Posted Date: 6/14/2012

Survey: No Consensus Yet on Managing BYOD

By Jessica Binns, Contributing Editor
While "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) and similar consumer-driven IT initiatives are becoming more widely accepted, there is no real consensus yet on the best method for supporting BYOD. This is according to a survey of 600 enterprise IT professionals conducted by Matrix42, a leading supplier of workplace management solutions.

The survey found that nearly two-thirds of respondents said there is some level of acceptance of BYOD by their IT department, and almost 80 percent of organizations have identified mobile device management solutions as a key component of their IT offerings in the next two years. However, more than 30 percent of respondents said their organization does not currently employ solutions to manage BYOD, and there is no clear solution leading the way for those that have deployed something.

Key takeaways include:

BYOD becomes the norm

• 64 percent said their IT organization either supports or tolerates BYOD with 24 percent officially supporting it
• An additional seven percent said BYOD is not currently supported, but it is planned
• Only 29 percent said BYOD is prohibited

Mobile device management (MDM) solutions are needed

• A clear majority of respondents (78 percent) said mobile device management will be extremely or very important in the next two years
• Only 2 percent said MDM would be unimportant

But MDM is not yet widely implemented

• 31 percent said their organizations do not use technology that enables BYOD
• Only 15 percent said they used MDM to enable BYOD
• 16 percent said they used desktop virtualization solutions
• Remaining respondents said their organizations used web apps, self-service portals, client management or IT service management to enable BYOD

IT departments lead the BYOD charge

• 31 percent of respondents said IT was driving BYOD initiatives in their organization
• 23 percent said it was the executive board or managing director
• 21 percent said no one in their organization

Security at the top of list of BYOD challenges

• 78 percent of respondents said the security of company data was either extremely or very challenging
• IT losing control - 56 percent said extremely or very challenging
• But device complexity is not seen as extremely or very challenging by 62 percent of respondents

"The influx of user-owned mobile devices in the workplace presents numerous challenges to IT, organizational security and the overall business," said Matrix42 CEO Herbert Uhl. "This complexity will only increase as the number of mobile operating systems and devices continues to rise."

Matrix42 surveyed 590 senior executives, IT administrators and business department employees at CeBIT 2012.