Myths About Byod

By Author: Susan Smith
Total Articles: 132
Comment this article

It is next to impossible to have a discussion on enterprise mobility and not have the four-letter word come up – BYOD. People all around are talking about BYOD, BOYA, and even BYOx, bring your own whatever. There are those who talk about advantages of BYOD, and call it the future, others who say it’s too risky, and is yesterday’s hype. So what’s the truth?

Most enterprise’s leadership reads about and researches BYOD before investing into it. There are some common myths floating about BYOD that the enterprises should be aware of.

1. It is new – This is completely false. BYOD has been around since the time laptops have been used (early ‘80s). True, the size and form factor of computing devices has shrunk manifold, but the concept remains the same. Even with smart mobile devices, BYOD has been in use since iPhones flooded the enterprise world in 2008 after Apple announced ActiveSync support. By these numbers, any organization that is just beginning to think about BYOD, is way behind the curve.

2. It increases productivity – Not true. Productivity is always higher when enterprises ...
... manage the environment. There are other ways of honoring employees’ wishes for device choice. COPE (corporate owned, personally enabled) devices are one option. Virtualized corporate profiles accessed through a secure network is another. The enterprise, if committed to the cause of employee satisfaction and choice, can achieve it without necessarily succumbing to BYOD and all the issues it brings.

3. It lowers the cost of acquisition – Wrong again. BYOD may save direct costs to the company. However, the employees need to be paid back. This is done either through direct reimbursement, or a monthly payout. Firstly both these options cost money for the device to the enterprise. Secondly, there is a process and effort overhead for controlling and managing this process. What if one employee bought the same device for $50 more than another? What about damage to the device while at work?

4. It saves support cost – The majority of support issues faced by the employees are related to infra apps like email, messaging etc., or corporate apps like intranet, SharePoint etc., or access issues like password resets and approvals. Irrespective of whether BYOD is there in the environment or not, these issues will continue to plague the IT support teams. Also, in BYOD, since the geeks cant plan for the hardware / software, they feel restrained, and cannot prepare for the tech issues they might face.

5. It is more secure, and manageable – Wait, no one ever says that. Securing and managing a BYOD environment is the IT support’s biggest challenge, one that keeps the security folks up at night. Since the users of the devices generally do not understand, or even know the risks posed to the environment by malicious apps and the like, they cannot be expected to participate in the governance, risk and compliance initiatives. Also, since the devices themselves are not under the direct control of the security staff, they cant do much either.

The verdict

BYOD has been around for a long time. However, the supposed advantages of the concept in the highly mobile and dangerous world today are far outweighed by the cost, complexity, and risks it brings into an environment. 2013 will see the spotlight move away from BYOD as the IT teams clamor to rebuild the moats, raise the walls, and regain control over their kingdom that was laid waste by the greed of its subjects, and their lust for the shiny new things.

The author is associated with one of the top enterprise app development companies, app development firm in dallas firms and iPhone development companies in Noida