Today marks a big shift in endpoint administration and safety. We’re launching the Microsoft Intune Suite, which unifies mission-critical superior endpoint administration and safety options into one easy bundle. The new Intune Suite can simplify our clients’ endpoint administration expertise, enhance their safety posture, and preserve folks on the heart with distinctive person experiences. Microsoft Security and Microsoft 365 deeply built-in with the Intune Suite will empower IT and safety groups with knowledge science and AI to extend automation, serving to them transfer merely and shortly from reactive to proactive in addressing endpoint administration and different safety challenges.
Microsoft Intune is an industry-leading, unified endpoint administration resolution that organizations rely upon to make sure their gadgets, working techniques, and apps are up-to-date, protected, and performant. Yet evolving work habits and safety threats, harder financial local weather, and rising variety of gadgets imply that organizations want extra assist in lowering complexity. Consider this: in a current survey, two-thirds of respondents had been utilizing greater than ten instruments to handle and defend their digital property.1 More particular person instruments imply extra administration overhead, extra assault floor, and extra licensing prices—all issues organizations want to cut back.
In this weblog, I need to share three the reason why the brand new Intune Suite will matter to you:
- Even higher safety by lowering assault vectors.
- Simplification by consolidation and automation of IT and safety operations workflows.
- Savings by decrease administration overhead and decreased assist prices.
I’ll additionally share some outcomes from our newest survey of practically 4 hundred endpoint administration and safety professionals, which is able to present extra context for this new supply.
What is the Microsoft Intune Suite?
First, let’s overview what capabilities the Intune Suite affords. These vital capabilities have been in improvement for some time, and you could recall we introduced our plans at Microsoft Ignite 2022 to launch the Intune Suite in March 2023 with an preliminary set of superior options:
- Remote Help is a software that may help helpdesks—particularly vital as employees are actually working away from the workplace extra usually. Remote Help is already accessible for Windows customers and also will come to Android and Mac endpoints in future releases. It permits IT helpdesk groups to remotely troubleshoot a person’s desktop and cellular gadgets primarily based on a person’s present firm identification. The additional Android assist will show notably helpful for managing frontline employees’ gadgets. Learn extra about current Remote Help updates for Windows.
- Endpoint Privilege Management, in preview in March 2023 and customarily accessible in April 2023, will allow the managed elevation of Windows normal customers so safety controls don’t get in the way in which of productiveness. The proper customers may have the precise privileges on the proper time, to cut back the safety danger of overprivileged customers and scale back the burden on the assistance desk by permitting better self-serve for primary situations, like organising an area printer. Learn extra about Endpoint Privilege Management first launch capabilities.
- The Intune Suite additionally affords superior endpoint analytics options, data-driven insights that assist IT directors perceive, anticipate, and enhance the person expertise for the employees within the group.
- There can also be Microsoft Tunnel for Mobile App Management, a micro-VPN that connects company sources from private iOS/iPadOS and Android gadgets, so staff can have entry to firm sources from their private cellular gadgets when responsibility calls.
- The Intune Suite improves the administration of specialty gadgets, to offer staff the flexibleness to decide on the system they should get the job finished with out these gadgets turning into factors of vulnerability.
- Following the March 1, 2023, launch, one other functionality that will likely be added to the Intune Suite is superior app administration, providing an enterprise app catalog and controls for simple app discovery, deployment, and automated updating to mitigate dangers launched by out-of-date apps. Later this 12 months, we can even introduce a cloud certificates administration resolution to situation and handle VPN and Wi-Fi certificates from Intune to gadgets with out on-premises infrastructure. We will proceed so as to add extra superior capabilities to the Intune Suite over time, offering extra endpoint safety, automation, and management of the person computing panorama and expertise.
So, why is that this vital for you now? It goes again to raised safety, simplification, and financial savings.
1. Improve safety and scale back assault vectors
Even if IT and safety organizations have gotten accustomed to supporting and defending distant and hybrid work, our surveys present there’s nonetheless a lot work to be finished to enhance enterprise endpoint safety. Only 43 p.c of endpoint administration and safety professionals mentioned that their group actively manages greater than three-quarters of their endpoints.1 Put one other approach, 57 p.c of organizations do not need visibility or management over 1 / 4 of their endpoints or extra. Further, solely 37 p.c of organizations use patch administration, and solely 39 p.c use Endpoint Privilege Management. As such, there’s clearly a possibility to extend the breadth of gadgets organizations can handle to have a extra full view of the well being and efficiency of their digital property. There can also be a possibility to enhance the depth of safety provided by extra Endpoint Privilege Management and extra common patch updates. This primary “cyber hygiene” is core to the way in which the suite improves safety and is foundational earlier than any Zero Trust initiative can actually achieve traction.
Security professionals see tighter product integration as a key step. When requested in our survey how they may enhance their group’s endpoint safety, “integration” was the highest reply. The Intune Suite delivers integration on a number of ranges: between the varied Intune Suite parts, with Microsoft 365, and with different Microsoft Security belongings. Better integration means fewer weak spots that may very well be attacked. Microsoft has realized to be intentional about creating built-in worth throughout its portfolio and with the Intune Suite, we’re dedicated to proceed constructing end-to-end worth for customers, IT, and safety operations.
One additional benefit of utilizing a single vendor for extra of your endpoint safety wants is that there’s one single dataset reasonably than a number of disparate streams of information. Uniform, constant knowledge means higher safety analytics and visibility to potential vulnerabilities and anomalies. You can’t mitigate what you possibly can’t see. Bringing collectively the information and actionable insights in a single place will increase your capability to evaluate, handle, and act on potential dangers throughout your system panorama.
“The Microsoft Intune Suite is going to help us consolidate our endpoint management solutions, saving costs, making our lives easier, and keeping the hospital data secure. I would highly recommend the Microsoft Intune Suite to any organization looking to enhance their security posture.”—Ibrar Mahmood, IT Cyber Security Manager, Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
2. Simplify endpoint administration
Many organizations have reported elevated complexity inside their IT atmosphere over the previous few years. This is smart: smartphones, carry your personal system (BYOD), hybrid work, and evolving safety threats can all enhance complexity. Yet, the response to the present complexity has been so as to add extra level options, which is a step backward as extra options imply extra vendor integration necessities, probably creating extra assault surfaces.
Given different prime IT priorities—cloud migrations, reducing prices, AI, analytics, and employees retention—it’s comprehensible why endpoint instruments haven’t been consolidated but. However, I consider that the simplification and consolidation of endpoint administration instruments is required shortly. By selecting the Intune Suite, you possibly can simplify your method to superior endpoint administration, which means extra bandwidth to concentrate on different priorities in 2023 and past.
Simplification additionally permits the consolidation of your safety distributors—A Gartner® survey reported in September 2022 that 75 p.c of organizations are pursuing safety vendor consolidation in 2022, up from 29 p.c in 2020.2 This not solely presents the chance to cut back danger and direct licensing prices however saves time and psychological overhead in not having to handle so many provider relationships.
One instance of decreased psychological overhead: the Intune Suite additionally simplifies your IT and safety operations. One unified admin console means unified workflows. You not have to hop from one admin console to the subsequent or sew collectively workflows.
We are devoted to serving to organizations use the ability and knowledge of the cloud to additional automate and orchestrate IT workflows to chop complexity. As Omdia just lately put it, when rating Microsoft a pacesetter, within the Digital Workplace Management/Unified Endpoint Management Platforms, 2023 evaluation, “The sheer scale of indicators Microsoft has visibility of permits extra analytics, automation alternatives, and insights throughout the endpoint property than some other UEM vendor.“3
3. Enable price financial savings
Many C-suite executives are on the lookout for price financial savings in 2023—the Intune Suite delivers a number of methods to save lots of.
First, the Intune Suite reduces the overhead of negotiating and overseeing separate contracts with a number of distributors. It means much less integration of labor between parts and coaching on completely different instruments. It additionally means fewer prices from worker downtime as a result of a safety breach and decrease IT helpdesk prices by fewer inbound calls and quicker decision of remaining tickets.
National Railway Company of Belgium (SNCB) simply manages greater than 21,000 gadgets with Microsoft Intune. “Intune is a huge success story for SNCB,” says Bouke Stijns, Chief Information Security Manager, SNCB. His workforce absolutely containerizes SNCB functions on smartphones in order that the corporate can’t entry staff’ private apps and knowledge. He additionally appreciates that compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is constructed into Microsoft options and the Microsoft licensing mannequin, which optimizes the IT finances in an {industry} that allocates sources to passenger expertise reasonably than IT expenditure. “Our Microsoft license offers an extensive set of security solutions that optimizes budget and reduces the number of vendors we need to coordinate with,” he explains. Read the total buyer story.
Second, the Intune Suite bundled checklist value is decrease than the sum of all the person capabilities of the Intune Suite and delivers Microsoft built-in worth better than the associated fee and overhead of managing various vendor options.
The bundle is accessible as an add-on to any plan that features Intune, which most clients get by the worth of their Microsoft 365 subscription. For added flexibility, the person options inside the suite can even be accessible as standalone add-ons to Intune, so organizations can migrate to the Microsoft resolution they prioritize primarily based on their wants.
Additionally, for superior options that stretch the worth of Intune past core endpoint administration performance—for instance, defending and managing specialty gadgets or Tunnel for Mobile App Management for unenrolled gadgets—we’re introducing a brand new plan, Microsoft Intune Plan 2, you could purchase for particular, focused customers.
Learn extra in regards to the new Microsoft Intune plans and pricing.
“I’m eagerly awaiting the migration of all our mobile devices to the Microsoft Intune Suite as our core UEM System. Looking into the migration, we just know—due to the work the team and Microsoft put into Intune the last years—that we are making an exciting step forward to an even better reliable and integrated UEM platform for our mobile devices, better preparing us for the future and all challenges that lie ahead.”—Florian Weisenberger, Product Owner Mobile Workplace iOS, Audi.
The web impact of the brand new, complete Intune Suite, Intune Plan 2, and the only resolution add-ons to Intune supply organizations versatile choices to plan their budgets, IT and safety lifecycle, and vendor contracts in a deliberate and calculated approach—with safety, simplification, and financial savings in thoughts.
Join us at Microsoft Secure
In Omdia’s report, they wrote: “Microsoft’s focus is on bringing together this range of mission-critical endpoint and application management and security tools into a single cloud solution. In delivering this integrated set of capabilities, the vendor will help customers simplify how endpoints are managed, strengthen security postures, potentially reduce total cost of ownership, and improve employee experiences.”3
The Intune Suite represents shift change in endpoint safety, simplification, and financial savings. I encourage you to study extra by watching the brand new Microsoft Mechanics video and visiting our Microsoft Intune Suite web page to find the increasing set of Intune merchandise. Finally, please be a part of us at Microsoft Secure on March 28, 2023, the place our product management will add perspective in regards to the Intune Suite and show the built-in innovation and worth of the brand new bundled resolution.
To study extra about Microsoft Security options, go to our web site. Bookmark the Security weblog to maintain up with our skilled protection on safety issues. Also, observe us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and Twitter (@MSFTSecurity) for the newest information and updates on cybersecurity.
1Endpoint Management Vulnerability Gap, Enterprise Strategy Group. Fieldwork was carried out in November 2022.
2 Gartner Press Release, Gartner Survey Shows 75% of Organizations Are Pursuing Security Vendor Consolidation in 2022, Gartner. September 13, 2022. GARTNER is a registered trademark and repair mark of Gartner, Inc., and/or its associates within the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
3Omdia Universe: Digital Workspace Management/Unified Endpoint Management Platforms, 2023, Omdia. December 12, 2022.