Any regular user of public transport will know their return to the daily commute in the New Year has been accompanied by a plethora of shiny Christmas presents.
In their posh leather covers, and tightly held and coveted by proud new owners, these devices often have the capacity to hook into the corporate network. The theory behind the consumerisation of IT suggests CIOs are having to create the means to allow business executives to make use of such-high powered devices. Research, however, suggests that consumer-bsaed access is not an enterprise priority.
Research from cloud specialst Star suggests the most popular devices expected to appear at work in January are iPhones (69%), iPads (64%), Blackberrys (38%), Android phone or tablets (29%/21%), and Microsoft Windows phone or tablets (17%/10%). But the research also suggests three reasons why businesses are still struggling to help employees make the most of new consumer technologies:
- Support – There is a big mismatch between great gifts and the devices being supported by UK IT departments; Blackberrys are easiest for IT to integrate and Android devoices are the hardest
- Selectivity - Blackberrys, despite the continuing travails of manufacturer RIM, are viewed as the most welcome device, with 54% of IT experts allowing their use in the workplace, as opposed to 48% and 45% for the Apple iPhone and iPad, and just 24% and 22% for Android phones or Microsoft-compatible phones
- Security – As much as 64% of technical staff complain it is increasingly difficult to manage the demands of users who want to use their own equipment at work; only one-in-four workplaces surveyed allow more than a tenth of workers to use their own devices for work
Why, then, is the consumerisation of IT progressing at such a slow rate? Are support, selectivity and security the key concerns for CIOs, or is consumerisation being hindered by other core business issues?
