Tag: BYOD

Three quarters of companies open to BYOD

Posted on September 10, 2013 by - News

coffee-deskIt appears that three quarters of British companies have given in to tech promiscuity in the form of BYOD. A total of 76 percent of CIOs surveyed by Robert Half Technology are now reporting that their companies allow employees to bring their own gear to work.

Although smartphones and tablets are usually associated with BYOD, laptops still lead the way as the most popular BYOD option, at 65 percent. Smartphones rank second with 56 percent, memory sticks are third at 51 percent, while tablets and external hard drives rank fourth and fifth, 38 and 27 percent respectively.

Oddly enough, there are some huge differences depending in BYOD attitudes throughout the country. For example, use of BYOD smartphones is really big in the Midlands and London, at 73 and 69 percent respectively. However, in Wales and Scotland the figures are just 46 and 36 percent.

“There are a number of factors leading to the growth of BYOD, from company cost savings to employee preferences for using their own device. Only 24 percent of IT directors in our survey said that they do not currently allow employee owned devices into the workplace, so the tide has clearly turned in favour of BYOD,” said Phil Sheridan, Managing Director, Robert Half Technology. “Companies need to consider a well thought out BYOD strategy if they want to attract the best candidates – especially IT professionals. Almost half of CIOs reported that allowing employee-owned devices into the company improved productivity, while 37 percent said that they improved employee retention/satisfaction.”

However, although BYOD toys can keep the worker bees happy, Sheridan warns that organizations still need to take security concerns raised by CIOs seriously. There are some financial implications as well, as more money has to be burned on upgrading IT infrastructure and providing BYOD related training. On the other hand, 30 percent of organisations surveyed said BYOD helped them control capital costs, while 22 percent said it helped control contract costs.

IT departments lead the way in BYOD adoption, which makes perfect sense, as they can work out the kinks before the rest of the workforce joins the trend.

MS Surface gets new lease of life

Posted on August 30, 2013 by - News, Products

surface-rtMicrosoft’s Surface tablets are refusing to die thanks to a bit of help from another bloated and overvalued mess – the public sector. Phoenix Software reports that it has seen a 40 percent surge in demand for Surface tablets from schools, colleges and the rest of the public sector. We assume asylums are somewhere rank high on the list as well.

The surge came about after Microsoft unleashed Surface tablets on the channel two weeks ago. Phoenix actually had to increase its public sector team by 30 percent to cope with increased demand and it even adopted the Surface itself, through its BYOD policy.

The Surface Pro is fully compatible with Windows-centric networks used in most public sector institutions, and since it ships with Microsoft Office, multiuser support and a physical keyboard, it has an edge over Android tablets and iPads in such an environment. The Surface RT also has a few things going for it, as it replicates the IT suite environment used in many schools, although it lacks compatibility with legacy x86 applications.

It’s good news for Microsoft, which sort of makes us wonder why it didn’t go after known Windows addicts like the public sector in the first place? It seems someone at Microsoft truly thought those colourful TV ads would make civilians buy Surface tablets over the iPad. Could it have been someone who’s about to step down perhaps?

HP and VMware team up for federated networks

Posted on August 27, 2013 by - News

HPHewlett Packard and VMware have teamed up to deliver the industry’s first federated network solution, which is designed to provide customers with more automation and visibility in physical and virtual data virtual centres. Or so they say.

Companies are embracing mobile, cloud, BYOD, so manual network configuration is proving tricky and demanding. Virtualisation helps, as it offers a centralised control pane, but it still does not automate configuration and provisioning of physical devices. That’s where the new HP – VMware “solution” comes into play.

It will combine the HP Virtual Application Networks SDN Controller with VMware’s NSX network virtualisation platform to let customers automate their physical and virtual network infrastructure, all in one place. The companies say the new networking solution will provide a centralised view, unified automation, visibility and control of the complete data center network, improving agility, monitoring and troubleshooting. Or so they say.

It all revolves around man or possibly woman hours. A typical cloud data centre network may need 10,000 provisions per day, each requiring at least 20 network command line changes. These 200,000 command line changes would require 3,333 man or woman hours to complete, assuming one minute per command. The HP-VMware networking “solution” threatens to eliminate manual configuration of both the physical and virtual data centre networks through interoperable automated orchestration of policies. It also will create a single view of the network, both physical and virtual. Or so they say.

“Customers are adopting network virtualisation to gain the necessary agility needed to realise the promise of virtualised and cloud data centres. To be successful, IT organisations need solutions to deliver common management of services and operations across the physical and virtual domains,” said Stephen Mullaney, senior vice president and general manager, networking and security business unit, VMware. “By collaborating with HP on a federated networking solution, we will help our joint customers create a unified network operations model that will radically simplify IT in the software-defined data centre.” Or so they say.

The new HP-VMware networking thing will be available in the second half of 2014, along with HP’s new ConvergedControl software.

Lenovo cooks up BYOD for channel

Posted on August 22, 2013 by - News, Products

lenovo-logoLenovo wants to tap the BYOD trend with a new demo kit, offered to its channel partners and customers. The new “Combat Kit” aims to make BYOD simpler and less challenging. It could also reduce the suicide rate among IT specialists in charge of sorting out the mess that is BYOD.

The kit features several Lenovo devices, mostly tablets and hybrids. Partners can pick the ones that best suits their needs and hand them out to end users, reports CRN. The kit includes the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, ThinkPad Helix, ThinkPad Twist and the ThinkPad Tablet 2.

Lenovo brand ambassador Stephen Miller said the sales cycle is changing. In the past, companies would buy ten computers and every end user got the exact same one. With the consumerization of IT, the old one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t cut it anymore.

“Now it’s difficult. Everybody wants a different device,” said Miller. “You have confusion around what to sell, and end users don’t know what to buy because of the paradox of choice.”

The kit would effectively allow users choose the device that works best for them. Miller said end users can get a hands on experience, and then partners can sell the device that the end users actually want. There seems to be a lot of interest in the kit and there’s already a waiting list, but Miller said partners should still sign up.

Europe missing BYOD gravy train

Posted on July 30, 2013 by - News

nexus4-ceEurope appears to be behind the curve when it comes to BYOD. The “bring your own device and ruin your techie’s day” trend is taking off in North America and Asia Pacific, where BYOD volume exceeds 80 percent of all business smartphones purchased for business users.

In Europe the figure is less than half of business smartphone sales, according to Strategy Analytics.

Sarcastic punters could say that the poor showing has something to do with the fact that many Europeans can only bring their own device to the employment office, but that’s just part of the problem. The BYOD trend is facing a lot of opposition in Europe from all fronts.

Operators dislike it because they believe it siphons revenue away from stable corporate contracts and messes with their separate billing systems for commercial and civilian users. Enterprises have their own concerns. They are protecting their operator support commitments that are available only through corporate contracts. Many end-users aren’t willing to embrace restrictions they would have to follow due to roaming and other problems.

In spite of European Commission caps, roaming is still a big deal in Europe and it obstructs BYOD growth. Carriers aren’t willing to do much about it and split billing options to better meet the needs of businesses and end-users. Direct billing options that allow operators to bill individual workers directly for their corporate plan seem like the obvious solution, but they are very hard to implement across Europe.

“The time for European operators to fear BYOD needs to be over,” says Kevin Burden, Director of Mobility at Strategy Analytics. “Accepting the change will lead to additional revenue opportunities and will help to distinguish themselves to the corporate customer in a time when the EU continues to put regulations and policies in place that further homogenise their services. It will be a huge competitive win for the first operator that gets it right in a time when every European operator is scrambling to protect its markets and understand how to best support the trend.”

As usual, it all comes down to EU lawmakers and their counterparts in member states, which basically means that this problem won’t be tackled anytime soon.

 

Brits wary of trusting bosses with data

Posted on July 17, 2013 by - News

ukflagMost employees don’t trust their bosses to keep private information private – or even not to use it against them in any way, according to a survey.

But there is confusion about how much information their employers are able to see generally, with 41 percent of respondents thinking bosses are not able to see anything at all on their personal devices. MobileIron and Vision Critical, which ran the survey, warn that in reality, if devices are used for corporate email, it is possible for employers to see their emails and attachments on mobile devices just as easily as on a PC.

Respondents were worried the most about employers being able to access personal email and attachments, texts and personal contacts. This is very unlikely, but it is possibly to see the make, model and OS of a device, the IMEI, phone number, a complete list of apps installed, the device’s location, battery level, storage capacity, corporate email and attachments and corporate contacts.

Employers are unable to see information contained in apps, unless the app has been set up to send information to the corporate server. Personal emails, attachments, texts, photos, videos, voicemails and web browsing activity should all be safe.

But the fact employees are worried about such access shows a certain level of distrust in business. MobileIron says the key to winning over employee trust is clear communication – with respondents saying they would be keen to understand in detail the purpose of seeing device information and how that is separated from work.

However, 20 percent of respondents said they wanted employers to ask for written consent before they were able to access anything on a personal device, and 18 percent would like written notification about exactly what their bosses can and can’t see.

The survey was carried out in the US, the UK and Germany and talked to just shy of 3,000 randomly selected employed adults. Respondent data shows young workers were more savvy about privacy concerns more than any other identifier.

Brits were the most cynical, with 36 percent agreeing there is “nothing” employers can do to increase trust on privacy.

Businesses ignore BYOD best practice

Posted on July 17, 2013 by - News

threeiphonesAcronis and the Ponemon Institute have published the results of a joint survey that suggests most businesses are putting their data at risk because they don’t have the correct policies in place.

Most common was a lack of personal device policies – and even among those that did have these policies, executives were exempted, despite the fact they could be handling the most sensitive company data.

A quarter of those surveyed are, the report says, in “denial” about BYOD trends. 23 percent still forbid personal devices from being on the network.

Alarmingly, almost 80 percent of surveyed organisations haven’t bothered to educate their employees on BYOD privacy risks let alone best practice.

Just 18 percent performed remote device wipes when employees moved on from the company. Similarly, 21 percent required a device password or key lock on these devices.

Businesses are also using public cloud services like Dropbox to store and share corporate data, and many don’t have policies in place for public cloud either. Most of the surveyed companies hadn’t trained employees how to properly use public cloud services.

Acronis’ MD for UK&I, Rick Powles, said that while the BYOD trend is an opportunity for companies, many are negligent. “With policies that manage the flow of data between multiple devices and environments, companies can practice safe BYOD with confidence,” Powles said.

Over 4,000 IT managers were surveyed around the world.

Alvea updates Cloud offering

Posted on July 15, 2013 by - News

cloud1Managed security and cloud company Alvea has bolted on some updates to the Alvea Cloud Attached Storage service.

It aims to address demands in enterprise mobility and bring your own device, by helping businesses protect corruption of business data with centralised cloud based storage, and off site data protection and recovery.

Alvea’s service will now include file sharing and syncing, mobile security, and cloud storage SLA capabilities, with a focus on using mobility for collaborative data, across different devices and in the cloud.

Customers now have access to team collaboration, mobile security policy – or remote file deletion and sandboxing synced iOS and Android files – and improved offline seeding. There is now Microsoft Hyper-V and Sharepoint backup, and active delivery integration, plus Kerberos authentication.

Alvea’s Neil Gardner said enterprise mobility and BYOD have become top priorities for businesses.

“The enhanced features of Alvea Cloud Attached Storage backed by support and expert advice from our partners means businesses can have peace of mind that their data is secure, synchronised and easily accessible in the cloud,” Gardner said.

OECD: BYOD is ugly

Posted on July 5, 2013 by - News, Products

SmartphonesChanges in phone acquisition models might be about to contribute to the slowdown of smartphone sales in some markets, as well as BYOD adoption rates. An OECD report found that most markets are still heavily relying on subsidised phones and bundles, available on two-year plans.

However, in many countries most mobile plans include an entitlement to a handset discount, which makes BYOD unattractive with costlier mobile plans. In spite of that the report found that in some big markets, such as France and the US, bundled phones actually end up $10 to $20 more expensive than the BYOD option. What’s more, the differences aren’t even evident to most consumers, which isn’t the case in some countries which mandate operators to disaggregate the cost of the device in monthly bills, revealing the actual cost of bundled phones.

The report found that operators in the UK are still trying to push two-year contracts, as they help create a stable customer base. One month contracts are used by about 17 percent of British consumers and the number has been more or less stable since 2007. However, two-year contracts accounted for 68 percent of sales in the first quarter of 2011, up from just 2 percent in Q1 2008. At the same time the number of 12-month or 18-month contracts is decreasing.

It is evident that the vast majority of high-end smartphone sales are coming from two-year plans and that this won’t change anytime soon. However, it is an inherently risky approach. Although two-year contracts with fancy bundles can help maintain a stable customer base, smartphones aren’t evolving nearly as fast as they did two or three years ago. The upgrade cycle is slowing down and the model might not work a few years from now, since Vodafone, O2 and EE aren’t offering subsidies anymore.

Consumers aren’t about to ditch bundled phones in favour of unlocked devices and cheaper plans, but the protracted economic downturn might prompt them to do so in the future.

However, having a good customer base and heaps of new devices sold every year allows carriers to invest more in infrastructure. Smartphones are driving 3G and 4G growth and without two-year bundle deals development would be much slower.

The OECD report concluded that consumers can benefit from reduced lock-in by simply buying a pricey smartphone through monthly instalments and using a cheaper plan. Increased transparency, such as disaggregating the cost of the phone in the monthly bill would help as well, along with more unlocked phones. It all comes down to the consumers, but most of them don’t appear to be well informed and savvy to compare competing mobile plans, or the cost of getting an unlocked phone and a separate plan.

Microsoft channels Surface to businesses

Posted on July 2, 2013 by - News, Products

surface-rtIn what can only be described as a last ditch effort to keep Surface tablets from flopping, Microsoft has launched a new channel programme in the United States. The programme should push sales of Surface tablets to businesses and other organisations. 

For the time being, the programme is limited to the US, but it will expand over the next few months. Under the programme, Microsoft’s channel partners stateside will offer the Surface RT to schools and universities at steep discounts, reports PC World. Private sector companies and government agencies are being pursued as well.

The partners will also be able to offer technical support, on-site assistance, data protection, recycling and asset tagging. Independent software vendors are also being encouraged to develop apps for Windows RT and Windows 8. The latter just crossed the 100,000 app milestone, but on the whole the choice of RT and Win 8 apps remains rather limited when compared to competing platforms. The software part of the programme is called AppsForSurface and developers who sign up will receive Surface devices and funding.

Ingram Micro, Synnex and Tech Data, CDW, CompuCom, En Pointe, Softchoice and Zones are already on board, while Citrix, Airstrip and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have signed up for the software part of the programme.

However, although businesses don’t tend to shy away from Microsoft, they aren’t exactly lining up for Redmond’s tablets. Demand remains soft and enterprise adoption is anything but spectacular. Windows tablets have one thing going for them, IT departments seem to like them a bit more than Android gear when it comes to BYOD. But many love Apple even more.

Security concerns hamper BYOD adoption

Posted on June 27, 2013 by - News, Products

Keep taking the tabletsAlthough BYOD is one of the hottest trends in the industry, it seems that the adoption of BYOD policies and gear is still being hampered by security concerns.

According to Insight UK’s latest survey, security, or more specifically data loss, is still the biggest problem concerning IT departments, at 72 percent.

However, although security is the top concerns, 55 percent of respondents said they have no plans for the introduction of BYOD policies designed to inform employees of how they should protect themselves. Three quarters of businesses questioned issuing mobile devices themselves, while one quarter allow employees to bring their own devices and access corporate networks and documents, allowing the data to leave the company every single day.

“It’s interesting to note that a year down the line almost three quarters of those businesses surveyed have seemingly moved to tackle this trend by issuing their own devices to employees and you’d think that means those allowing BYOD would now have their ducks in a line when it comes to policies surrounding this,” Ashley Gatehouse, VP EMEA Marketing, Insight, said. “To hear almost half have no plans to create a policy is clearly at odds with the raft of measures we know businesses already have in place to protect the flow of data within the corporate network. Failure to implement a policy or define rules regarding the use of personal devices at this stage of proceedings is tantamount to leaving the backdoor wide open and hoping you don’t get robbed.”

The survey also found that support for iOS and Windows is increasing, while Android and BlackBerry devices are becoming second tier. A total of 26 percent of IT departments support just iOS and Windows and going forward the divide will become even more apparent, as 38 percent plan to support Apple products and 29 percent are betting on Microsoft. Android and BlackBerry are in a different league, with 17 and 16 percent respectively.

In terms of actual support and implementation of BYOD policies, 82 percent of IT departments view security as the top concern, while device integration into existing infrastructure ranks second at 60 percent. Providing support to BYOD users is the third biggest concern, at 52 percent.

Unsurprisingly, the survey concluded that sales teams and new business teams are most likely to adopt personal devices. This probably has something to do with age, or the fact that they are on the go more often, or both.

Although not every staff member is keen to take the BYOD route, 60 percent of companies say they are implementing BYOD strategies that cover all staff, regardless of job function or status. However, 22 percent believe BYOD should be a privilege available only to senior executives.

Ovum eggs on BYOD market

Posted on June 5, 2013 by - News

ovumResearch outfit Ovum is telling the world+dog that the bring your own device trend is here to stay.

One of the findings of Ovum’s 2013 multi-market bring-your-own-anything employee study indicates that the trend is not only just “here to stay” it is also going to increase.

Corporate BYOD activity by full-time employees has remained steady at almost 60 percent over the past two years.

Already global industry analysts warn business leaders to respond and adapt now to this change in employee behaviour, rather than being steamrollered by it, the report said.

Ovum said that nearly 70 percent of employees who own a smartphone or tablet choose to use it to access corporate data. The personal tablet market continues to grow, and with personal tablet ownership by FTEs rising from 28.4 per cent to 44.5 per cemt over the last 12 months, more businesses will see these devices on their networks.

The report said that this will happen whether the CIO wants it to or not. More than 67.8 percent of smartphone-owning employees bring their own smartphone to work, and 15.4 percent of these do so without the IT department’s knowledge and 20.9 percent do so in spite of an anti-BYOD policy.

Richard Absalom, consumer impact technology analyst at Ovum said that it was impossible to stand in the path of consumerised mobility.

“We believe businesses are better served by exploiting this behaviour to increase employee engagement and productivity, and promote the benefits of enterprise mobility,” he said.

Ovum’s research also depicts the rise of a “bring-your-own-application” trend.

While email and calendar remains the most commonly used application on both corporately provisioned and personally owned devices, the usage of new-generation cloud productivity applications, such as enterprise social networking, file sync and share and IM/VoIP, is growing fast.

What worries Ovum is that these types of apps are increasingly being sourced by employees themselves and not through managed corporate channels. A quarter of employees discovered their own enterprise social networking apps, while 22.1 percent of employees discovered their own file sync and 30.7 percent found their share apps and IM/VoIP apps.

If employees are sourcing their own applications to do their job, then IT is not delivering the right tools or a good enough service for employees, Absalom said.

 

SMB managers don’t take BYOD seriously

Posted on May 24, 2013 by - News

kasperskylogoA survey by TNS Infratest commissioned by Kaspersky Lab claims that just 35 percent of IT managers have admitted having strict rules in place to understand and control company information on personal devices – despite the upsurge in BYOD corporate policy.

Many SMBs are not taking the implications that come with BYOD serious enough, the report suggests. More and more employees are using their own devices in the workplace, and the study points to the over 500,000 mobiles stolen in 2011/2012 as reason enough management should be making more considerations. “Businesses can face company data falling into the wrong hands if not effectively managed,” TNS says.

Because smartphones and tablets are a desirable target for pickpockets and thieves, IT managers must know precisely what corporate information is on their employees’ devices. A sandbox style approach to operating systems can help here.

Kaspersky’s senior security researcher David Emm said in a statement that “only when clear BYOD rules are in place can adequate steps be taken to build robust security, should a device be lost or stolen”.

“To best protect data a policy should include file encryption, blocking access to the corporate network and, in the best case, wiping all data on the device,” Emm said.

This survey questioned 1,762 IT decision makers all over Europe. Companies with 10-500 employees were surveyed.

Gartner believes BYOD will save the world

Posted on May 2, 2013 by - News

threeiphonesTight-arsed corporate types are planning to shift their computer hardware bill to their staff, according to analyst outfit Gartner.

In a new report, Big G have been talking up the future of Bring-your-own-device, claiming that the trend is the single most radical change to the economics and culture of client computing in a decade.

Gartner predicts that by 2017, half of all employers will require workers to supply their own devices for work purposes. What is particularly unpleasant is the enterprises will more often than not refuse to give money to help employees buy their gear.

More than 38 percent of companies expect to stop providing devices to workers by 2016 and let them use their own, according to a global survey of CIOs.

Basically it means that employees will shift the cost of buying personal computers onto their staff.

Of course, the trend will happen in the US first where employers are allowed to treat their employees like slaves or they are not being patriotic.

Big G said that companies in the United States are twice as likely to allow BYOD as those in Europe.

Companies in countries such as India, China and Brazil are already forcing their staff to buy their own standard mobile phones at work.

By 2015, the number of employees using mobile applications in the workplace will double. Today, roughly half of BYOD programs provide partial reimbursement.

Mass-market adoption of BYOD and the steady decline in carrier fees, employers will gradually reduce subsidies until they are no longer there.

Gartner’s David Willis said that the enterprise should subsidise only the service plan on a smartphone. It is better for them to keep it simple because if they buy a device for an employee and they leave it is impossible for them to settle up.

Employees are generally thought of as being happy with the plan so employers do not have to see it as a cost cutting idea.

Demand for mobile gear outpaces support

Posted on April 23, 2013 by - News

SmartphonesSkyrocketing demand for mobile devices in the workplace seems to be putting too much pressure on IT professionals and support staff. According to a LANDesk Software survey, 83 percent of end-users want to create service desk incidents or requests using their mobile device. However, only 24 percent are able to access self-service systems using mobile gear because their companies don’t have the technology to support it.

BYOD and the consumerization of IT are clearly causing a plethora of issues. The survey found that many employers are simply failing to keep up with demand for effective support for mobile gear. If they fail to do so, the potential benefits of BYOD and mobile tech in general could be limited. Although access by mobile devices remains limited, 86 percent of respondents said they have access to self-service IT support via their PCs.

‘‘Mobile devices have become so integral to how employees work that it’s worrying to see so few businesses enable employees to report IT problems via mobile devices. Businesses will find their employees more willing to embrace services if the way they are requested goes hand in hand with the way they work, ’’ said Ian Aitchison, Director of Product Management, LANDesk. “As employees evolve and adopt new technologies to support them in their work, businesses are well advised to support these technologies to maintain productivity levels and streamline interactions between the employee and the service desk.’’

The research also covered 10,000 IT professionals, who said they have seen some positive results from desktop PC self-service, despite limited availability of mobile support. The majority said self-service helped reduce call volumes and improve user experience. Of those who worked in organizations without a self-service programme, 83 percent said they plan to implement it and 47 percent already have a rollout plan.