It's surprising how much corporate IT technology is driven by the CEO asking "why not?". In today's episode, it's the CEO asking why he can't be a cool kid and use his new, shiny smartphone or tablet at work. (Stop groaning.)
The blurring of work and personal life has spilled over into smart mobile devices being viewed as work tools. It's seemingly the smart thing to bring your own device - BYOD - to work.
But we're not there yet. Verizon's VP of strategy asked for a show of hands at a recent talk. "How many of you bring your own device?" About half the hands in the room went up. "OK, how many of you do that in a sanctioned manner with employer approval?" About 2/3rds of those hands went down, with sheepish looks.
The sentiment is out there, and as a technologist I know I've had this thought:
"If you don't pay for my device, you don't tell me what to carry. My (blank) is better than what you're trying to give me."
There are rules when it comes to corporate IT, and with good reason. When access, workflow, storage, and policies get more difficult and expensive to implement and manage, and the more sensitive the enterprise data is, and the more often the mobile device is in the flow, there are a lot of things to think about.
Thinking is the last thing people tend to do when something looks easy. I remember in Web 1.0 when the big corporation I worked for put in a way-cool Oracle 11 implementation, and one of the selling points was the apps are web driven, so people will be able to access them with a browser. So, why can't our supply chain partners use it if we issued them logins? Good question, let's try it from home and see if we can get in. Denied. Port numbers. Firewalls. IT security types at corporate:
"You wanna open what port? Why? Bzzzzt. Thanks for playing."
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Re: Bring Your Own Device, Lawyers, and Money
