By Beatrice Durand-Piquer, Vice-President Marketing, Ipanema
Recent research from Gartner recognises Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Bring Your Own Application (BYOA) as the new ways to consume IT. It’s predicted that by 2015 the number of employees using mobile apps in the workplace will double and by 2017, Gartner argues, half of employers will require employees to supply their own devices. Along with this increase, BYOA has become increasingly common.
Both BYOD and BYOA can be dangerous. To start with, you have the common security concerns associated with a technical device: spyware, malware, viruses, and so forth. These are all exacerbated by the fact that BYOD involves foreign devices coming into the office in an uncontrolled way; employees are bringing their own computers and tablets. Suddenly things like applications and virus software become variable.
Yet common concerns like security are not the only issues that come with BYOD and BYOA; BYOA is becoming a growing issue in terms of complexity and management.
Troubleshooting can be a problem in an environment where users are bringing a multitude of different technologies. With BYOA, you have businesses deciding about the use of their own apps. They do this without involving the IT departments, strongly increasing complexity of the traffic mix and putting business-critical solutions at risk. Gartner notes that 70 per cent of employees using their own device have sourced their own apps to do their job.
BYOD also provides an indirect threat: additional devices running numerous applications could crash the networks themselves by putting too much stress on the available bandwidth.
Companies must be prepared to handle these challenges before they rush after BYOD and allow BYOA. They need tools to manage applications on behalf of multiple users and protect business apps against recreational ones.They must understand how employees are using their networks, and prioritise business-critical applications above others. They need application performance guarantee solutions.
Now is definitely the time to stop, think and consider how best to make BYOD and BYOA work for your organisation.
Find out more about BT’s BYOD solutions and watch our BYOD demonstration
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Béatrice, Vice-President Marketing at Ipanema Technologies – the industry leader in network solutions allowing enterprises to guarantee their application performance – is a seasoned Marketing leader in the IT and Telecoms industries focused on the development of Marketing strategies for companies expecting strong and quick growth.