Apple thinks it has the tools to take your SMB to the next level

After launching in beta last year, Apple has announced that Apple Business Essentials is now available to all small businesses in the US.

The iPhone maker’s new service brings mobile device management, 24/7 Apple support and cloud storage from iCloud together into flexible subscription plans.

Apple Business Essentials is designed to support SMBs throughout the entire device management life cycle from device setup to device upgrades while also providing strong security, prioritized support, data storage and cloud backup. It begins with simple employee onboarding which allows a small business to easily configure, deploy and manage the company’s products from anywhere.

VP of enterprise and education marketing at Apple, Susan Prescott provided further insight on the company’s complete solution for SMBs in a press release, saying

“Apple has a deep and decades-long commitment to helping small businesses thrive. From dedicated business teams in our stores to the App Store Small Business Program, our goal is to help each company grow, compete, and succeed. We look forward to bringing Apple Business Essentials to even more small businesses to simplify device management, storage, support, and repairs. Using this new service leads to invaluable time savings for customers — including those without dedicated IT staff — that they can invest back into their business.”

Apple Business Essentials

One of the most useful features in Apple Business Essentials is Collections which allows groups of apps to be delivered to employees or teams while settings such as VPN configurations, Wi-Fi passwords and more can be automatically pushed to devices.

To get started, employees simply need to sign in to their work account on their iPhone, iPad or Mac using a Managed Apple ID. Once this is done, they will have access to everything they need to be productive including the new Apple Business Essentials app from where they can download their organization’s work apps.

Managed Apple IDs for employees can be created by federating with Microsoft Azure, Azure Director and later this spring with Google Workspace identity services. This allows employees to log into their business laptops using a single business username and passwords.

Apple Business Essentials also works with both company-provided and personal devices and with Apple’s User Enrollment feature, employees’ personal information stays private and cryptographically separated from work data.

In addition to Apple Business Essentials, Apple has announced the launch of AppleCare+ for Business Essentials which provides organizations with 24/7 access to phone support and up to two device repairs per plan per year by individual, group or device. Employees can initiate repairs directly from the Apple Business Essentials app and an Apple-trained technician will come onsite in as little as four hours to get their devices back up and running.

Apple Business Essentials with up to 2TB of iCloud cloud storage starts at $ 2.99 per month after a two-month free trial while plans for AppleCare+ for Apple Business Essentials start at $ 9.99 per month.

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Microsoft Teams update will level the playing field for all users

Microsoft will soon roll out updates for Teams that will benefit users running the collaboration software in a virtual machine (VM).

As per three new entries to the company’s product roadmap, Microsoft Teams will soon allow users of Azure, Citrix and VMware virtual desktop services to utilize give and take controls during video meetings.

Give controls allow Teams users to recruit fellow attendees to help them present, make changes to a file and perform other actions. With take controls, meanwhile, people can request they be given these kinds of administrative privileges.

Virtualization and Microsoft Teams

As many organizations migrate to a hybrid working model, whereby workers split their time between the home and office, video meetings and virtual presentations will continue to play a major role in professional life.

It’s also common for companies to use virtual desktop infrastructure to enable secure remote work. But so far, people running Microsoft Teams in a virtual machine have not had access to the full breadth of functionality, including give and take controls.

The effect of this upcoming round of updates will be to create greater consistency across Microsoft Teams environments, and open up access to core presentation functionality to those required to use virtual desktop services by their IT teams.

Support for Azure Window Desktop and Citrix services is due to arrive in March, with support for VMware’s hypervisor set to follow one month later.

TechRadar Pro has asked Microsoft whether users of other popular virtualization services (Amazon WorkSpaces, Nutanix XI Frame etc.) can expect to benefit from similar updates in future.

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