As a SCCM Admin / SOE designer. This hurts my soul. :\

Don’t these CIO’s know anything

Oh and Clouds lots of Clouds although I hear fields will be the next big thing

In 30 + years I still wonder at the shear techno babble that comes out , reminds me of mission statements

One aspect to consider (please do not take it as the only one) is PRODUCTIVITY. In business, productivity is everything. If BYOD and BYOA will enhance personal and corporate productivity, they should be looked at very seriously as a viable option and perhaps surrounding issues can be worked around via policy, trust, technology (MDM like Silverback), etc.

Quite apart from the (very serious) issue of data security, it seems like managers/owners mainly jump on BYOD and BYOA as a way of defraying the costs of running the business onto their employees. Companies that actually value such things as employee productivity and job satisfaction (thus retention of both staff and knowledge, with the associated cost savings) should already be providing decent quality keyboards, chairs, monitors, and software for their staff, no?

Most Enterprise IT departments are so overloaded with under-resourced, poorly prioritised projects and BAU/support tasks that the necessary due diligence and verification of these apps takes a back seat, eventually leading to the IT department being lambasted for being “unresponsive”, or worse yet, a rogue BYOA slips through the net, exposes the company (or worse, the client(s)) to significant risk, then IT are again hauled over the coals for not exercising necessary control over the environment. Queue the “consultants” to “transform” the organisation….

I’m all for making the environment as friendly and productive for users as possible – that’s why IT is in the Enterprise in the first place – , but as can be seen with the CBA debacle (9,000 seats, not out), even the most stringent of vetting processes for apps, patches, etc can come unstuck, in a very costly and unhealthy way, so how are IT departments meant to appropriately respond to every bleeding heart’s browser and text editor preference?

I like the idea of Enterprise App stores, as they have the potential to be a balanced gatekeeper between users demanding more choice, and the assurances that IT (and their stakeholders, like Risk & Compliance) need. It’s a Catch-22 though – how do burdened IT departments get access to “gatekeepers” like that without stretching their resources (or budgets) further?