What's New with Intune

Intune, Microsoft’s online service for managing mobile devices and Windows PCs, has steadily added new capabilities, especially for managing mobile devices and applications, since it was released in 2011. The latest releases include new capabilities for managing Office mobile applications and better management of Android devices and policy settings. Microsoft has announced that Intune will receive updates approximately monthly. While some of the Intune management capabilities are now also available to Office 365 customers, the features mainly apply to managing Office 365 and related content, not comprehensively managing devices as Intune does. (For a comparison of the management features available with Exchange ActiveSync [EAS], Office 365 mobile device management, and Intune, see the chart “Device Management Technologies“.)

Intune Shows Steady Progress

Microsoft Intune (called Windows Intune prior to Oct. 2014) is a set of Microsoft-hosted online services that provides antimalware, hardware and software inventories, health monitoring, software updating, and policy management. Intune allows organizations to manage PCs and mobile devices using online services hosted in Microsoft data centers rather than using an on-premises management and security infrastructure. Intune depends on EAS, either on-premises or hosted, to achieve some management functions, and it is accessed through an online Web portal. PCs and devices to be managed by Intune must each be registered (enrolled) in the service. Intune is licensed as a Per-User subscription service, and each subscription license covers up to five devices per user.