Blogging from HP Discover about BYOD
I am sitting in the blogger lounge and just finished a very animated discussion about BYOD and where the demand is coming from. One of the bloggers (@NEELIXX) firmly believed that the whole BYOD approach was user driven, while the other blogger and I viewed BYOD as an ideal way for organizations to offload work that has become a commodity and focus that spend and effort to provide a more secure and flexible environment- essentially the IT organization needs to seduce the users into thinking the supported way is the best way.
We got into a big discussion that can be summarized as: yes, you can just throw the data open and call it BYOD, and that might work for a while but that is definitely not the "right" way. Knowing the needs of the business is always the place to start.
Some people viewed that BYOD and the cloud were inseparable. I had the opportunity to talk with a small delegation from China that asked if the additional security concerns related to cloud, compounded by the security issues related to BYOD would overwhelm most CIOs. Of course it could – especially if they try to block it, rather than hopping on board and helping steer the course.
Depending on the situation there are many options available. Organizations need to do some structured pilots to understand the choices and use them as appropriate. This is another situation where it’s not a question of “if” but more “when”.
