What is our primary use case?
The solution is primarily used to manage iOS, Android, and also Windows 10 or Windows 11. It's to manage end-user devices.
What is most valuable?
The best thing about Intune for the customers is simply that it's included in the different plans of Microsoft 365. If a customer needs Office or collaboration tools, Intune is included. It's for free. If the company has another MDM, normally they are paying for it. This product is included in the license of Microsoft 365. We find that the customers, in general, want to change the solution, to move from another classical MDM to Intune due to the fact that they save money.
If you need only to load a specific profile and you don't have deep security functionalities, etc, Intune is very nice and good.
The initial setup is very simple.
What needs improvement?
If you need some restrictions or some integrations or you need integrations with security options, or if your mobile terminals are industry-special or ruggerized, bar code readers, printers attached, this might not be the best option. If your MDM has to be really specific, perhaps Intune is not the better option. You have to consider MobileIron or Workspace ONE or MaaS360 or similar.
They need to integrate more with security options. When the customers want some specific security functionality they begin to think about other platforms.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's pretty reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scaling is simple. It depends on the licensing. If you have licenses for that, the only thing you have to do is to continue with the enrollment of the terminals. It's very easy. You have to assign the terminals to a group of users with different restrictions or policies and that's it.
How are customer service and support?
With the CSP licenses, we as a cloud service provider, are obliged to provide services. With our service, we provide support to the licenses. When we sell licenses differently, in the LSP scheme, then we have to sell the premium service for the customers.
I don't use it directly. That said, I know the ratings of the services that we provide for our services. The only thing that I should say is that normally when we have an SLA with a customer for Microsoft, there is a specific response time that we can provide as a service provider. They do not consider that. They say, "Our service is this. This is our SLA." Then, our service level agreement is eight hours.
Sometimes, when you offer a service level agreement with a customer, the support of the manufacturer or of the vendor is included. It's the only thing that, if you are providing services on an end-to-end basis, you have to consider. Sometimes, when you call Premier Support and you say, "Please, I need a solution before six hours," it doesn't matter for them. They say, "I have not six. I have eight, so don't call me if I'm in the eight hours."
How was the initial setup?
It's very simple to set up. To set up the terminals, it's very easy. You have a manual, and it's very easy to follow. You can configure functionalities for specific users or a specific group of users or things like that. It's great.
The time it takes to deploy depends on the number of terminals and it also depends on the number of different groups. Perhaps you have to configure the different policies for different groups. That might take longer than a straightforward setup. In an installation with, for example, 1,000 terminals, it typically takes less than a month -three weeks or so.
I don't personally handle the deployment myself, however. I offer it to clients. I'm not the one to actually do the manual work of implementing it.
The amount of people we need to deploy a solution depends on the number of terminals that we have to manage.
Some customers configure everything at the beginning and nothing changes over time. That said, we have other customers that they are continuously asking for changes. This group of customers will likely need three people more to handle maintenance. For every 1,000 devices, you typically need one and a half full-time employees.
What was our ROI?
In terms of ROI, it depends. If you have licenses included in your plan for M365, Microsoft 365, from the very beginning, if you have to sell that, it depends on the business case that you can do. It's different if you buy a CSP or LSP license.
One kind is considered as a cost and another is considered as an investment. The LSP is an investment.
In the products and services space, from a pay-per-use perspective, I don't see a relationship between this product and ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There are different kinds of licenses. We sell two licenses from Microsoft, the LSP or the CSP. The service that we have with Microsoft is based on the CSP kind, so the payment is monthly, considered as an expense, not an investment o asset. It depends on if you buy a set of licenses only for Intune - which can be sold separately, or can be included in M365.
What other advice do I have?
We are gold partners with Microsoft.
I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
For simple installations, for simple management, perhaps Intune is fine. However, for more complex installations, it might not be enough.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: business partners