work for you in my
experience.
But it's also not as out of thebox, as easy just to click
through as like a SOTY orWorkspace ONE.
And that's just my experience.
I know Intune's working on thatbut I think it takes a bit more
(29:46):
experience with that, thatecosystem yeah, I'm coming from
the in-tune side because I, youknow, that's where I was
introduced into mdm.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
So, um, I'm kind of biased on that.
But I've seen, I've beenworking a little bit with soOTI,
with Workspace ONE.
I've seen how it works withMobileIron and especially with
SOTI.
It's very, very specializedinto the frontline worker space.
(30:15):
We have the Android-specificthings and it's a great tool.
Nothing to say about that.
And it's a great tool.
Nothing to say about that.
But we have this large customerthat actually they've kind of
been looking at both of them.
They're saying well, we'regoing to manage a whole bunch of
other things in Intune as well,so why not manage the frontline
(30:38):
workers as well there?
So we've actually createdsolutions for it to work.
But then we have to have thosethings with the developers to do
certain things and that's what.
That's what's needed prettymuch.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Yeah, I definitely see the desire to want a single
pane of glass to manage all ofyour devices, one licensing cost
for all your endpoints, be thatlaptops or Android.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
But at the same time.
It's not the same people thatare managing the entire fleet
the entire fleet.
Then you have one team that'smanaging the Android devices,
one team that's managing the iOSdevices and another team
managing the Windows devices.
So that's a natural thing,because they've been used to
having different tools fordifferent teams.
(31:29):
All of a sudden they're goingto have one and same tool.
But that's one good thing withIntune as well is the
possibility to do the RBAC,role-based access, the thing
there where you can actuallydelegate certain things to local
(31:50):
IT but they don't have to havethe entire Intune administrator
role.
They can have like a specificroles you can create there with
scope tags, et cetera.
So if you can use that or knowhow to use it, it's a great way
of delegating tasks to, you know, to service desk, et cetera, to
(32:12):
service desk, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Brian, have you just learned the ins and outs of
Intune just over years ofexperience, or have you found
any good training resources orcourses online to help with this
?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Both.
I think most of it is what I'vebeen kind of learning myself
together with my colleagues.
We have a great team where wecollaborate and have sessions
together.
We kind of share ourexperiences and within atea and
that's a really good thing it'snot just the local, our local
(32:49):
office here.
We kind of share with you knowthe entire at least in sweden
that's.
It's kind of more, even if Ateais in the entire Baltic or in
the entire Nordic countries andthe Baltics.
We tend to collaborate with ourown peers within our country
(33:10):
but at the same time Atea iskind of pushing more for one
Atea.
That's been their way ofthinking and working now the
last two years at least, to tryto think a little bit broader,
to get help from your colleagueswherever they are and kind of
help each other.
And from my perspective it'sbeen.
(33:33):
Everything that I've been doingis more or less what I've been
learning myself, but same timeI've had a lot of help from my
colleagues, of course yep, yeah,I.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I think my two cents on that is uh, I.
I've found online trainingmaterials, but most of the
content seems to be focused onWindows management and less on
the iOS or the Android side.
And that will change as they'retaking market share of those
(34:08):
Android devices, but I've feltthat there was a bit of a
steeper learning curve for me,just because I found less
content specifically aroundAndroid, which is where
Bluefletch focuses.
So it's more of me kind oflearning as I go on the tool
yeah exactly it's.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
You know, since we're in a very close partnership
with Microsoft, we have thoseresources as well from the
product team and the productgroup.
We have monthly meetings,bi-weekly meetings with the
(34:52):
contact there that we can askquestions, we can get straight
answers directly from theproduct team.
So that kind of we can, youknow, ask questions, we can get,
you know, straight answersdirectly from the product team.
So that kind of helps as well.
But uh, not, you know, not allcompanies or partners or don't
have that kind of though.
Yeah, yeah, that's a bigadvantage for sure.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, um, so I think you know, maybe closing here,
what we're hearing is the marchtowards Intune is not going away
, both from a perceived costperspective, but then also from
probably from a security suiteside of things as well.
The, you know, the CISOs inthese organizations are going to
(35:33):
be looking for something that'smore streamlined and more
systemic in terms of integration, easiness of management.
So it's going to continue.
And then I guess the migrationthings to think about are the
different structures inside ofIntune versus the more branch
(35:53):
and tree-like structure withinsome of the other MDMs.
But Android definitely is thefuture in terms of Android
enterprise management, thatstyle.
So I think it's probably fairto say that Intune is definitely
going to continue to grow.
Patrick or Brian, do you guyshave objections to that or do
(36:14):
you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I agree with that 100%.
That's pretty much what we'reseeing and it hasn't stopped.
Objections to that?
Do you agree with that?
I agree with that 100 percent.
That's pretty much what we'reseeing and it hasn't stopped.
It can be more, evenaccelerated Last couple of years
since Microsoft has made a lotof great strides and providing
new features and enhancingfeatures within Intune.
That makes it even moreappealing for our customers.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Definitely Sure, okay , you know that makes perfect
sense.
So in closing Patrick, is thereanything that you wanted to add
from your perspective thatyou've seen or you know working
with Brian on questions he'sasked that force you to learn
some things too from an Intuneperspective, yeah, I think.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I'm learning today that he's asked that force you
to learn some things too from anintune perspective.
Yeah, I I think I learningtoday that you know intune
definitely has its constraints,but they're.
They can be overcome withdifferent tools and tricks and
scripting and things like that.
Um, the benefits of intune candefinitely outweigh that if
(37:18):
you're willing to adopt thosemodern ways of Android
management, the deep integrationwith IntraID and other examples
, with conditional accesspolicies and shared device mode
and single sign-on to Microsoftapps.
I think it's definitely whypeople are moving that way.
(37:40):
They're they're fine with the,the constraints.
They either have ways to workaround it or they're confident
Microsoft's going to makechanges in the future to to make
their life a little bit easier.
They and ultimately they'relooking for that single pane of
glass to manage all theirdevices.
So, yeah, I think it'sdefinitely going to keep growing
(38:00):
and we're going to keep hearingmore and more requests to help
with Intune management.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, thanks a lot, patrick, and so I think you know
in terms of where we are now.
We'll just expect this cancontinue to grow and, like you
said, microsoft is probablygoing to continue to mature,
make the product more mature,and that features to it.
Based on what they're hearingfrom you know, folks like Atea
and Brian and your team but alsofrom end customers as well.
(38:29):
So you know, I think what wecan say is expect to hear more
about Intune going forward and,if you do, plan on adopting it,
plan on a bit of a learningcurve, but it's not something
that isn't insurmountable orsomething that can't be overcome
with some of the other toolsthat we discussed.
So I think, for today, I'd saythanks again for joining another
(38:52):
episode of the EnterpriseMobility Podcast and make sure
you reach out to us with anyquestions that you have about
what you heard today or anyother subjects you have on MDM
or endpoint management.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Thanks, Thanks, brian , appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Thanks, thank you, thank you.
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