Apple Business Essentials is a subscription service that brings together device management, 24/7 support, and cloud storage. It enables small business to manage every iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TVs throughout the business.
$8.25
per device, per month
esper.io
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Esper enables device management for company-owned and managed iOS and Android tablets, kiosks, smart phones, and IoT edge devices. Esper’s device platform can be used to manage an entire multi-OS device fleet from a single pane of glass.
$2
per month per device
Pricing
Apple Business Essentials
esper.io
Editions & Modules
Fleetsmith Managed
$8.25
per device, per month
Genesis
$2
per month per device
Bridge
$4
per month per device
Architect
$6
per month per device
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apple Business Essentials
esper.io
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
Free unlimited trial for up to 10 devices
Device Intelligence free for unlimited devices
iOS/tvOS devices free during beta period
Fleetsmith is well suited for companies with a lot of Macs, Mac minis, Apple tvs, etc., that are all over the place (different offices, states, countries, floors, remote employees, etc). It makes the management of these central where it would be almost impossible otherwise.
We use it to force Kiosk mode on tablets where we will have multiple users accessing the device, but want to limit what they can do on the device. There is also a way to deploy custom apps for kiosk mode and I could see that working well as a time clock or point of sale system.
Fleetsmith does a great job of being unobtrusive on managed devices. After initial deployment, one might never know it’s there except when it prompts to enforce a software update.
Fleetsmith has sensible defaults and relatively few decisions for the administrator to make; for most applications and configurations, it’s sufficient to enforce a minimum version. For more complex use cases, I suggest falling back on Fleetsmith’s ability to install tools such as Puppet and run arbitrary shell commands.
We were told that this was in the works and it would be implemented at the beginning of the year 2019. That has still not happened and whenever we ask about this functionality we cannot get a good answer.
Management of devices that are already in the field—we were told that in order to use Fleetsmith as we would like (pushing apps to devices) we would have to get each device and set them up from a Mac.
It's very simple to use. Sometimes a little too simple, so it can be tempting to fiddle around or tweaks settings that might have annoying downstream impacts. But it's easy to rollback or disable changes anyway. My only wish is that each option set should have its own deeper explanation about the impact of the options on real-world users or security concerns.
Fantastic support. I have had a few queries on how to go about doing things in the best way and the support at Fleetsmith was always very quick to reply and with excellent advice and detail to solve the problem and lead is into our best use of their product.
I include Samsung Knox as a competitor in this field because you can have a similar setup with any Samsung devices purchased through a reseller as well. We have gone down this route for a few devices that have needed to be Android and the difference between the two platforms is night-and-day. Apple Business Essentials Manager is much easier to use and manage.
esper.io allows for bulk configuration of deployed devices. esper.io is also easier to set up and start compared to other competitors. The software installs are smaller and quicker. Great support for different methods for onboarding devices.Support for various OS and Device configurations. Free for 100 devices; provide ample testing before committing to any purchase.
Lesser cost for managing device, instead of getting more manpower to do it manually.
Lesser security threats (which will cause financial damage) as all devices are configured according the the company security policies, such as firewalls, media management, app security updates.
