SCCM’s Long, Slow Death: Why Intune is Dancing on its Grave
System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) has served IT teams for years, but its slow death is undeniable as Microsoft pivots toward Intune and cloud-first solutions. The shift reflects the changing needs of modern IT environments, driven by mobility, remote work, and cloud-based services. Let’s dive deeper into why SCCM’s days are numbered and what you can expect as it fades into the background.
1. Legacy Infrastructure Doesn’t Cut It Anymore
SCCM was a powerhouse in its prime, built for a time when most IT operations were centralized and on-premises. Enterprises relied on SCCM’s complex infrastructure, including SQL databases, distribution points, and local servers to deploy updates and applications. Back then, it made perfect sense—but in today’s cloud-driven world, these requirements are cumbersome. IT teams now prefer lightweight solutions that don’t require large on-prem servers and heavy management infrastructure.
SCCM's reliance on physical infrastructure makes it difficult for IT teams to manage today’s distributed, hybrid workforce, where devices are scattered across multiple locations. Intune’s cloud-first model, on the other hand, allows IT admins to manage devices from anywhere, without the need for physical servers.
With remote work here to stay, relying on SCCM feels like dragging along an anchor in an era of lightweight speedboats. Microsoft’s focus is increasingly on Microsoft Endpoint Manager and Intune, leaving SCCM to manage its decline while businesses adopt cloud solutions.
2. SCCM’s Bloated Costs and Complexity
SCCM’s infrastructure is not only heavy but also costly. From maintaining on-premises servers to ensuring databases are up to date, SCCM requires significant financial and human resources to run effectively. IT admins need to constantly monitor infrastructure, manage backups, update software, and troubleshoot issues. In contrast, Intune’s cloud-native design allows organizations to offload infrastructure management to Microsoft, drastically reducing costs and administrative burden.
Intune’s approach is far simpler. Updates are managed automatically in the cloud, reducing manual maintenance tasks and freeing up time for IT teams to focus on more strategic projects. Companies no longer have to worry about distribution points, patch management, or managing complex environments, as all of this is taken care of through Intune’s cloud service.
The Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) study on Intune shows that organizations switching from SCCM to Intune report up to 60% reduction in infrastructure costs, making it clear that sticking with SCCM is not just outdated, but financially inefficient.
3. Sluggish Updates and Innovation
SCCM is still receiving updates, but it’s clear that these are mostly maintenance updates rather than innovations. Microsoft’s strategic investment is going into Intune and its integration with Azure, Microsoft 365, and Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) features. SCCM’s development is noticeably slower, and the latest features are almost exclusively appearing in Intune.
For example, SCCM’s Windows Update management requires manual configurations and often takes longer to execute, whereas Intune offers Windows Update for Business or Autopatch, a cloud-based update management tool that streamlines the entire process. Intune can push updates to remote devices without the need for cumbersome VPNs or relying on devices being connected to the corporate network.
Intune’s roadmap is full of new features aimed at streamlining remote work, improving security, and automating device provisioning—all areas where SCCM struggles to keep up.
4. Deprecation of Key SCCM Features
Microsoft’s gradual deprecation of SCCM features is perhaps the clearest indicator of SCCM’s future. Legacy Reporting, for instance, has been replaced by Intune’s cloud-based analytics which offer more powerful insights without the infrastructure burden. App deployment, once a strong point of SCCM, has also been overtaken by Intune’s intuitive and cross-platform management capabilities.
As Microsoft continues to retire these core SCCM features, organizations relying heavily on SCCM are finding themselves at a crossroads. The writing is on the wall—while SCCM may still function, it’s on life support. Intune’s app management, with its ability to handle Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android devices seamlessly, has made SCCM’s application deployment process look antiquated.
5. Co-Management: The Transition Bridge
For organizations not ready to cut ties with SCCM entirely, Microsoft offers a co-management model that allows businesses to use both SCCM and Intune during the transition period. With co-management, IT teams can move workloads such as compliance policies, device configuration, and security management to Intune while continuing to use SCCM for legacy tasks.
Co-management offers a softer landing for companies transitioning from SCCM to Intune, but make no mistake—it’s still a transition, not a long-term solution. As SCCM continues to lose features and Intune gains new capabilities, the balance will inevitably tip towards full migration.
6. The Future is Cloud-Based
Ultimately, SCCM’s demise is part of the broader trend of IT moving to the cloud. The advantages of cloud-based solutions like Intune are undeniable—reduced costs, simplified management, scalability, and the ability to handle the remote work environments that define the modern workplace. The long, slow death of SCCM is just another step in this ongoing shift.
Microsoft is clearly placing its bets on Intune and the Microsoft Endpoint Manager ecosystem, and businesses that are still clinging to SCCM are running out of time. Planning for the future means planning for a world where cloud-based management is the norm, and SCCM is nothing more than a chapter in IT history.
