Microsoft Intune: Full Device Control Without Sacrificing Productivity
Larry Dávila, an endpoint management specialist, explains how to implement Intune to manage corporate laptops, phones, and tablets from a single console.
In today's companies, the security perimeter no longer exists. Employees work from home, from airports, from client sites — with corporate laptops, personal phones, and tablets that mix company data with personal apps.
Microsoft Intune is Microsoft's answer to this challenge: a unified endpoint management platform that lets you control, protect, and configure every device in your organization from a single console, regardless of the operating system or the user's location.
What exactly is Microsoft Intune?
Intune is the device and application management component of Microsoft Endpoint Manager. It enables:
- MDM (Mobile Device Management): Full device management — configuration, policies, remote wipe.
- MAM (Mobile Application Management): Management of corporate apps only, without touching the user's personal data.
- Compliance Policies: Define what a "secure device" means and block access to corporate resources if a device does not comply.
- Conditional Access: Integration with Microsoft Entra ID to allow or deny access based on the device's state.
Deployment scenarios: BYOD vs. corporate devices
One of the first decisions when implementing Intune is defining the management model for each type of device.
Corporate-owned devices
For laptops and devices that belong to the company, Intune offers full management:
- Automatic enrollment via Windows Autopilot — the device configures itself the first time it is turned on.
- Automatic enforcement of security policies: BitLocker, Windows Defender, USB restrictions.
- Distribution of corporate apps without user intervention.
- Complete inventory: hardware, installed software, compliance status.
Personal devices (BYOD)
For employees who use their own phone or laptop, the approach changes radically. No one wants their company to see their personal photos or be able to wipe their entire device.
With MAM without enrollment (MAM-WE), Intune manages only the corporate apps (Outlook, Teams, OneDrive) without touching the rest of the device:
- Corporate data in Outlook is encrypted and cannot be copied into personal apps.
- If the employee leaves the company, only the corporate data is wiped — the personal device stays intact.
- The user notices no restrictions in their personal apps.
This approach is especially relevant in Central America, where labor regulations make remote wiping of personal devices a legally sensitive area.
Compliance policies: defining the security standard
Compliance policies are the heart of Intune. They define what characteristics a device must have to be considered "secure" and be allowed to access corporate resources.
A typical Windows policy includes:
- Minimum operating system version: Windows 11 22H2 or later.
- BitLocker enabled: Full-disk encryption required.
- Windows Defender active: Antivirus with up-to-date definitions.
- Firewall enabled: No unauthorized exceptions.
- PIN or password: At least 8 characters, with complexity.
- No jailbreak or root: For mobile devices.
When a device does not meet any of these conditions, Intune can:
- Mark it as noncompliant and send a notification to the user.
- Block access to email, SharePoint, and Teams via Conditional Access.
- Wipe corporate data automatically after a grace period.
Windows Autopilot: the end of manual "unboxing"
Before Autopilot, preparing a new laptop for an employee took hours: installing Windows, joining the domain, installing apps, configuring the VPN, applying group policies. All manual, all error-prone.
With Windows Autopilot, the process is radically different:
- The vendor registers the device's hardware ID in the Azure AD tenant.
- The employee receives the laptop, turns it on, and connects to Wi-Fi.
- They sign in with their corporate Microsoft 365 account.
- Autopilot automatically applies all configurations, installs the apps, and joins the device to Azure AD.
- In 30-45 minutes, the employee has a fully configured device — with no IT team intervention.
For companies with employees spread across multiple Central American countries, this is transformative. There is no longer any need to send a technician or ask the employee to bring the device to a central office.
App distribution: the corporate software catalog
Intune lets you create a corporate app portal where employees can install approved software with one click, without needing local administrator rights.
Apps can be:
- Required: Installed automatically on all devices in the target group.
- Available: Users can install them from the Company Portal when they need them.
- Uninstalled: Removed automatically when they are no longer needed or when the user leaves the company.
This eliminates the need for PowerShell scripts, complex GPOs, or on-site visits to install software.
Integration with Microsoft Entra ID and Conditional Access
Intune's real power is unleashed when it is integrated with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) to implement Conditional Access.
A typical policy might be: "Only allow access to SharePoint and Exchange Online from devices that are enrolled in Intune AND marked as compliant."
The result: if an employee tries to access corporate email from an unmanaged personal device, they get a message saying they must enroll their device or use the Outlook app with MAM. Access from unauthorized browsers is blocked automatically.
Success metrics from real deployments
In projects I have led at companies in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama, the consistent results have been:
- A 70% reduction in support tickets related to device configuration.
- Onboarding time reduced from 4 hours to 45 minutes with Autopilot.
- 100% visibility into the compliance status of every endpoint.
- Elimination of legacy GPOs that no one understood and everyone was afraid to modify.
Where to start
If your organization already has Microsoft 365 Business Premium or any E3/E5 plan, Intune is already included in your license — you just need to turn it on and configure it.
The recommended starting point is always the same: begin with compliance policies and Conditional Access for existing devices, before attempting mass enrollment. This gives you immediate visibility into the security posture of your fleet without disrupting operations.
At Barona Enterprise, we have developed a phased Intune implementation process that lets Central American organizations adopt the platform gradually, without the chaos of a big-bang deployment.
