Consumerization interruptus: Companies remain wary of personal smartphone support
Summary: Companies are trying to figure out how to best support multiple personal devices and it's a big headache.
Twenty six percent of enterprises don't provide any support for personal devices and another 10 percent prohibit use of employee-owned smartphones, according to Forrester Research.
The findings, which were delivered via a research note on managing multiple devices in the workplace, highlight how the consumerization bandwagon isn't exactly filled up yet.
Sixteen percent of companies support all personal devices and the respondents to Forrester's surveys show a lot of gray area in their IT policies. Here's a look:
This landscape indicates that many companies are trying to figure out how to best support multiple devices. Forrester said clients are looking toward mobile device management software. Among the other key takeaways:
- Job function matters. Companies prioritize personal smartphone support based on job role. In other words, sales folks have a better case for tablet usage than others.
- One policy is needed for both personal and corporate devices.
- Prioritize support for iOS and Android because employees will work around you.
- There's a big need for an enterprise-grade app store that spans platforms. Enterprises aren't thrilled with Apple's iTunes or the Android Market.
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Talkback
RE: Consumerization interruptus: Companies remain wary of personal smartphone support
RE: Consumerization interruptus: Companies remain wary of personal smartphone support
Then we run into devices that just won't connect and rumor mill tells us that one hardware vendor did EAS wrong. How do we verify that? How do we overcome it? Other devices come to us with apparently no native email client. We don't know why. Others have no wireless and 3G doesn't work inside our buildings. In some cases we try to do the setup at a carrier's web site but the user has no idea what their account name or password could be.
We also have no devices purchased by the organization so what little we know has been gleaned from our own devices and a few that we were able to borrow for a day or two.
There are so many variable that the task sometimes seems impossible. We've considered saying 'here are the two or three devices we support well. Otherwise, here are some basic settings that you can take to the carrier to work out the setup.' However, we have no management buy-in for that approach.
RE: Consumerization interruptus: Companies remain wary of personal smartphone support
Doesn't IT trump any management in your organization? Simply have no mobile policy whatsoever, and make people check out company-approved and maintained laptops like library books, to be returned when their specific immediate need is done. If they want to connect from home? "We don't support that."
RE: Consumerization interruptus: Companies remain wary of personal smartphone support
Start from formal business requirements!
The article says "many companies are trying to figure out how to support multiple devices". But the graphs deny this - they show that many companies aren't trying to figure anything out, yet. Perhaps things will look less chaotic in a couple of years, if companies set out what they want to do.
RE: Consumerization interruptus: Companies remain wary of personal smartphone support
Why should IT have to support all of these devices? Pick any department - ANY department and you will find that they only have to deal with a few software systems at a time. IT deals with ALL of them. We handle hundreds and thousands of devices and software applications already - and we usually understand them better than the regular users within MINUTES of first encountering them. Not good enough - we now have to support more and more random rubbish, just so someone can play Angry Birds, check their facebook and feel special?
Also what is that nonsense about the need for an Enterprise Distribution channel. Hate to say it, but IT has had this for years - its called Altiris, wait no Enteo Netinstall, wait, BBCA and so on. There is NO need for users to be arbitrarily installing random software. That is why we don't need to install the Steam gaming distribution channel on all corporate machines, because surprisingly, the machine is there for you to do your job, not to provide you with endless entertainment.
We used to have something similar going on you know, back in the day, when random people would produce random disconnected systems that didn't talk to each other and relied on what have been called "silos" of knowledge - i.e. usually one or 2 people.
No sooner have companies gotten around to spending VAST sums of money on solving this problem and the population start clamouring that they want their anarchy back!
It's honestly quite depressing how people that know NOTHING about technology or how a thing works, suddenly want to have their say in how it should work.
Yeah, its going to work out REALLY well for everyone!
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