Connecting one and all with BYOD

The rise of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has caught organisations on the hop, and they are having to accommodate a range of devices and platforms as fast as they can. Paul Milligan looks at the issues involved, and what AV can learn from IT in putting systems in place.

Mention BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to any AV integrator and you are likely to be met with a scowl or a growl.

Often a logistic nightmare for the AV industry to implement, it has been dubbed ‘Bring Your Own Disaster’ by some.

BYOD, for those who are unaware, is the policy of permitting employees/ students to bring personally owned mobile devices (laptops, tablets, and smart phones) to the workplace, and to use those devices to access information and applications. BYOD can incorporate many different size devices, on a range of operating systems (Apple IOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone etc), adding to the headache for AV teams.

It has been on the horizon for four to five years, but has only really taken off with the growth of the iPad in the last two to three years. It’s a global phenomenon, and not just tied to one geographic area, where the iPad or iPhone exists, so does the demand for BYOD.

As a follow up to research conducted in 2012, Azzurri Communications, a provider of managed communications services, has commissioned new independent research into BYOD, speaking to ICT decision makers in more than 220 organisations.

The ?ndings highlighted the current reality of BYOD, in that 61 per cent of people whose company supplied a mobile device for work also had a private device, and 81 per cent found their own device easier to use. It also found that 50 per cent of employees use their own device to access work ?les and data, this came as a shock to IT managers, who estimated this ?gure was just 15 per cent.

So the reality is, we all have these devices, and we all expect them to be integrated seamlessly from our homes to our places of work.

In the full article we ask consultants, integrators and end users why BYOD adoption is so low when demand is so high, do many organisations have a BYOD plan in place? and why security is such a big issue.
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