Authors - @Kiran Kumar Naidu Srp and @Prasad Kulkarni

Introduction –

At WWDC 2025, Apple introduced a significant update aimed at simplifying device management for enterprises and IT administrators. One of the key announcements was a new capability that addresses a long-standing challenge in the mobility ecosystem—migrating devices from one Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution to another without requiring a factory reset. This advancement enables seamless transitions between MDM platforms, preserving user data and device settings. With this new functionality, organizations can now transfer devices directly from their current MDM vendor to IBM MaaS360, streamlining the migration process and improving overall operational efficiency.

Advantages of Moving to MaaS360 –

• Support to quick enrollments, policy enforcement, app distribution and Installation.
• Wide range of devices and ecosystem – Apple (iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV) Android (Different vendors and flavours), Windows Devices.
• Good content libraries integrated with systems like Microsoft Azure, SharePoint, and Active Directory.
• MaaS360 enforces zero trust access, real-time monitoring, and automated policy enforcement, protecting sensitive data across BYOD and corporate devices.
• MaaS360 uses Watson AI for real-time analysis of device data, tracking vulnerabilities, phishing attempts, malicious apps, and unsafe Wi-Fi before they cause harm.
• MaaS360 provides strong, customer service including quick issue resolution and extensive training resources.

Prerequisites -

• Apple Business Manager account 
• Admin account in ABM with device enrollment manager permissions.
• Old MDM
• New MaaS360 account configured and ready for migration.

Pre migration steps -

• Keep record of your devices.
• Capture some of the device attributes like device name , serial number and os version, this helps to know which devices are eligible for migration. Since this migration is only supported for iOS26 / Mac OS 26 devices. 
• Set up required configurations in Maas360 , required policies (vpn , wifi, sso  etc),app distributions , scheduled actions (AO) compliance rules , scripts etc. 
• Set up apple push notification certificate in Maas360
  

NOTE: The migration steps for all apple devices under Apple Business Manager / Apple School Manager (i.e. iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV) are the same.

Configuration on the Apple Business Manager (ABM) –

1.   Sign in to ABM, go to Preferences -> Device Management Services -> Add.

2.   On the MaaS360 portal, download the Public Key and Upload the file in the Service Settings section and Save.

3.    Navigate to Devices -> All Devices -> Assign Device Management -> Click on Assign.


NOTE – You can also multi select or select all devices you want to move to MaaS360 MDM.

4.    Select the DEP token earlier created from the drop down and Add Deadline.

The Migration –

1.   On the MaaS360 portal and upload the DEP token and assign a profile (If a default profile is not present).

2.   On the device, the end user will start getting an alert to start the migration which can be optionally postponed by the user (Until the deadline date/time after which the user must mandatorily migrate).

3.    On clicking “Start Enrollment”, The migration begins with an alert to restart the device.

4.    Post restart, device management screen appears with the Organization name registered to your ABM.

5.   Optionally, you can check the profile assigned to the device by simply clicking on the “Learn more about device management” link.

NOTE: If DEP profile has authentication enabled, then on the device an auth prompt will appear for the end user to input auth details.

6.   Select Enroll your device button, it will take 1-2 minutes for the enrollment to complete to MaaS360 services.

7.  Post enrollment, the user can navigate to Settings -> General -> Mobile Device Management, to verify that MaaS360 MDM configuration is installed on the device.

Post Migration –

Policy – The default iOS policy will get assigned on enrollment completion, alternatively, if the pre-configured policy was assigned to All devices group / iOS devices group then it gets assigned to the device.

Apps – All the iTunes, B2B, Enterprise and VPP licensed apps which was preassigned to the All-devices group/ iOS devices group, will be installed on the device 

Rules – Similar to policies, these must be preassigned to the above groups and post enrollments the assigned rule will be applicable on the devices.

Conclusion -

Organisations migrating from other MDMs to MaaS360 can leverage Apple’s new iOS 26 migration flow with DEP and quickly re-enroll at scale without having to reset the device, which reduces the downtime significantly while gaining MaaS360’s policy, apps, rules and other capabilities with ease.