Yesterday IBM announced new cloud services designed to help large companies incorporate Macs into their IT infrastructures.
The new offering is part of IBM’s MobileFirst services portfolio and clients can order Macs and have them delivered directly to their employees without the need for any additional setup, imaging or configuration.
This makes the employees to quickly and securely gain network access, connect to email and download business applications, IBM said.
The services can also accommodate employees’ own, personal Macs in corporate “bring-your-own-device” settings. They are delivered via the cloud as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product but are also available on-premises in clients’ data centers.
IBM will be purchasing as many as 200,000 Macs annually for use internally, and in fact, the new offering is based on experience IBM gained through its Mac@IBM program.
The ability to incorporate Macs within enterprise IT is “a rising requirement,” IBM said, as more clients adopt or allow the use of Macs by their employees.
The new offering includes the Casper Suite from JAMF Software that’s designed to help users quickly set up and deploy Macs, including MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro.
There are also ongoing support services providing OS and image management, software application and update management, an enterprise app catalog, automatic compliance and configuration updates for security, and inventory and reporting for hardware and software.
[Via]
