The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a popular topic in the industry at present, but are companies properly prepared to enable mobility and manage a mobile workforce and what solutions and approaches will deliver the promised results?
Too much hype?
Companies should take a strategic approach to mobility, with proper regard for data security.
Too much talk around BYOD is clouding the fact that solutions are not yet fully developed or understood properly, according to Stephan Berner of help AG. “I personally believe it is still a very immature market,” Berner says. “There is a lot of hype around the subject, there are a lot of vendor principals who are going to try to position their products as much as they can, but we have hardly seen any MDM solutions successfully implemented within an enterprise customer.” Berner says that IT departments are trying to enable BYOD without considering the security consequences. Even with simple email solutions serving a small number of users within the organisation, there is a risk of exposing confidential information, and he believes that many MDM projects will be put on hold once companies realise this. Companies should avoid just putting in place point solutions and take a more strategic view. “It is much more about the policies than the product. We work with Excitor which is focused on mobile device security, by having MDM in place, and having a phased and structured approach, we can make sure that the confidentiality of the information is going to be there.”
