Reply to post: Re: "Apple demonstrates they don't have a deep appreciation of the enterprise"

Apple update approach 'not realistic' in enterprise, but login 'shim' gets thumbsup

Richard 12 Silver badge

Re: "Apple demonstrates they don't have a deep appreciation of the enterprise"

And that IS the problem.

In a corporate environment, the IT dept need to do two major things with updates:

1) Test updates in sacrificial environments to make sure they won't take down important machines or software. Any updates that cause such issues must be blocked, and reported up to the supplier for a proper fix.

2) Make sure that all the company machines get the updates within a relatively short time period.

On macOS, this is basically impossible. They are not centrally manageable.

The end user chooses whether and when to install any updates, unless they set it to Auto in which case Apple chooses whether and when to install them.

So a user can easily install something that breaks their Mac or important business software, or conversely can decide never to install any updates at all, leaving the company at risk of all the security flaws Apple have fixed.

It seems that it is now possible for the IT dept to force macOS updates to install, but only by using a massive hammer. Which they absolutely won't do.

On Windows, end users get a popup dialog saying "your IT dept need to install updates, Now? In an hour? Tonight?"

Or something like that. So they can delay it until close of business if they are busy, but no later than that.

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