The IT world is full of acronyms and abbreviations. One of the most talked about acronyms doing the rounds at the moment is BYOD - Bring Your Own Device. But what does it mean for the end-user, the IT department and the business?
For the end-user, this is an easy one. Let's say Sue bought an iPad for her own purposes - emails, watching YouTube videos, games for the kids - and would like to use it to log on to her company's cloud-based applications. This may be while in the office, while at home watching TV or while on the train in the morning rush. She has a device capable of connecting to the cloud, she's comfortable using it and her company has compatible cloud services. Seems like a no-brainer - let Sue use her iPad to log onto the company's applications and everybody wins. Only the business function probably has some other views on that ....
The CFO is delighted by the concept of BYOD. Many of the company's staff are bringing in their tablets and smartphones and the bottom line is that he now doesn't have to provide these devices in order to keep the workforce mobile and productive – at anywhere up to $1000 per device, that’s a handy saving. If staff are using their own mobile devices, maybe he can get them bringing their own laptops and PCs too! This is win-win right? Until at a conference, one of the directors is deep in conversation with one of his peers. The story being told is a sorry tale of a disgruntled employee who got fired, then proceeded to log in via his iPad and steal the company secrets before deleting lots of important files. Now this director's delight is turning rapidly to fear, so the first thing he does is pay a visit to the IT department and asks how this can be stopped.
The IT department is probably hiding in some dark, damp area of the basement drinking coffee and trying to grow a beard. While the director lays down the law that we can't have people just connecting up their own devices willy-nilly, IT has a better solution - Mobile Device Management, or MDM. IT explains that this allows the company to set policies on who or what can connect to their systems - even if a user has a valid account and can access financial information from their PC, policies can allow or disallow users from connecting from devices that are not known to the company. IT also explains that when a member of staff leaves the company, they tick a box and that person can no longer access data from their device. Further to that, IT has the power to delete all company data from that device remotely with the click of a mouse. By using an MDM solution, the company still controls the flow of and access to its lifeblood - its data. Even if they don't own the devices that would normally access it.
So now the CFO can rest easy that he doesn't have to go out and purchase devices for his staff. MDM means it is now easy - and easy on the purse strings - to let staff bring in their own devices, while still maintaining absolute control over company data.
