Mike Peterson
Enterprise users and IT departments view Apple macOS devices as much more secure than their non-Mac counterparts, a new survey claims.
Apple mobile device management (MDM) company Jamf carried out the study along with market research firm Vanson Bourne for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The two organizations surveyed 1,500 information security and IT professionals on device usage, challenges, and other topics at their workplaces.
According to the survey, there appears to be a trend toward Mac devices — both at firms currently using Macs and those that predominantly use non-Mac computers. Among respondents, 74% of predominantly Mac users said they will increase the count of Apple computers at their organizations. Among predominantly non-Mac users, that percentage was 65%.
More than three quarters of organizations surveyed, 77%, said they viewed the Mac as the most secure device out of the box. That result was from both Mac and non-Mac companies, and 79% of Mac-using firms said the perceived security of macOS influenced their purchasing decision. Even 57% of predominantly non-Mac organizations said that the Mac's security reputation affected purchasing decisions.
And even once the Mac devices are bought and set up, respondents said that user satisfaction with Apple devices tended to be higher.
With all baked-in security tools active, 71% of both non-Mac and Mac organizations said they had better user satisfaction with the Mac. Additionally, 84% said they'd choose Mac if every individual at their company had to use the same device.
As Jamf points out, the switch to remote work during the coronavirus global health crisis has placed a greater emphasis on device security as more users work on home networks and their own hardware.
Nearly all of the organizations surveyed, 96% of them, said that they will prioritize spending on security software in the future. On the other hand, despite lingering security concerns, Mac-using organizations tend to roll out security patches 30% faster than non-Mac groups. There is still a four-day average from release to rollout for Mac-based security fixes.
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20 Comments
Well DUUUUHHH!!! You don’t say! I’ve been trying to tell every company I’ve worked for over the last 20 years this same thing but NOOOOOO.....”Windows, Windows, Windows” Even after I don’t even know how many issues. One company even distributed Android tablets to employees!! Ugh! EVERYONE had some kind of issue converting over. They HATED them. And I just sat back and said, “I told you so.” Why do most business people shut down as soon as they hear the word “Macintosh?”
Quite often it's IT departments whose staff really only know Windows - they don't want to lose their jobs.The Walmart/IBM reports of per-unit IT cost savings for Macs reinforce that belief.
True. But do they have no desire to learn something new? A new platform? Not even to give anything other than Windows a chance. So closed minded.
There is really only one way I’d ever go back to PC and that is if I got a Killer job where I had to use SolidWorks. I really wish Dassault Systems would get off their asses and just build it for Mac. The only other software I know of that basically mandates that you run windoze is quick books, which I hear on Mac is far inferior to the windows version. How they get away with that I have no idea. But we are switching to netsuite where I work, which I *think is web based? So shouldn’t matter?