The disconnect is a jarring one: although 69 per cent of companies permit some form ofBYOD (in which employees use their own personal mobile devices for work purposes) an equal amount of firms – 70 per cent – have no policy to manage the practice. While 26 per cent of those with no policy plan to have one in place within a year, 44 per cent say they have absolutely no plan to enact one at all.
Despite the potential security risks that come with BYOD, it’s apparent from these numbers that Canadian businesses still aren’t really dealing with the trend. When it comes to figuring out why, IDC’s Krista Napier suggests a huge part of the problem is the novelty of BYOD itself.
BYOD activity is common at Canadian companies – but BYOD policies still aren’t. (Photo: Shutterstock)
“This trend is still pretty new. It requires companies to think differently and requires IT managers to have to manage more different moving pieces. Tablets – which have been driving a lot of this – only launched in the second quarter of 2010,” said Napier, senior analyst and tracker team lead for mobility at IDC Canada. She presented highlights of the BYOD data during a workshop before the 2012 Channel Elite Awards held by ComputerWorld Canada’s sister site, Computer Dealer News (CDN).
Another reason for the lack of BYOD policy adoption is the difficulty of managing multiple operating platforms and multiple types of devices, Napier said.
“We’re going from an environment in many businesses where these were very much BlackBerry shops. Even in 2011 we were still seeing it as a leading platform and it’s only just very recently we’ve seen BlackBerry struggling and these other platforms taking off and superceding BlackBerry in enterprises.”