Is Apple Business Manager an MDM?

Apple Business Manager is a web portal that helps businesses quickly deploy Apple devices to their users, purchase content and seamlessly distribute them in combination with a Mobile device Management solution tied to their account. Apple Business Manager by itself is not an MDM and cannot replace a feature-rich MDM solution like Hexnode. But it can link to MDM solutions and augment some of the MDM capabilities for the full lifecycle management of Apple devices.

Hexnode MDM integrates with Apple Business Manager to enable hands-free enrollment, streamlined set up process and non-removable management profile on a bulk of devices purchased through a participating Apple Authorized Reseller or network provider and running:

• iOS 7 or later
• iPadOS 13.1 or later
• OS X 10.9 or later
• tvOS 10.2 or later

Hexnode also allows organizations to enroll with it those devices added to ABM manually using Apple Configurator 2 provided they are running:

• iOS 11 or later
• iPadOS 13.1 or later
• tvOS 11 or later

Using the Volume Purchased Program consolidated into ABM, Hexnode users can purchase apps and content and assign them to users or devices. The apps distributed in this way are installed silently on the end user devices, and the licenses can be revoked and reassigned to a different user at any time by the organization.