This research note is restricted to the personal use of danrob2@washington.edu.
This research note is restricted to the personal use of danrob2@washington.edu.
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Create deployment rings to support Windows 10 "as a service" model by using EMM controls to
group users by branch readiness levels and frequency of updates.
Strategic Planning Assumption
By 2022, 30% of corporate-owned Windows 10 PCs will be managed using an EMM-style
management approach, up from less than 5% today.
Analysis
Microsoft continues to enhance the set of Windows 10 management APIs, making it easier for
organizations to adopt a mobile-centric approach to managing not only PCs, but also new Windows
devices such as the Surface Hub (see Note 1). Still, most organizations are currently managing their
PC deployments using traditional methods using client management tools (CMTs). As modern
management capabilities in Windows 10 continue to mature and the reliance on Win32 applications
continues to decline, the operational benets of managing PCs with enterprise mobility
management (EMM) over traditional management (such as bypassing traditional imaging, removing
domain constraints, and consolidating skills and tools for managing different devices) will drive
more organizations to adopt an EMM approach.
However, most organizations will nd the shift to the new paradigm very daunting. Windows 10 has
a long tail of mission-critical Win32 applications that are not manageable by most EMM products,
and EMM policies are not as granular as group policies. This means, in the short term, EMM
management of Windows PCs will be immediately benecial to a small segment of users, but over
the long term it enables organizations to support a truly perimeterless work environment by
enforcing a consistent set of policies across all endpoints — mobile devices, wearables and PCs
alike.
Recognizing this, most EMM vendors are making improvements and providing alternatives that
make the transition to an EMM architecture easier. Unied endpoint management (UEM) is the next
step in the evolution of EMM tools to manage a wide variety of devices (PCs and mobile devices
alike) either directly or through coexistence with a client management tool.
This research provides guidance on managing the complete device life cycle using EMM — device
enrollment and management, application management, managing OS updates, and eventual
unenrollment. See Figure 1 for complete device life cycle management using EMM/UEM
capabilities.
Page 2 of 13 Gartner, Inc. | G00349960