TechNavio has been closely monitoring the growing popularity of BYOD policies in corporate offices, and the long-term impact that this movement will have on the Enterprise Mobility Market. BYOD policies and enterprise mobility go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other, which is why it makes sense to merge the two into the singular ”BYOD and Enterprise Mobility Market”. The challenge that comes from this two-way dependency, is that even though the enterprise mobility solutions of key vendors such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and RIM are generally well-esteemed and trusted, the benefits of BYOD policies in themselves are still up for debate.
The Pros
Certainly, there are distinct advantages of BYOD policies-the most paramount of which is flexibility. They help in combining personal and professional work and also provide employees with the freedom to work away from their office workstations. This in turn facilitates in improving the productivity of an organization. There’s also the obvious financial benefit of saving money that would be spent on supplying corporate mobile devices.
The Cons
The disadvantages of the BYOD movement on the other hand, are a bit more complicated-especially in terms of security. Consumer mobile devices are simply not designed for use in enterprises, and statistics show that employee-owned devices are exposed to twice the security risks of employee-owned devices. In addition to the risk of cyber threats, there are also many incidents where companies have lost confidential information when mobile devices were stolen or when employees lost their devices.
The Solution
Enterprise mobility software vendors are already working on overcoming these BYOD security issues by integrating features into enterprise mobility software that restrict access to the company’s cloud network from unauthorized devices and computers; allow for remote-wiping of shared folders; and require all actions to be authorized against the enterprise’s security policies. Additionally, many enterprises are taking security matters into their own hands by following the old trend of procurement, where employees are allowed to buy only from a specific list of mobile devices that are developed specifically for dual consumer and corporate use.
What’s next?
We’ve been watching the BYOD and enterprise mobility movement progress for some time now and from what we’ve observed, we think it’s safe to say that the advantages of BYOD will easily out weight the disadvantages-especially considering the new flurry of IT and security solutions being offered by vendors.
As the modern corporate world becomes increasingly volatile, end-users ultimately demand one thing: flexibility, and that just so happens to be the backbone of the BYOD and Enterprise Mobility Market.
For more information, see our market research report on the 2012-2016 BYOD and Enterprise Mobility Market
