BYOD: When Free Costs More
You'd think that a free device would cost less, but then the you would not be an IT pro. In the case of bring your own device (BYOD), of course it costs more to support these units and, of course, overall BYOD increases IT costs.
I'm sure you are not surprised that a survey by Lieberman Software had nearly 70 percent of those polled saying the devices ran up IT costs. I'm thinking the shops that didn't see costs increase had end users who only hopped on the network and didn't need to dig deep into corporate applications and used foolproof devices such as a iPad that don't need a lot of troubleshooting.
The guy behind Lieberman software, Phil Lieberman, likes to rattle a few cages with his comments. So while pundits pontificate kindly on the promise of BYOD, Phil has another take: BYOD hardware makers (especially Apple) are using this tactic to sneak in a door they haven't earned their way through.
"We've been here before," said Lieberman. "It's the same classic back door sales process used to promote PCs in the 1980s, where the large IT shops controlled both the glass house and what was on the desktops. Back then users and managers would show how PCs were better, faster and more flexible than the 'stone age' solutions offered by IT. Ultimately IT was forced to adopt PCs as their corporate standard. The new twist today is that the interlopers are devices that will always be owned by the consumer, not the company."
Where PCs have more than proven themselves, BYOD forces IT to make so with less than optimum security, Phil suggests.
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/08/2012 at 1:19 PM