Glossary
ABM (Apple Business Manager)
ABM stands for Apple Business Manager, the free web portal where an organization registers the Apple devices it owns, assigns them to an MDM server for automated enrollment, buys apps in volume and manages its Managed Apple Accounts. For an IT team the acronym appears everywhere from reseller order forms to MDM settings, so it's worth knowing exactly what it covers and what it doesn't.
How it works
Apple launched the portal in 2018 to replace two separate ones: the Device Enrollment Program and the Volume Purchase Program. The acronym ABM stuck immediately, alongside ASM for Apple School Manager, its education twin. Since 2021 there's also Apple Business Essentials, a paid bundle that adds Apple's own light MDM and iCloud storage for small businesses; not the same thing, and a frequent source of confusion.
ABM has three jobs. It holds the list of devices your organization owns, added by an Apple-authorized reseller at purchase or by you through Apple Configurator. It assigns each device to an MDM server, which triggers Automated Device Enrollment at the next setup. And through Apps and Books it buys app licenses in volume, free or paid, and hands them to the MDM for device-based assignment. Custom Apps, the private distribution channel for in-house iOS apps, also arrive here.
It also issues Managed Apple Accounts (Apple dropped the "Managed Apple ID" name in 2024) and can federate them with Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace, so an employee's work identity on an iPad matches the one in the directory.
The detailed entry on Apple Business Manager covers the enrollment flow, the 30-day provisional window and the ownership model. This page is the acronym decoder.
Why it matters for a fleet
No ABM, no automated enrollment, no volume app licensing, no supervision without a cable. Every serious Apple deployment starts by opening an ABM account, verifying the organization with a D-U-N-S number, and asking the reseller to link purchases to it.
The acronym also shows up in ways that trip people. A reseller asks for your "ABM organization ID". A tender asks whether the MDM "integrates with ABM and VPP" (VPP is the old name for Apps and Books, still used by everyone). An MDM setting asks you to upload the "ABM server token" that you downloaded from the portal. All of it points to the same account.
One limit to remember: ABM only knows the devices you register. A phone bought at a retail store is invisible to it until someone adds it through Apple Configurator.
How Appaloosa handles it
Appaloosa connects to your ABM account with a server token, and from then on every device assigned to it enrolls automatically at first boot, supervised, while apps bought in Apps and Books and Custom Apps sync into the Appaloosa catalog for per-group assignment. The integration, from token setup to app sync, is described on the Apple Business Manager page.
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