Apple Business Essentials vs. IBM MaaS360

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apple Business Essentials
Score 8.3 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Apple Business Essentials is a subscription service that brings together device management, 24/7 support, and cloud storage. It enables small business to manage every iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TVs throughout the business.
$8.25
per device, per month
IBM MaaS360
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
IBM MaaS360 is a mobile security offering developed by Fiberlink, acquired and owned by IBM since early 2014.
$4
Per Client
Pricing
Apple Business EssentialsIBM MaaS360
Editions & Modules
Fleetsmith Managed
$8.25
per device, per month
Essentials
USD 4.00
Per Client
Deluxe
USD 5.00
Per Client
Premier
USD 6.25
Per Client
Enterprise
USD 9.00
Per Client
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apple Business EssentialsIBM MaaS360
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFree unlimited trial for up to 10 devices Device Intelligence free for unlimited devices iOS/tvOS devices free during beta period
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apple Business EssentialsIBM MaaS360
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Apple Business EssentialsIBM MaaS360
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Score 8.6 out of 10
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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User Ratings
Apple Business EssentialsIBM MaaS360
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(23 ratings)
8.1
(49 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(5 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(21 ratings)
9.4
(2 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(21 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(32 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(34 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apple Business EssentialsIBM MaaS360
Likelihood to Recommend
Apple
I would recommend Apple Business Essentials manager to any organization that orders and uses iPads or iPhones on a large scale and wishes to manage them. Even if you do not intend on applying an MDM to your corporate Apple devices, it is nice for asset management and corporate application purchasing from a central location. If you do not care about any of those features, this functionality is not for you.
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IBM
Enrolling bulk devices through the Device Enrollment Program (DEP) is simple, straightforward, and quick. Multiple methods for device enrollment are available, including barcode scanning, email, and manual entry via the platform. App synchronization between Apple Business Manager (ABM) and the MaaS360 platform occurs swiftly. Additionally, app distribution and removal are efficiently managed on the platform.
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Pros
Apple
  • Ease of use to manage. Some other solutions can be a little hard to navigate. Fleetsmith is intuitive.
  • DEP Enrollment is really nice. If you are shipping a laptop out to the user you can set their password and when they turn on their computer they will have access.
  • Adding software to be pushed out. Pretty easy to do.
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IBM
  • Manage app deployment on mobile fleet of devices
  • Manage all mobile devices and know where your fleet of devices are
  • Solve simple issues like reset screen lock passcodes
  • Protects company’s intellectual property
  • Allows for easy deployment of mobile devices to remote users
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Cons
Apple
  • We were told that this was in the works and it would be implemented at the beginning of the year 2019. That has still not happened and whenever we ask about this functionality we cannot get a good answer.
  • Management of devices that are already in the field—we were told that in order to use Fleetsmith as we would like (pushing apps to devices) we would have to get each device and set them up from a Mac.
  • Integration with Windows.
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IBM
  • MaaS360 with Watson has a lot of features and capabilities, which can sometimes make it difficult for us to navigate. Improving the user interface and making it friendly could help make the platform easier to use.
  • Expanding integrations with other systems to provide better support for a wider range of systems and platforms.
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Likelihood to Renew
Apple
No answers on this topic
IBM
I'll gave it a 10, because we have not come across any negative point with MaaS360. In a real comparison with other UEMs / MDMs you will find out that other providers that claim to be "free" or "included" don't have the capeabilities that MaaS360 has. Some features are just not available and others would require you to pay for them. In that case the product would not be "free" anymore.
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Usability
Apple
The installation steps are very easy and the UI for admin panel is user-friendly. Enrolment all based on Gmail accounts and the import function is there to fetch the user accounts. Navigating in Fleetsmith admin panel is simple and clean.
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IBM
Having years of experience with MDM and experiencing the evolution of the granularity of the functionality MDM's have had to evolve, no MDM is ever "easy" to use. MaaS360 rises to the top however, because zero day changes are always ahead of the competition. A huge benefit with MaaS360 and IBM's approach to supporting these changes is that they seldom change configuration work flows. Competing Vendors always arbitrarily change workflows which requires a significnat ongoing learning curve in order to maintain technical competence
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Reliability and Availability
Apple
No answers on this topic
IBM
Never had an outage in 11 years of using this solution
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Performance
Apple
No answers on this topic
IBM
typically very consistent but occasionaly some lag
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Support Rating
Apple
Fantastic support. I have had a few queries on how to go about doing things in the best way and the support at Fleetsmith was always very quick to reply and with excellent advice and detail to solve the problem and lead is into our best use of their product.
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IBM
MaaS360's phone support has been decent the few times I have used it. In addition the person who on-boarded us has been available for additional questions after the process was over. However IBM could do a much better job in creating a user-friendly search engine and white-paper database to help people find topics. Right now finding info is more based on searching through white papers themselves.
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Online Training
Apple
No answers on this topic
IBM
The resources made available to me by IBM were Stellar. These resources remain available today and are extremely important as technology changes
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Implementation Rating
Apple
No answers on this topic
IBM
To implement IBM Security MaaS360 with Watson, follow these steps: Set up the platform, enroll devices, configure policies and settings, monitor and manage devices. Implementing it can help organizations to securely manage and monitor the use of mobile devices and related resources in their networks, improving security and productivity for their users.
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Alternatives Considered
Apple
The primary products we checked out were Mosyle, JAMF, and SimpleMDM. In the end it really came down to the simplicity of our needs and the simplicity of Fleetsmith's approach being in tight harmony. We kicked the tires, hard, for about a month and then dove all the way in.
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IBM
Ease of use and management of mobile devices are easier and has protection against the Cyber threats. The security controls implementation on our devices are perfect and in one place. I love the responsiveness and prosctivenes of the support. Seamless integration with all security devices. The ability to wipe and control days remotely is perfect easy to control all our company information by locking down lost and stolen devices.
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Scalability
Apple
No answers on this topic
IBM
Rock solid, consistent solution
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Professional Services
Apple
No answers on this topic
IBM
We worked with an IBM SE who was incredibly competent and extremely professional in handling our questions in addition to ensuring the Knowledge Transfer was completed properly
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Return on Investment
Apple
  • Lesser cost for managing device, instead of getting more manpower to do it manually.
  • Lesser security threats (which will cause financial damage) as all devices are configured according the the company security policies, such as firewalls, media management, app security updates.
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IBM
  • Seamless and instant onboarding for new employee's devices
  • Ensuring secure access to corporate resources
  • Asset Management of devices and their status
  • Quick off boarding of employees leaving the company
  • Help desk support for unlocking and locating devices
  • Expense Management for Roaming
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ScreenShots

IBM MaaS360 Screenshots

Screenshot of the SaaS portal & dashboard for UEM administratorsScreenshot of where secure user access to corporate email, contacts, calendar, apps and docs can be configuredScreenshot of a view of hardware inventory, where administrators can take action across all device types