The Pros And Cons Of BYOD
What’s the Latest Development?
As employers and employees look into the growing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, writer Brian Proffitt looks at the pluses and minuses of reducing or eliminating a corporate hardware standard. For the company, purchasing savings is only one part of the picture; it must also consider the kinds of software allowed for handling data, as well as methods to ensure divisions between work and personal information. On this note, workers who like having the flexibility of using their own devices on the job may not want their bosses seeing everything on them. How might company privacy and confidentiality policies apply to these machines? Proffitt gives one clue: “It is not uncommon, for example, to implement software that not only allows for remote monitoring but also for remote data wiping.”
What’s the Big Idea?
A poll of ReadWrite readers conducted earlier this year suggests that the BYOD trend isn’t all that new: 41 percent of those surveyed whose company had policies said they was established over two years ago. However, at 44 percent of the companies with policies, fewer than a quarter of employees participate. While it’s not entirely clear how big the trend is or how fast it’s spreading, a recent study by Gartner predicts that half of employers could make BYOD mandatory by as early as 2017.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
