Fleetsmith Intelligence offers 'no-cost' monitoring & enrollment for Apple devices [u]

Device management firm Fleetsmith on Tuesday announced Fleetsmith Intelligence, a new monitoring and enrollment platform for Apple devices at large organizations. [Updated with corrected Managed pricing]

The tech is described as the first "free" product with "real-time visibility and insights," as well as the "first no-cost solution to include enrollment via Apple's Device Enrollment Program."

Users can track who has a device, the OS version it's using, and whether it's compliant with an organization's password, encryption, and screen lock requirements. To remotely push changes to one, multiple, or all devices requires a subscription to Fleetsmith Managed, which costs $8.25 per device, per month.

"Fleetsmith Managed simplifies Apple device management for any professional responsible for managing and securing a company's devices," Fleetsmith co-founder Jesse Endahl said. "We're putting industry-leading best practices within reach of companies of all sizes, whether or not they have a formal IT organization, and also helping larger companies with established IT departments leverage powerful automation so they can focus on the highest value work."

At the moment Intelligence is Mac-oriented, letting organizations generate macOS accounts automatically, and customize Apple's setup assistant.

Fleetsmith is working on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV support, but this is only coming Aug. 15 as part of a free open beta.

Signing up for Intelligence requires Google's G Suite or Microsoft's Office 365.

Apple's Device Enrollment Program (DEP) streamlines mass iOS and OS X device deployments for IT staff and end users, readying the hardware for centralized setup and mobile device management (MDM) automatically. For example, DEP can be used to create multiple administration accounts, configure MDM servers for device handling and assign user profiles out of the box.

One tentpole feature is "zero-touch configuration," which immediately configures account settings, apps, settings and more when a user first activates their device.