Apple @ Work: Apple’s next enterprise play should drive ARR growth

Apple @ Work is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates in a single professional-grade platform all the solutions necessary to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage & protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to make millions of Apple devices work-ready with no effort and at an affordable cost. Request your EXTENDED TRIAL today and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple.

Apple’s enterprise business is doing incredible, but not because of subscriptions or recurring revenue. The bulk of Apple’s enterprise comes from hardware sales, with Macs, iPhones, and iPads that are powering businesses worldwide. While Apple does offer services like AppleCare and Apple Business Essentials, their impact on recurring revenue is a rounding error. At Apple’s scale, it needs massive revenue to drive growth. If Apple wants to drive revenue growth in the enterprise, something has to change.

About Apple @ Work: Bradley Chambers managed an enterprise IT network from 2009 to 2021. Through his experience deploying and managing firewalls, switches, a mobile device management system, enterprise grade Wi-Fi, 1000s of Macs, and 1000s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple IT managers deploy Apple devices, build networks to support them, train users, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for IT departments.

Evolve its hardware sales model

Apple already has the iPhone Upgrade Program and Apple Business Essentials, but it hasn’t gone all-in on making a true subscription in the enterprise. Businesses buy or finance Apple devices outright (Apple even offers financing), but there is no actual subscription hardware model.

Imagine an Apple One for Business, where companies pay a monthly fee per user for a bundled package—Mac, AppleCare, and managed services, all rolled into one recurring cost. It’s a model that works for Dell with DaaS (Device-as-a-Service), so why not Apple?

If Apple wants to drive real ARR growth in the enterprise, it needs to solve a problem IT actually has. Right now, IT teams manage Apple devices using third-party tools—Mosyle, Jamf, Addigy, Fleet, JumpCloud Kandji, Microsoft Intune, and others—because Apple’s own device management tools aren’t designed for large enterprises.

I don’t think Apple has to compete with its own partners here, but I think it’s worth taking a step back and asking: What problems do IT and security teams have today that Apple can solve? Is it something with compliance? Is it a full-feature endpoint detection and response tool? IT teams aren’t looking to buy things but to solve problems. This is where Apple could start.

Acquire a SaaS company

If Apple is serious about growing ARR in the enterprise, the fastest way is through acquisition. One area where Apple is noticeably absent that I see as a growing revenue segment is identity and access management. Microsoft has Azure AD. Google has its own Workspace identity solutions. Okta is considered to be the backbone of many modern enterprises. Apple? Nothing that scales for enterprise IT.

A logical move would be acquiring a company in the identity management space to create a streamlined, Apple-native authentication and security platform for businesses. With macOS and iOS already leading in enterprise security, adding a Zero Trust identity layer would strengthen Apple’s position while also driving consistent subscription revenue.

Wrap up

Apple has historically been hesitant to make big SaaS acquisitions, but if it wants a real growth path in enterprise IT revenue (beyond selling more hardware), a move into IAM would make sense to me. Another option might be someone in the password ecosystem like 1Password as well. If Apple wants to grow its enterprise footprint and show investors it has more revenue growth coming in the enterprise, it needs to rethink its approach—whether through hardware-as-a-service, SaaS tools for IT, or a strategic acquisition in identity management.

Apple @ Work is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates in a single professional-grade platform all the solutions necessary to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage & protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to make millions of Apple devices work-ready with no effort and at an affordable cost. Request your EXTENDED TRIAL today and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple.