Bring-Your-Own-Device Policies Generate Security Trouble

IT Provides Tech Support for Personal Devices of Employees

32% Smartphones

37% Tablets

44% Laptops

Source: Gartner Inc.

Bringing your own device is an inevitable business requirement and the Gartner study recommends that a mobility strategy team should be created as part of the IT department for data management and control. In addition, enterprises should create a BYOD policy for balancing cost control and reimbursement.

The rapid proliferation of personal mobile devices is changing the IT environment in government enterprises. About 90 percent of these organizations have deployed mobile devices, with smartphones being most widely used, according to a survey by Gartner Inc. In addition, 86 percent of enterprises with more than 500 employees that were surveyed, says that they plan to deploy media tablets this year.

Respondents came from organizations with 500 or more employees and an in-house data center in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Japan, and the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. The survey focused on the deployment status of, and plans for, mobile device adoption; bringing your own device (BYOD) policies and investment in data centers; and adopting technology drivers, including hosted virtual desktop for enterprise mobility.

“Healthy growth in smartphone and media tablet shipments over the next five years will enable a much higher level of IT consumerization than is currently possible,” says Chae-Gi Lee, research director at Gartner. “Enterprises should recognize this and look to ‘mobile enable’ their IT infrastructure for employees to meet the growing demand for mobile device use in the enterprise IT environment.”

A further impact of consumerization is the proliferation of BYOD in enterprises. Gartner’s survey found that many enterprises are allowing personal mobile devices to connect to the enterprise network. BYOD demand was higher in the BRIC countries where more Generation Y employees are working. The proliferation of BYOD raises many security issues for enterprises to consider before they invest in mobile computing. Top issues, according to the survey, are “use of privately owned devices” and “deployment of new enterprise mobile platforms.”

Enterprises should focus on mobile data protection, network access control and mobile device management tools to support their BYOD and new enterprise mobile platform efforts. These technology factors are essential to establishing a standard mobile platform for enterprises.