BYOD is coming

One prediction we liked in this week’s Avistar story was BYOD (bring your own device). As many IT professionals will tell you, increasingly more contractors expect to have their own laptops, netbooks and tablets on-site.

Computing in the 1990s came with an assumption that businesses provided the IT; the workstations, the networks, keyboards and even mice. Then came along mobile phones. People got used to carrying them, comfortable using them at work and work got used to the disruption.

As mobile phones grew and got more powerful, enter the smartphone, employee expectation changed. As we have more computing power at our disposal (and in our hands) many of wonder: why stick with aging desktops running an OS launched last century? Many don’t and companies increasingly let employees and contractors BYOD.

Employee-owned devices can be a security risk. Where employees had no privacy rights for what was shared on company IT, the situation is not so clear with BYOD. There are issues around copied data and even trade secrets. Think personal mobile phones, do employers have the right to censor these devices? Nope. The cloud has not helped matters either – making it easier to move data out of the company infrastructure via server-based email and cloud storage.

There is a savings to be had with BYOD, but what is the cost when considering the lawsuit, public relations disaster or loss of IP? With cloud computing, remote access and virtualisation these issuse can be managed. Still, IT managers and CIOs might tremble at the security implications.

Just about everyone will say cloud computing is going to really go mainstream in 2012. While we let the experts (and some the talent speaking at Cloud Expo Europe) debate that, We say BYOD is going to be a serious issue to consider. Watch out.

Register now for Cloud Expo Europe 2012 and make sure you secure your free tickets today.