JumpCloud has released its Q2 2023 small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) IT Trends Report, “Flexibility and Ingenuity: What’s Powering Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise IT Management in 2023” that highlights some interesting trends for Apple and its continued growth in the enterprise.
“Modern IT management is a balance of responding to current needs while remaining nimble enough to adapt to the unknown. Flexibility, ingenuity, and innovation have never been more critical for those in the IT trenches,” said Rajat Bhargava, CEO, JumpCloud. “Admins want convenience and centralized management, as shown by the 77% that agree or strongly agree that they would prefer a single solution/tool to do their jobs. Admins are hungry for an open IT approach that delivers on this promise, an approach that unifies and centralizes identity and allows organizations to scale while solving efficiency, complexity, and cost challenges.”
JumpCloud commissioned this biannual survey of IT admins from small and medium-sized organizations to gain unique insights into the day-to-day experiences of IT teams who power and manage the day-to-day operations. This edition of the survey polled IT admins in the US, UK, and France. It highlights that while IT teams are successfully managing their environments, they need solutions built around an open directory platform. 77% of IT admins want a single tool to do their job, organizations continue to end up using many more leading to tool sprawl.
The impact of Apple
Small and medium-sized enterprises continue to respond to the hybrid workplace by offering a device choice program 20% of SMEs (in US/France/UK) rely on macOS Macs are more popular in US among those surveyed, with an adoption rate of 23%.
Apple’s popularity in the US is strong, though. Just one-third (33%) of all surveyed SME IT admins (US/France/UK) expect their Mac use to increase over the next year, but in the US alone over half (56%) of IT admins expect their macOS to increase in the coming year.
Device breakdown in SMEs by region:
- For the UK: Windows: 66%, Linux: 14%, Mac: 20%
- For US: Windows: 57%, Linux: 20%, Mac: 23%
- For France: Windows: 69%, Linux: 14%, Mac: 17%
- Aggregate: Windows: 64%, Linux: 16%, Mac: 20%
When asked, “Over the next year, I expect… “
- (Aggregate) 46% expect Windows device use to increase, 33% expect macOS use to increase and 26% expect Linux use to increase.
- (UK) 41% expect Windows device use to increase, 31% expect macOS use to increase, and 19% expect Linux use to increase.
- (US) 56% expect Windows device use to increase, 40% expect macOS device use to increase, and 35% expect Linux use to increase.
- (France) 40% expect Windows device use to increase, 27% expect macOS device use to increase, and 23% expect Linux use to increase.
Business considerations
- Budgets have continued to rise despite challenging macroeconomic environments. 80% have seen IT budgets increase over the past year. 13% have seen an increase of over 20%. 64% expect their IT budget to increase over the second half of 2023. Only 9% expect their IT budgets to decrease.
- IT admins haven’t been immune to layoffs despite security concerns. 30% of all surveyed admins reported their organization had gone through layoffs within the last six months. The layoffs were higher in the US, where 40% of US admins reported layoffs. In terms of coming layoffs, 77% of all IT admins anticipate more layoffs, in line with 78% of US-only admins who anticipate layoffs.
9to5Mac’s Take
Tool sprawl in the enterprise is one of the biggest problems, and I believe it leads to a security problem. When companies rely on tools for individual needs, they end up in data siloes. I believe that’s why we’re seeing trends like the OCSF format, security data lakes, and industry consolidation. IT teams ultimately want solutions – not tools to manage. A key state in this report is that 49% of IT admins agree that they’re more concerned about their organization’s security posture now than they were six months ago. Security is now a board-level problem – not just an IT problem.
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