The challenge for Apple is going to be their unwillingness to integrate with others. Business Manager only integrates with MS Azure Active Directory for IAM. The vast majority of small business do not have Azure Active Directory. They either have nothing, or they have Google Workspace. Apple needs to not just launch a competitor for AD. They need to properly support integrated directory services with a broader range…
At the MSP I work at every single customer we have uses Azure AD. G Suite isn't a proper business e-mail solution for a business with any more than 3 users - Exchange and Azure AD are the gold standard for cloud based office for SMB.
Sorry, I know tons of highly effective organizations, large and small, that enjoy the benefits of using Workspace for email, calendaring, and the whole rest of the lot.
Back in 2007, I was supporting massive educational organizations, with hundreds of thousands of users, to move their entire email and calendaring operations to the then-called GSuite. That was 14 years ago.
Google created the cloud-based office solution. MS has been playing catch-up, trying to lovingly recreate the experience of managing an on-prem Windows/AD/Exchange stack for the metaverse equivalent of self flagellation.