Despite lasting two hours, Apple's hardware event this week felt a bit light. The company announced just a handful of new products: the updated Apple Watch lines, the pretty-much-as-expected iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, and new wireless AirPods.

There was no mention of the iPad line. There were no updates for the Mac. New MacBook Pro laptops remain to be unveiled. The Apple TV didn't rate a mention, though Apple did appear to quietly retire the 3rd generation model. iOS 10 did some brief attention, but largely to highlight the Sept. 13 release date. (macOS Sierra didn't make the cut at all, though Apple did announce its release date -- Sept. 20 -- as well.)

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Bringing Macs into an existing IT environment can make any Windows admin feel a little wrong-footed. Everything is familiar, in terms of the tasks and settings, but with enough of a twist to seem a bit foreign at first. Our ongoing series of Mac management tips is here to help guide you in rolling out Macs securely and productively.

In part one of this series, I looked at the essential requirements for integrating Macs into enterprise environments, including how to join them to enterprise systems. At scale, large Mac deployments often require a unique set of skills and tools to be successful. The same goes for applying management policies to Macs, which I cover in this article. Here, you will get an overview of Mac policies and insights into how to plan a strategy for deploying them.

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Although OS X is now an integral part of the Mac experience, it represented a big gamble for Apple when the first general release version -- code-named Cheetah -- arrived on March 24, 2001. It was also a gamble that Apple had little choice in making -- and one that has paid off in the 15 years since, becoming, directly and indirectly, one of the critical factors in Apple's success.

Still, there were many points at which things could have gone awry and decimated the company.

[For a more visual timeline of OS X, check out our slideshow, The evolution of Mac OS X.]

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Apple filled out its iPad lineup on Monday. As expected, the company announced a new 9.7-inch iPad Pro. The new model doesn't replace the year-and-a-half-old iPad Air 2, despite having pretty much the same form factor. Instead it strikes a middle ground between the size of the iPad Air 2 and the performance of its 12.9-inch sibling released last fall. It also strikes a middle ground in terms of price, coming in at $200 more than the iPad Air 2 and $200 less than the larger iPad Pro.

Apple also bumped up the storage options for both iPad Pro models, for the first time offering a 256GB storage option on both. The new available storage tiers include 32GB, 128GB and 256GB.

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If you still think Macs are fare for only specialty departments like design and marketing, think again. Business use of Macs is on the rise, and with it the need to better manage the fleet.

This past fall, for example, Apple and IBM highlighted the growing number of Macs used by employees of Big Blue, with IBM committing to 50,000 new MacBooks, a purchase order that saw IBM deploying about 1,900 Macs each week.

Though the size and speed of IBM's Mac deployment are significant, the more noteworthy numbers involve the costs to deploy and support Macs: According to CFO Luca Maestri, IBM has been saving roughly $270 for each MacBook its employees use instead of a traditional PC, and IBM VP Fletcher Previn has said that only 5 percent of IBM employees using MacBooks have called the help desk for support, as compared with 40 percent of PC users.

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