Partner Article

Desktop death paves the way for BYOD

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) is one of the most talked about trends in corporate IT. It’s astraightforward concept – employees bring their own devices to use at work, rather than those provided by the company.

It’s a trend that’s on the rise and shows no signs of slowing. However, it’s not without its casualties.

We recently undertook some research, surveying CIOs from companies with 1000 or more employees, across multiple sectors. Almost three quarters of those questioned believe that buying desktops will become obsolete, while 40% think it will happen within the next five years.

An office without desktops paves the way for BYOD, as staff would then use their own mobile devices to carry out their work. But there’s a problem.

The main pitfall of BYOD is security. IT departments struggle to maintain control of corporate data once it starts residing on employee-owned devices. A lost device, for instance, could lead to sensitive information falling into the wrong hands – it’s a CIO’s nightmare.

Our survey confirmed this difficulty, with 30% of CIOs believing that the security they currently apply to mobile devices would not satisfy an auditor.

BYOD introduces multiple devices and operating systems into the office, making for a complex IT landscape. Methods of management therefore have to change.

It’s only going to become more difficult to maintain a secure multifaceted infrastructure, so outsourcing IT management to firms that can prioritise security is an increasingly attractive proposition for businesses.

The death knell has been rung for the desktop, and it appears BYOD is the future of corporate computing. The challenge for companies now is to create a secure network that can accommodate mobile devices and a BYOD policy – at present mobile security standards are not high enough. The businesses that do it sooner will find themselves in a much stronger position as desktop provision becomes the exception rather than the rule.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Adam Jarvis .