Many market watchers, including us, believe that a good portion of Apple Vision Pro’s adoption in the near term will be enterprises as opposed to consumers. As we noted last week, the price tag and value proposition make it more aligned with enterprises, as well as developers looking to build spatial muscles.
Those enterprise use cases include everything from remote design collaboration to line-of-sight support for field technicians (think: repair or IT services). The same value propositions have erstwhile resonated with enterprise users of Streem and others. It’s more about productivity than fun & games.
The question then becomes, what’s the SMB market? It’s likely very small in the near term (not unlike consumer adoption). But Apple is playing a long game with a product whose V1 is essentially an overpriced dev kit. It’s hoping that consumers, as well as SMBs, are part of the long-term picture.
To that end, one thing that could ease adoption and instill greater SMB confidence is device management. Such programs are offered as security blankets to businesses that buy laptops and smartphones, including on-demand IT support and service plans. Think: Applecare for the enterprise.
De-Risk the Decision
A device management program has already been in place at Apple for some time, and this week it announced it will incorporate Vision Pro. Apple knows this will be required to get enterprises over the adoption hump, as it can ease uncertainty and de-risk the decision to adopt an unproven technology.
Specifically, Apple will include Vision Pro in the existing device management program, which likely incited a sigh of relief among IT departments throughout the land. They can now manage Vision Pro in the same workflows that they currently use for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and even wearables like Watch and AirPods.
Vision Pro’s compatibility with device management will be baked right into VisionOS 1.1 and its future versions. It will support single sign-on, identity management (Apple IDs for employees), and a wide range of security features. These features will evolve as VisionOS and Vision Pro themselves do.
One of the benefits, beyond support and repair, is easy employee onboarding. IT departments – or anyone in charge of tech at smaller companies – can rapidly and remotely activate employee devices. Equally important, they can do the same in reverse when an employee leaves (or a device is stolen).
Spatial Data
As for Vision Pro’s SMB opportunity, it’s unclear if the above moves will extend to Apple’s SMB-focused device management program. Known as Apple Business Essentials (ABE), it was launched in 2022 to bring enterprise-level IT support to SMBs, including many of the support features outlined above.
For example, one of ABE’s hallmarks was managing employees’ own devices, which some SMBs do to cut hardware costs. It lets SMBs partition business sections of devices for backup, storage, and security. Then, in the cases of employee turnover, those sections can be deleted remotely for peace of mind.
These functions all speak to privacy and security, which are as important (sometimes more important) to companies than individuals. So with these programs in place, tech providers again offer a sort of security blanket that can accelerate adoption. Apple, as a privacy-centric player, has logically prioritized this.
Back to Vision Pro, its integration with device management programs is logical not just because it requires an extra confidence boost. The use cases themselves could be particularly risky. We’re talking spatial data such as factory floors or product blueprints. Apple knows that sales resistance will be up.
