What Is Microsoft Intune Used For?

If you think Intune is just another way to push policies to laptops, you’re missing the bigger picture. What if I told you the real power of Intune isn’t just about managing devices—but about controlling identity, data, and apps as part of one interconnected ecosystem? Today we’re unpacking why Microsoft Intune isn’t just an IT tool, but a strategic layer in Microsoft 365’s security and compliance model. Stick around, because once you see how Intune works with Azure AD and Defender, you’ll start rethinking what device management really means.Why Intune Is More Than Device ManagementMost people still think Intune is just about pushing policies to laptops, and honestly, that’s not surprising. For years, device management really did mean sending down settings, locking some features, and hoping nothing broke in the process. The story used to be about controlling hardware from a distance—disable this port, enforce that password length, roll out updates during maintenance windows. If you were around in the days of Group Policy Objects ruling everything inside a corporate domain, you know exactly how rigid that model felt. It was built for a world where every computer sat on the same network, connected directly to your servers, and rarely left the perimeter. Back then, laptops were an exception, not the rule.The problem is that style of management didn’t age well. Once remote work exploded, the cracks in that system became glaring. Pushing a policy through older tools often meant conflicts—two settings layered on top of each other that looked fine on paper, but in reality locked people out on Monday morning. It was clunky, and worse, it was reactive. If someone took a laptop home and it went off the corporate VPN, your policies didn’t carry much weight until that device came back onto the network. And then there was identity—or more accurately, the total lack of it. The system didn’t care who was signing in as long as the machine matched the configuration rules. That might feel safe at first glance, but in reality it left big gaps.Think about it like this: managing devices alone is like locking your office door every night while leaving every single window wide open. The door looks secure, and technically it is, but you’ve ignored the bigger picture of how people actually get in and out. That’s the issue with treating Intune as nothing more than a way to put a lock on a laptop screen. It misses the wider scope of what’s needed in a modern environment where employees log in from anywhere, on any device, and expect work apps to just function.This is where Intune shifts from being a narrow tool to playing a much bigger role. Instead of only focusing on the device, its mission is to sit across identity, applications, and security together. You don’t just push a policy—you shape how users interact with their data, which apps can be opened, and under what conditions they gain access. That means your office windows are closed, your doors are locked, and every entry point is tied to the same key system. It creates alignment across layers that older management models couldn’t touch.Any IT admin can tell you a story of policies breaking workflows. Maybe Outlook stops syncing because some conditional rule wasn’t aligned with the VPN client. Maybe Teams calls fail because a certificate expired and got locked behind a restrictive device configuration. Those situations waste productivity and cause frustration because devices were managed in isolation without considering how people actually use them. By operating holistically, Intune helps reduce those surprises—it doesn’t just enforce, it coordinates.And when you think about scale, that coordination matters even more. Intune can work for a 50-person startup that just wants to keep personal email separate from corporate data, but it also scales across multinational enterprises running tens of thousands of endpoints. The important part is that the same platform flexes across those scenarios. It doesn’t require one set of tools for small shops and another for global companies. The management plane adapts, which not only reduces vendor sprawl but also streamlines how policy consistency and compliance can be handled across different regions.So the real payoff here isn’t that Intune makes it easier to configure laptops. That’s almost table stakes now. The value is that it evolves device management into a strategic security layer, one tied tightly to compliance obligations and the reality of today’s workforce. When you use it properly, device management becomes just one piece of a larger puzzle that ensures apps, data, and identities are aligned under the same protection model. It’s bigger than devices—it’s about orchestrating trust across everything that touches your business data.But how does it pull that off in practice? The answer isn’t found inside the device settings at all—it comes from how Intune connects directly with Azure Active Directory.The Identity Connection: Intune + Azure ADWhat if managing a device wasn’t really about the device at all, but about who’s signing in? That shift in perspective is where things start to click with Intune, because the real control lies not in the device itself, but in the identity tied to it. A laptop or a phone without the person behind it is just hardware—an expensive brick that doesn’t open anything by itself. But the moment someone signs in with credentials that can access corporate data, everything changes. Access, risk, and compliance all follow the identity, not the machine.That’s where Azure Active Directory comes in. If you think of Microsoft’s security ecosystem as a body, Azure AD is the brain. It handles decisions about who someone is, what they’re allowed to see, and whether conditions are safe enough to let them through the door. Intune takes its cues from that identity intelligence. Instead of just knowing that a device exists, policies flow based on who’s using it, what their role is, and under what circumstances the access is happening. It’s not about raw control over a laptop—it’s about centralizing trust around identity, then letting the device management layer enforce decisions that make sense in context.Now consider the flaws of a device-only model. If a laptop is lost or stolen, traditional tools give you the option to remotely wipe it. That’s useful, but it only partially addresses the risk. If credentials are cached, or if an attacker already figured out the password, data may be compromised before any wipe takes place. When the focus is the machine, you’re always reacting. By tying access back to identity, the balance shifts. Intune connected to Azure AD means even if someone has a company laptop, their ability to open sensitive files or applications can be limited unless their identity checks out with current policies.Here’s a real-world example: say a contractor logs in from their personal laptop. What’s the bigger concern—the laptop itself, or the identity behind it? For most organizations, that contractor doesn’t need unrestricted access to the corporate network, nor should they get the same treatment as a full-time employee. With identity as the anchor point, Intune can recognize it’s an external account, and through Conditional Access, enforce rules tailored to that context. Maybe access is limited only to a web version of Outlook and Teams, with no option to download files locally. That decision isn’t based on guessing the state of one random laptop—it’s based on trust applied precisely around who the user is.Conditional Access becomes the traffic cop in this system. Intune defines device health, and Azure AD enforces whether that device and user can move forward. Together, they create a system where access isn’t a simple yes or no. It’s contextual. Picture a user with an outdated operating system. They try to log into OneDrive from that machine. Instead of blocking them outright, Intune policies can require they install updates first. Until then, they’re prevented from accessing sensitive apps or data. The system is dynamic—users become compliant, access is restored, workflows continue without an IT admin manually stepping in.And that’s the real game changer. This shift moves us from a device-first approach—where all the focus sits on pushing rules to laptops or phones—to an identity-first approach that follows the user across whatever device they choose. It stops being about locking down one endpoint, and turns into shaping conditional trust across the entire workforce. Devices come and go. People use multiple platforms daily. But the identity is the consistent thread, and tying Intune to Azure AD means your security and compliance policies travel with the user wherever they go.It also means access stops being static. Instead of a device either being trusted or untrusted, the system adapts continuously. For every log-in, the health of both the identity and the endpoint are assessed in real time. Suspicious sign-in? Access can be limited. Device flagged for malware risk? High-value apps are automatically blocked. By making security follow both user and device context, organizations create tighter controls while still allowing flexibility for modern, mobile work.So the payoff here is simple but powerful: when Intune integrates deeply with Azure AD, access decisions stop being binary and start being intelligent. They become about aligning identity, device health, and business risk into a smarter, adaptive model. What was once rigid policy enforcement turns into contextual access control that flexes as conditions change. Security grows sharper without dragging productivity to a halt, and IT teams gain peace of mind that no single factor—like a misplaced laptop—will compromise their environment.Now that devices are tied directly to identity, the next step is protecting what really matters: the apps where business data actually lives.Securing the Apps That Power the BusinessDevices and identities are important, but

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