Microsoft Intune vs traditional MDM for Australian SMBs

Mobile device management used to be a checkbox. Buy MaaS360 or AirWatch, push the agent, mark “we have MDM” on the compliance form, move on. Through 2025 and into 2026, that model broke. Microsoft Intune became the default for the majority of Australian SMBs, and the gap between Intune-native organisations and businesses still running traditional MDM is now significant. The honest comparison is not what most resellers are pitching, and the wrong choice is expensive both ways.

The right answer for any given business depends on three things most people skip in the analysis. Existing identity provider, application portfolio, and the regulatory environment you are operating in. Let us walk through what actually matters.

What “traditional MDM” means in 2026

The category covers everything that is not Intune. The current market includes Jamf for Apple-heavy fleets, VMware Workspace ONE for mixed enterprises, IBM MaaS360 for legacy installations, and Sophos Mobile or Kaseya for businesses that want their MSP toolset to handle MDM as well. Each has a different design philosophy.

The shared characteristic is that traditional MDM grew out of phone management. The original problem was an enterprise BlackBerry fleet, then later iPhone and Android adoption inside organisations whose IT was built around managing servers and PCs. Mobile was a separate domain with separate tooling, and the MDM products reflected that.

Intune grew out of a different lineage. Microsoft built Intune as part of the Endpoint Manager family, which sits inside Microsoft Entra ID and the broader Microsoft 365 control plane. The design assumption is that mobile, laptop, and identity are managed together rather than as separate domains. For organisations on Microsoft 365, that integration is the strongest argument for Intune. For organisations that are not, that integration is irrelevant.

Where Intune genuinely wins

Intune is the right answer for any Australian SMB that meets all three of the following.

Your identity provider is Microsoft Entra ID, formerly known as Azure AD. If your users sign in to Microsoft 365 every day, you already have the foundation. Intune slots into the same identity, the same Conditional Access policies, the same compliance reporting. The administrative burden of a unified control plane is meaningfully lower than running Intune for laptops and a separate MDM for phones.

You hold a Microsoft 365 Business Premium or higher licence, or Microsoft 365 E3 or E5. Intune is included in those SKUs. If you are already paying for the licence, the marginal cost of running Intune is zero. Paying for a separate MDM on top is paying twice. The same applies to organisations on EMS E3 or E5.

Your fleet is predominantly Windows laptops, iPhones, and Android. Intune supports macOS, but the depth of macOS configuration capability lags Jamf significantly. Organisations with substantial Mac populations frequently end up running Jamf for Apple and Intune for everything else, which negates the unified control plane benefit.

When those three conditions are met, the unified control plane benefit is real. Conditional Access policies in Entra ID directly reference Intune device compliance. M365 security configuration becomes coherent rather than fragmented across platforms. Reporting and audit evidence draws from a single source.

Where traditional MDM still wins

Three patterns where the legacy alternative is genuinely the better choice.

Apple-dominant fleets where macOS depth matters. Jamf remains the gold standard for managing Apple devices. The breadth of configuration profiles, application packaging capability, and Apple-specific automation outpaces Intune by a wide margin. Creative agencies, post-production houses, design studios, and Apple-first professional services firms get more from Jamf than they ever will from Intune.

Organisations not running Microsoft 365. The Intune value proposition collapses if your identity is in Google Workspace, Okta, or a self-hosted directory. Without the Entra ID integration, Intune becomes “another MDM” rather than “the MDM that lives in your identity provider”. Google Workspace customers running Apple fleets are usually better served by Jamf plus Google’s own endpoint controls.

Highly regulated mobile environments. Defence supply chain, regulated finance, and government contractors sometimes have specific accreditation requirements (IRAP, FIPS, Common Criteria) where the legacy MDM vendors have certified configurations that Intune is still working through. The certifications matter where they are contractually required. Where they are not, Intune’s capability is functionally equivalent.

The cost comparison most resellers skip

The honest cost comparison for an Australian SMB looks different depending on the existing licence picture.

If you are already paying for Microsoft 365 Business Premium ($30.20 AUD per user per month at 2026 list pricing), Intune is included. Marginal cost is zero. The cost of running traditional MDM alongside is the full per-device licence, typically $4 to $12 per device per month depending on vendor and tier. For a 50-person business with 70 devices, that is $3,400 to $10,000 per year of additional spend that buys nothing the Intune licence does not already provide.

If you are not on Microsoft 365, Intune as a standalone product costs $11.16 AUD per user per month at list. That is comparable to the traditional MDM market on a per-device basis but does not bring the Entra ID integration that makes Intune actually valuable. At that price point, Jamf for Apple environments or Workspace ONE for mixed environments is often the better fit.

The cost of running both, which is depressingly common, is roughly double what either alone would cost. We see this pattern most often in businesses that adopted a traditional MDM in 2018 to 2021, then moved to Microsoft 365 in 2022 to 2024, and never consolidated. The migration off the legacy MDM is real work, typically four to eight weeks for a mid-sized fleet, but the ongoing savings are substantial.

The migration most businesses are putting off

For Australian SMBs running traditional MDM on top of Microsoft 365, the consolidation question is overdue. The typical reasons businesses delay are predictable.

The first is sunk cost. You bought MaaS360 or AirWatch three years ago and the contract runs another 18 months. Walking away from a paid licence feels wasteful. The reality is that the licence is sunk regardless. The decision worth making is whether to run two tools in parallel for 18 months or invest the migration effort now and stop paying twice.

The second is “if it ain’t broke”. The existing MDM is working. Devices are enrolled. Reporting runs. Nobody is complaining. The cost of disruption feels higher than the cost of status quo. This is reasonable until you factor in the Intune integration with Conditional Access, compliance reporting, and identity. The status quo is not free, it is just hidden in inefficiency.

The third is internal skill. The team knows the existing MDM. Intune is new ground. The retraining and re-policy build is real work. This is a legitimate cost, and it is the right cost to weigh against the consolidation benefit. The honest answer for most businesses is that the work is six to eight weeks of focused effort plus ongoing operational benefit forever after.

The configuration mistakes we see most often

Intune deployment failures look the same across Australian businesses. The four most common.

What we recommend

For Australian SMBs running Microsoft 365 Business Premium or higher, Intune is the right answer. If you are running traditional MDM in parallel, the consolidation work is overdue. Six to eight weeks of effort closes a recurring cost and tightens the security posture.

For Apple-dominant creative and professional services firms, Jamf remains the right tool for Apple device management. Pair it with Intune for Windows and Android in mixed environments, or accept the dual-tool overhead if your fleet is uniformly Apple.

For organisations not on Microsoft 365, Intune is rarely the right choice. The standalone product is fine but the value comes from the M365 ecosystem integration. Workspace ONE, Kandji, or Jamf paired with Google Workspace endpoint management generally fits better.

For any business currently running both Intune and a traditional MDM, the consolidation question should be on the table at the next budget review. Running both is rarely the right answer for more than a transitional period.