The History of Intune

Intune (officially Microsoft Intune) is Microsoft’s hosted mobile device management (MDM) service for Windows PCs, Macs, Apple mobile devices, and Android mobile devices.

The device management infrastructure known today as Microsoft Intune first became available as Windows Intune in 2011 and was limited to management of Windows 7 desktop PCs using a proprietary device management stack.

With the arrival of Windows 8, Microsoft added a proper MDM infrastructure to Windows, and Intune began phasing out the proprietary stack, while adding MDM support for other mobile devices. Although the adoption of MDM expanded the devices Intune could manage, it also limits the service to managing those capabilities exposed by the MDM support built into each device OS, or in the case of Linux, platforms where Microsoft is establishing its own device management infrastructure, albeit limited.

The service was rebranded as Microsoft Intune in 2014, as Microsoft added support for Google Android devices, followed by management of Apple iPhones.