A report on the JNUC keynote

The JAMF Nation User Conference (JNUC), the largest gathering of Apple IT professionals in the world, opened today in Minneapolis, MN. With support from 21 sponsors, the learning event includes 64 Jamf customers who are presenters and, for the first time, JNUC is including “how to” sessions and interactive labs for hands-on experience with Jamf products.

The keynote address opened the eighth annual conference with a parody of Adele’s “Hello” to announce the release of Jamf  Pro Version 10 and to apologize for the delay in the release. Version 10 of Jamf Pro will be generally available October 31. Plans are for smaller releases at a faster pace in 2018 and work has begun on the next release with beta testing to begin soon.

Jamf strives to release their products to coincide with the release of Apple’s products, but, as Jamf CEO Dean Hager explained, Jamf  chooses quality over early release. Another priority is “Apple functionality over Jamf functionality” to help organizations succeed with Apple.

Hager went on to talk about the use of each of Apple’s devices explaining that Mac is at the heart of Jamf. A recent survey shows that 75% of employees in the workplace choose the Mac in workplaces that allow a choice of devices. The growth of JAMF users is an indicator of the growth in use of Apple devices with over 13,000 JAMF customers using 9 million Apple devices.

Also at the keynote address, Brad Anderson, corporate vice president for Microsoft, explained Jamf’s integrated solution with Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS). 

David Vinca, CEO for eSpark, demonstrated the use of individualized learning using eSpark in PK-5 schools. He also announced that eSpark has selected Jamf as their exclusive MDM partner. In addition, exclusive pricing for eSpark is available now through January.