In today’s Telecom Tuesday post we discuss a hotly debating topic in the telecommunications industry.
Since wireless became a business necessity for many employees during the 90’s most companies picked a vendor or two and provided their employees with a phone. There really was not much difference in phones, their features and their capabilities, but as wireless carriers improved their networks and equipment, manufacturers increased the intelligence in handsets, and smart phones took the market by storm.
Bring Your Own Device
Suddenly there were employees who wanted to use their own type of phone instead of the phone that their employer was providing them and many people actually carried two handsets. Simultaneously, employers were dealing with a runaway expense line item that did not even used to exist and many started to figure out that giving employees a monthly stipend was a far less expensive answer to the problem… thus, the origin of the BYOD debate.
Without a doubt BYOD saves companies money, the only question is “how much?” and the stipend amount determines that. So, why all the discussion over whether BYOD is good and why do some feel BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Disaster/Drama/Demise?
Problems with BYOD
One reason is that IT can support a single platform (or two) when corporate makes the decision on which carrier to use, whereas BYOD requires multiple platforms being supported. Another is that IT is able to establish security standards on corporate assets but has little control over what websites are visited, what content is downloaded and what, if any, antivirus software is run on individually owned devices. Even when Corporate does establish Security standards, adherence by executives is nearly impossible to police or enforce.
Other big potential problems exist as well, such as loss of customer data, or proprietary company information that resides on a laptop, tablet or phone that is lost or stolen. Employees also do not realize that if a phone has to “be wiped” to erase such data or to clear a virus that is affecting the company network there is great risk that all of their personal pictures and contacts will be permanently erased.
[author_bio username=”Barry” name=”yes”]