Group Policy: Fundamentals, Security, and the Managed Desktop, 2nd Edition

Appendix C

Windows Intune (And What It Means to Group Policy Admins)

Windows Intune is Microsoft’s pay-as-you-go endpoint and user management service (delivered as a cloud service.) Here’s the general idea:

• As of this writing, you pay $11 a month per device. (That’s in US dollars, your price may vary.) However, starting in 2013, Microsoft will be switching to a per-user model, where each user can have five managed devices. As of now, that price is unannounced.
• You get a handful of common management features to manage desktops, laptops, and Windows RT devices. Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines can be domain joined or not domain joined.
• Some functions overlap with existing domain-based Group Policy. (We’ll talk about that in a minute.) ...