With most people using three or four computing devices daily, and wanting to use their choice of devices at home and at work, enterprises are faced with the fact that BYOD [bring your own device] is a reality, and concerns over bandwidth costs and security are unwarranted.
This emerged at the iPad in Enterprise Executive Forum, staged in Rosebank yesterday. The event, sponsored by Core Group in partnership with ITWeb, assessed the trends and challenges of BYOD in the South African enterprise.
The BYOD trend is the result of consumerisation of IT - and in SA, managers have been drivers of this trend, said speakers.
Sean Wainer, country manager of Citrix South Africa, says a recent Citrix survey on mobility in enterprise found that 42% of people use three to four computing devices daily; while 16% use four or more, and 6% use five or more.
The survey also found that mobility is a reality in the modern enterprise: 53% of those polled work outside the office one or two days a week, and virtually all of those polled work outside the office sometimes.
The iPad is widely seen as one of the biggest mobility drivers, and Apple's iOS and apps as some of the major factors forcing IT departments to up their games.
But while IT departments may have concerns about security, data leakage and malware risks in the face of new devices plugging into their networks, the trend brings with it some benefits too.
An effective BYOD strategy can result in tighter security, lower IT costs, and a happier and more productive workforce, says Wainer.
And using the best in mobile devices appears to significantly improve employee job satisfaction.
Issues of security and control of a variety of devices and operating systems can be addressed effectively through virtualisation, Wainer noted.
Echoing this sentiment, Matteo Pagani, enterprise systems administrator at law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, said his company's deployment of iPads to staff has proved immensely popular. Aside from some concerns finding suitable apps for the needs of a law firm, Pagani says the deployment and integration has proved relatively straightforward and the system is secure. Pagani says more than 75 iPads have been deployed so far, and demand is growing.
Richard van der Walt, infrastructure architect, CIO team at FNB, says the popularity of smart mobile devices is illustrated in the uptake of the bank's programme to make mobile devices more affordable for its customers. The offer has been exceptionally well received, he says, with around 3 900 devices sold to staff already.
Van der Walt says the affordability of the model, whereby devices are paid off over a period of two years, is driving the widespread adoption of the offer across income and age groups.
Concerns about the cost of bandwidth needed to enable a mobile workforce are dropping away too. Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, noted in a panel discussion at the event that mobile data costs are dropping fast, and will drop further in the next 12 to 18 months. Highlighting Cell C's latest promotion, of 15 cents per MB for data, Goldstuck pointed out that, two years ago, data was priced at around R2 a MB.
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