Integrated Identity and Mobility Management for Mac OS X

We’re living in the connected era, and the mobile-first approach continues to gain momentum in the enterprise. A 2015 survey by 451 Research showed that 40 percent of companies are prioritizing the mobilization of business apps during the next two years. While mobility promises organizations greater agility in the enterprise, enterprise desktop/laptop management has not evolved along with it. Even today, IT purchases a laptop, images it, assigns a group policy, and then delivers it to the employee, creating a very complex environment that requires a lot of time and specific skills to manage.

With each iteration of Mac OS X, Macs are becoming more smartphone-like with enterprise-ready management features built into the OS. This evolution is creating an opportunity to leave legacy management behind and move to an integrated identity and mobility management solution to secure and manage Mac devices in an organization, while at the same time meeting the mobility needs of employees.

Okta Mobility Management (OMM) leverages Mac OS X’s native management capabilities to help organizations easily configure, secure, and report on Mac devices without the need for intrusive, agent-based, heavyweight device management. With OMM, our customers can create profiles for Mac OS X that enforce security controls, configure enterprise services, and provide visibility on hardware and software usage.

Accounting for its highly mobile workforce, global technology consultancy ThoughtWorks includes laptops in its definition of mobile devices. The IT department chose OMM to give them visibility and centralized management over their fleet of laptops.

“Supervision of laptops has always been challenging, but we believe the way Okta is implementing centralized management is revolutionizing how devices should be managed,” said Phil Ibarrola, TechOps Head of Technology at ThoughtWorks. “It’s a big step forward in centralized device management and doing it the right way.”

For the full scoop on OMM support for Mac OS X, check out the Okta Product blog.