Evernote CEO: BYOD is not the goal

SAN FRANCISCO---The concept of great experiences at work is encapsulated by Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies, but IT departments are still missing the point, according to Evernote CEO Phil Libin.

Speaking at his software company's annual summit EC3 on Friday morning, LIbin acknowledged that everyone talks about the BYOD trend, but he argued that offering a BYOD policy shouldn't be the goal.

"The truth is your employees don't want to bring their own devices to work. Your employees want MacBooks. They want iPhones," Libin remarked. "They're so willing to have non-crappy experiences that they'll drag their own devices into work."

Libin theorized that "the universe revolves around knowledge workers," suggesting the central thing they have in common is that their productivity depends "completely" on their happiness and state of mind.

Turning the conversation toward the business user base, Libin summed up the central theme of Evernote as facilitating the "concept of life's work."

"The truth is your employees don't want to bring their own devices to work. Your employees want MacBooks. They want iPhones," Libin remarked.

"We want Evernote to make you better at your life's work," explained Libin, which he defined as something that people consider "sufficiently epic" to spending their days -- or even entire lives -- on it.

One workplace staple Libin suggested has soured based on poor technology experiences is the general meeting. 

"Presentation software has warped our brains," Libin remarked, explaining that this kind of software over the last few decades has influenced us to think that every meeting must be a "pitch" meeting.

Libin highlighted that 66 percent of the Evernote's user base are accessing Evernote at work.

Responding to that use case and trend, Evernote launched a Business option in late 2012. The company chief specified that Evernote rolled out its Business service for the two "ultimate knowledge worker" groups:  journalists and investors.

Regardless of whomever made up the original target audience, approximately 7,900 companies signed up for the professional service within the first nine months of availability.

Libin quipped that even his favorite restaurant in Beijing even uses Evernote Business now.

Following up announcements that revolved around hardware and other tangible products on Thursday, Libin unveiled Evernote Business 2.0 with a focus on "situational awareness" so that users know where their colleagues are on a given project.

Along with a revamped user interface and smarter search tools, Libin highlighted some new features per-IT administrator requests, including programmatic user management, Active Directory, and LDAP.

"This is just the normal Evernote client," Libin said, stressing that there won't be a special enterprise setting requiring any sort of extra training or learning curve.

Evernote Business 2.0 will be available starting next week.

For a closer look at Evernote Business 2.0, check out the promo video below:

Image via The Evernote Blog