ByShahin Pirooz
They?recoming into the enterprise by the dozens?maybe by the hundreds?every day. Whileyou might be able to run for a while, you can?t hide forever from the onslaughtof employee-owned smartphones and tablets.
Everyonefrom the top executive to the summer intern is bringing his or her own iPhone,iPad, and Android-based smartphone and tablet to work, increasingly using thesedevices for both business and pleasure. Whilethese devices may improve employee satisfaction and productivity and reducemobile expenses for the enterprise, they?re introducing significant challengesfor the IT department.
The BYOD(bring your own device) reality is creating more work for already-overburdenedIT employees. If not managed properly, these consumer devices can compromisenetwork security. In addition, they require greater in-house expertise in orderto support and manage a wider array of endpoints.
Late2010 was the inflection point when sales of smartphones exceeded those of PCs.This trend will continue?exponentially?according to analysts at BusinessIntelligence, who projected that sales of smartphones and tablets are going tomore than quadruple, reaching 2.5 billion, by 2016. And PC sales are projectedto continue an incremental rise during the same period.
Giventhese estimates, it stands to reason that a single employee could have three orfour devices (a desktop computer, a laptop, and an employee-owned smartphone and/ortablet) that they use for work at any given time. With this broader range ofmobile devices available to them, employees feel they can get more work done?includingoutside of business hours?and make it easier to telework from almost anylocation.
Whilethis is great for the employee, the proliferation of devices vastly expands thenumber of endpoints an enterprise IT manager must support.
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