Microsoft has updated Windows InTune to offer more support for ‘Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)’ mobile scenarios and integration with Microsoft’s systems management services

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Windows InTune is Microsoft’s cloud-based service for managing devices and device updates. Early iterations have not been overwhelmingly popular with too much focus on Windows client devices and not enough support for servers or non-Windows devices.

Aidan Finn has a great detailed post outlining some changes coming up and the pros and cons of using Windows InTune over other mobile device management (MDM) services – Changes coming to Windows InTune (and the market)

It seems InTune still isn’t covering servers but there is now integration with Systems Center to offer a more comprehensive solution. And there is also now integration with Office 365 for packaging up a complete subscription. From the article:

So here we see a bit of “best of both worlds”. System Center is used to deploy and manage the internal infrastructure and services on Hyper-V/private cloud. PCs and laptops on the corporate WAN are managed by System Center too.

Windows Intune is used to manage:

• Mobile devices not on the corporate WAN
• BYOD (laptops, tablets, phones) machines that are brought into the office and might sit on some isolated wireless networks with firewalled access to applications in the corporate WAN.
• Devices in small branch offices, that might otherwise be too complicated to manage in System Center

Recommended reading, with notes about the competition and outlines of the different options for small and medium-sized organisations.

[Update: 15th Jan]

Microsoft has issued a press release announcing the new management services available online and on-premise –Microsoft Advances the Cloud OS With New Management Solutions.

Some soundbites: (emphasis mine)

With the updated System Center, customers can centrally manage cloud-based applications and resources running in their datacenters, on a hosted service provider datacenter or on Windows Azure

Customers can also use System Center 2012 SP1 to back up their servers to Windows Azure to help protect against data loss and corruption.

With one management console, IT organizations can crack the bring-your-own-device challenge, helping ensure secure and productive employee experiences with applications and data on virtually any device, anywhere