What are your views on the upcoming "delayed" retirement for Microsoft Identity Manager and moving to either Entra ID Provisioning or a third party tool for JML. With MIM openly being discussed to be retired at some point, are the other solutions from Microsoft mature enough, or should I stay as I am for now?

From my experience Entra ID is quite straightforward and a robust solution that works quite well but presents some challenges around shifting managed devices into Entra. A portion of this challenge includes retrieving the bitlocker hash ID's for your managed devices and importing them into Entra, and then preparing your managed devices to shift their domain management into Entra.

The upside is that InTune autopilot, particularly coming from the cloud Entra solution, is an absolute time saver and a great solution. We leverage surface devices, which in my opinion get a lot more flack than they should based on some reliability concerns from earlier models; but the ability to procure a device and ship it to any user, anywhere in the world, and as soon as they open it for the first time and connect to the internet they can immediately log in with their company credentials and have all policies and software provision automatically is a huge bonus.

My best advice is to seek out your Microsoft account manager. Microsoft have teams of people dedicated to assisting their customers with initiatives just like this one, and whilst they may push their newer and shinier solutions they're generally quite good at understanding your requirements and helping you navigate the process.

The other lesser-known assistance available from Microsoft is that they have a range of tech funding available for initiatives. For example if you were to engage a Microsoft partner to assist with planning and implementation, there's a strong likelihood that Microsoft would be able to fund part or all of the third-party costs associated with the initiative. We have undergone significant transformation of our infrastructure and systems maturity over the past few years and saved ourselves a lot in both cost and headaches by simply asking the right questions of our representative.

While there has been a shift from MIM, which has opened up other PaaS solutions in this space, there are signs that Microsoft is working on their own next generation of Identity Management capabilities. Still in early preview but might be worth exploring. 

Microsoft has been steadily shifting its identity governance strategy toward cloud-native solutions like Entra ID, signaling a gradual sunset for Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM).
Entra ID has matured significantly in its support for JML (Joiner-Mover-Leaver) processes:
-HR-driven provisioning integrates with both on-prem and cloud HR systems.
-Lifecycle workflows automate onboarding, role changes, and offboarding.
-Privileged Identity Management (PIM) and Access Reviews are now standard features, supporting least-privilege access and compliance.
These capabilities are increasingly robust and align well with enterprise-grade requirements, especially for organizations already using Microsoft 365 and Azure.