Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) polices are increasingly popular as a way for companies to let workers use the hardware they like best and are most productive with. But according to a new study from Cisco, that not be the best way to think about BYOD.

Implement a strong BYOD policy, Cisco says, and your organization could save $1,300 per year per mobile user. Users meanwhile, report that they are happier and more productive - even though they may end up paying more out of their own pockets!

(See also Worried Workers: BYOD Or You're SOL [Infographic])

Happier, More Productive, But Poorer?

The survey, released Wednesday by Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) consulting unit, polled 2,415 users in six countries to determine the effects of letting employees bring their own devices into the office. The results indicate that employees around the world were very interested in BYOD, and they were even willing to pay for it: On average, workers said they would spend $965 out of pocket for their own devices and another $734 annually for the data plans to go with them.

Here's why: Workers with their own devices said they were happier and (more objectively) reported significant productivity gains. In the U.S., BYOD participants saved 81 minutes of time per week - just over 70 hours a year.

Not every country noted such productivity increases, and use of employee devices also had negative effects, such as increased administration, downtime and distractions that dragged the overall efficiency down, explained Jeff Loucks, senior manager at IBSG. 

Most of the devices in question were phones: 81% of device bringers reported they uses smartphones, 56% brought tablets and 37% brought their own laptops. On average, each of the estimated 198 million BYOD users around the world had 1.7 devices, said Loucks.

BYOD Keeps Growing

The number of BYOD users is expected to swell to 406 million by 2016. Even though the U.S. leads in BYOD use right now, by 2016, China alone is expected to have 166 million alone, compared to the 106 million in the U.S. and 76 million in India.

Companies fared best, Cisco discovered, when they implemented a strategic BYOD plan, rather than stick than just trying to keep up with devices coming into the organization. Such reactive policies tend to make users figure everything out for themselves, often working with an IT department that only grudgingly allows such devices into the organization.

Want to realize those promised cost benefits? Get ahead of users with a proactive BYOD policy that enables employees to quickly access corporate tools and data, perhaps featuring a self-service help system. Such policies also help organizations keep better security on corporate data.

(See also ReadWrite Survey Results: What A Typical BYOD Program Really Looks Like.)

Be Careful What You Wish For - BYOD Edition

As much as workers seem willing to pay their own way to get the devices they want without their employers' interference (only 30% said they would be willing to work with corporate-provisioned devices - often called Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled, or COPE), it's hard to shake the feeling that even though employees are more satisfied and productive, there's something unsettling if they end up footing the bill for this innovation. 

(See also Forget Bring Your Own Device - Try Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled.)

It's not an idle question: A recent Gartner survey of CIOs found that 38% said their companies planned stop providing employees with devices by 2016. Gartner also expects that nearly 50% of employers will demand employees provide their own devices for work purposes - out of pocket - by 2017.

Companies are increasingly willing to explore BYOD policies - but it seems that the reasons may not be entirely altruistic. Letting employees use the tools they prefer is clearly a good idea, but making them pay for the privilege doesn't seem right. 

At the point that a trend becomes obvious and mainstream, it is no longer a trend. It is historical fact.

So it is with the consumerization of the enterprise, a buzzy phrase for the infiltration into workplaces of gadgets and services purchased on the sly or openly by employees.

These renegade tools arrived without the sanction of traditional IT departments, upending everything from the design of networks and security protocols to the very hierarchy of corporations. Also known as BYOD, or "bring your own device," it's less of a deliberate move than a belated acceptance of reality.

Now Shell, the energy giant, has announced it is allowing its 135,000 employees to bring their own devices to work, and offering them access to the tools and technologies they need over the Internet—the cloud, if you prefer.

Ken Mann, Shell's enterprise information security architect, explained this as a recruiting decision as much as a technology move—an acknowledgement of the inevitability of the consumerization movement.

“We’re going to have a lot of people turning over, and we want to be able to attract and retain talented and young staff," Mann said at the CA World conference in Las Vegas earlier this week, V3 reports. "They don’t want to come into a locked corporate environment.”

Shell has always been something of a future-forward organization, employing futurists long before many technology companies did. So consider it a harbinger of what will happen to other companies of its size. They will either embrace similar strategies or find themselves unable to compete for talent or customers.

The consumerization of the enterprise is no longer an open question. It's a fait accompli. Which makes it, for me, not a very interesting thing to think about.

What's next? I think it may be the flip side of this trend, what I call the enterprisification of the consumer. Business-class tools, gigantic "big-data" databases, and massive amounts of computing power will be in the reach of the smallest of businesses, sole proprietors, and ordinary technology users. Just as consumer tools are bleeding into the business world, technology that we've classically thought off as walled off in the enterprise world will become cheap, accessible, and widespread.

The consumerization trend will keep happening, and we'll note its progress from time to time. But we need to start thinking about what's next, not what's done. And with Shell's full embrace, the hard work for advocates of consumerization is done.

Photo by Flickr user Gerry Dincher, CC 2.0

Earlier pieces in this series on "BYOD Grows Up" have explained how bring-your-own-device policies can be productivity enhancers, employee morale boosters and even, counterintuitively, security enhancers (because new policies can allow IT departments to push through long-overdue upgrades).

But enough with the logical arguments. Let's have a look at the hard numbers behind the BYOD trend, as laid out in this handy infographic jointly produced by Intel and ReadWrite. Be sure to let us know what you think in comments. 

Read more in the series "BYOD Grows Up":

• Why Processor Choice Matters To BYOD
• Yes, It IS Possible To Have A Secure BYOD Program
• 10 Tips to Make BYOD A Success In Your Enterprise
• Why Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Is So Hot Right Now

In June 2007, Apple launched the first iPhone, marking a new era in corporate mobility. Before the fashionable mini-computer, people used smartphones for voice, texting and email. With the iPhone and its remarkable touchscreen users could also be entertained with music, video and games. Corporate executives became so attached to their hip device, they wanted to use it for business, so they bullied IT departments into providing access to email and corporate data. Employees soon joined their bosses and the bring-your-own-device trend began.

Six years later, what started out with one smartphone has grown into an army - far too much for the Wild West atmosphere of BYOD to continue as it has been. Many companies that have allowed BYOD will soon be pulling back on such freedoms. While BYOD may not die altogether, it will carry stricter restrictions meant to finally get this trend under control.

The Fate Of BYOD

"BYOD is clearly an important trend, but we expect it to plateau in the coming one to two years as enterprises decide that the cost and security issues associated with unlimited BYOD do not warrant the anarchy and increased support costs it has often caused," a recent report from tech analyst J.Gold Associates said.

Where the iPhone use to be in a class by itself, the smartphone now competes with Android phones from Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony and 10 other vendors.  In addition, there is the BlackBerry and multiple devices running Microsoft's Windows Phone.

In 2010, Apple added the iPad to the chaos, creating a whole new market for tablet computers that brought lots of competitors from manufacturers in the Android camp.

From the beginning, BYOD was a challenge for IT departments, which had to wrestle with data security, device manageability, support and app control. Nevertheless, enterprises went along with the trend and the majority allowed at least some workers to use their personal devices for business.

But configuration, workflow and security issues were always making things difficult for IT. For instance, cyber-criminals saw an easy target in Android - with so many devices running older versions of the OS, hackers could target known vulnerabilities that were left unpatched by manufacturers and wireless carriers.

BYOD Limits

A survey of enterprises that allow employees to use their own notebooks, smartphones and tablets found that nearly half had experienced a security breach. As a result, more than 40% of the companies either restricted mobile data access or installed security software, according to the poll of more than 400 IT professionals and chief executives conducted by Decisive Analytics and released in August 2012.

Despite the breaches, only 12% of companies outright cancelled BYOD programs, an indication that most remained committed to providing flexibility to employees, while moving toward imposing rules.

Indeed, Gold found that companies are realizing "the current mostly wide-open, laissez fare approach to BYOD is not sustainable longer term, and that more controls and better strategy are needed."

As companies clamp down on BYOD, employees will likely find they will have to surrender their devices in order for IT departments to install technology to protect corporate data and communications. At the same time, manufacturers are providing more enterprise features in order to ensure their products get approved for work and play.

Samsung recently launched technology called SAFE that the vendor boasts brings enterprise-class security to selected devices. People who buy the Galaxy S III or S 4 smartphones, the Galaxy Note II smartphone/tablet hybrid or the Note 10.1 tablet have the option of including SAFE, which provides a container for corporate data and email in order to separate it from personal applications.

BlackBerry, which has always been considered the gold standard in device security, has added similar data-separating technology in the new Z10.

In time, enterprises are likely to give the nod to those devices that can meet the demands of consumers and businesses and shun those that don't. So instead of BYOD, the policy of the future will be BYODA, or bring-your-own-device-for-approval.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

When IT managers build a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) plan, chip architecture usually isn't high on their list of considerations. At first glance, it's easy to see why. After all, processors work or they don't – there isn't a lot of support to be done, right?

But there's more here than meets the eye. Thinking about the silicon that powers your supported devices can pay off big, providing better performance, security and manageability. It might even keep your legal department happy. 

Simplicity First

There are plenty of exciting consumer devices to catch your employees' eyes, each with its own combination of processor, operating system and form factor. The task of a BYOD program is not necessarily to support all of them, but to choose the devices that best match customer needs, security concerns, business demands and available resources. 

New devices introduce risk and complexity to every aspect of your ecosystem, from provisioning and training to security and support. The more varied the range of devices you allow, the greater the stress on your operations. The keys to meeting your goals are platform simplicity and consistency. Choosing to minimize deviation simplifies administration and allows IT to leverage as much existing infrastructure as possible. That choice starts with the processor.

The Processor Market

Intel and ARM Holdings are the two primary competitors in the mobile chipset market. Intel's high-performing Core-series processors power the majority of laptops, Ultrabooks and notebooks, and its low-power Atom processors are gaining market share in tablets, smartphones and hybrid devices. ARM-based chips – most commonly found in tablets and smartphones – have recently begun to appear in laptops and hybrid devices.

Intel and ARM take very different approaches to chip production. ARM licenses its designs to semiconductor manufacturers, which then fabricate their own processors based on those designs. This flexibility is attractive to hardware companies, and allows ARM-based chips to power a wide assortment of devices, from appliances to servers.

The downside of that flexibility is inconsistency among ARM-based designs. Samsung and AMD both manufacture ARM-based chips, but their processors are substantially different. Intel follows a different business model, designing and producing all of its own silicon. This approach establishes a baseline across multiple manufacturers. This consistency is the reason Intel-powered Apple MacBooks are capable of running Windows natively, for example. 

Application And OS Support

Businesses run on applications, and processor choice can impact how (or whether) those applications run. The most obvious example is as basic as the operating system itself - most notably in Microsoft Windows.

When it launched Windows 8, Microsoft decided to support ARM-based chips for the first time. Windows RT, an operating system targeted at lower-cost consumer devices, like the Microsoft Surface, is the company's first ARM-based OS.

While RT shares many of the same features as Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro, it is not fully compatible with the entire Windows ecosystem. On its website, Microsoft outlines the major differences between RT and its other operating systems. For a consumer starting from scratch, Windows RT and applications available through the Windows Store may be more than enough. For enteprise IT managers, though, the differences become more troubling.

The most significant IT concern is the lack of support for "legacy" applications. Windows RT simply cannot run applications designed for previous versions of Windows. Depending on your existing investment in Windows apps and their business necessity, this can be an annoyance - or an absolute showstopper.

Other missing features, like Remote Desktop and Domain Join, may be less essential, but still add to the support burden for RT devices and could complicate efforts to create a simple, comprehensive management solution. In an all-Intel, Windows 8 environment, IT managers can leverage time-tested, existing management applications to extend their reach without writing custom software. As soon as one RT device is added to the mix, custom coding is required.

Not all consequences of a heterogeneous environment are technical. Employee-owned devices are already notorious for violating enterprise software licenses. When classes of employee devices come stocked with different software than your other devices, your existing license agreements may not provide coverage. For example, Windows RT comes pre-loaded with Office Home & Student 2013 RT Preview. Unless a business anticipated supporting that device and took the necessary legal steps, using that program in a business setting could violate the software's licensing provisions.

Hardware-Based Assistance

Chipsets rarely fail, for good reason. Once it's pressed and placed into a computer, a processor is essentially untouchable by applications, the operating system, or overzealous users. That's why hardware is the perfect place to store low-level security, management, and networking features.

All Intel processors are built with management in mind, allowing administrators to reach below the operating system level for additional security and accessibility. For example, all current Intel Core processors support remote device locking through Intel Anti-Theft (AT) Technology. Unlike pure software Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions, this approach will work even if a device is corrupted or rooted.

Newer third-generation Intel Core vPro processors (found in newer enterprise and small-business laptops, Ultrabooks and even some tablets) add two-factor PKI-based authentication with Intel Identity Protection Technology, and pre-boot system integrity verification through Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT). By using devices themselves as authentication tokens, IT can remove a layer of complexity and cost created by third-party tokens.

Intel builds on this hardware foundation with tightly integrated software. For example, on the security front, McAfee DeepSAFE leverages vPro's TXT to install security monitoring software below the operating system, while Deep Command provides endpoint management tools for AT and other low-level features.

In some cases, security or management software can run only on complementary processors. In other situations, those processors simply run the software better. For example, Intel has tuned its newer Core processors to support the AES-NI instruction set, which speeds encryption products like McAfee Endpoint Encryption to near real-time. Other compatible systems can certainly run the same program, but processors without AES-NI support could incur up to a 10X slowdown.

The processor is the heart of any device. It may not be the flashiest part of your BYOD strategy, but it's the foundation. A bit of time considering processor choice during your planning phase can save a lot of money and headaches down the road.

Top two images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Securing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program means more than hoping endpoint authentication will keep out the bad guys. 

BYOD security is a big deal. In 2012, Intel surveyed 3,000 IT decision makers and 1,300 end users from Australia, Germany, South Korea and the United States to better understand their BYOD challenges. In three of the four countries, IT Managers considered a lack of security features the most important factor inhibiting device adoption. German IT managers ranked it second, after only government compliance.

BYOD may be inevitable, but the security concerns around it are well-founded. Some of IT's top BYOD security issues are beyond the ability of software-management tools to handle alone. These include

• Unlicensed Software: Owner-installed applications on personal devices can violate enterprise license agreements, and others could compromise the integrity of your network.
• Unsecured Third-Party Connections: All smartphones and most tablets can connect to unsecured wireless networks, offering an unmonitored back channel.
• Malware: Devices can become infected outside the firewall through non-work usage.
• Rooted Devices: By gaining root access to mobile devices, users can bypass security restrictions and, in some cases, install rogue apps.
• Lost, Stolen, Or Damaged Devices: When devices disappear or go out of service unexpectedly, businesses can lose access to critical data. Furthermore, in addition to compromising local data, stolen devices can expose the entire network.

Each device class and user type brings unique security challenges. To address them all, IT needs to leverage software and hardware solutions to lock down and manage devices while simultaneously securing the data itself. Here are three steps to help make the BYOD environment as secure as it can be.

1: Educate Employees

Curbing dangerous behavior is the first step toward reducing risk. Personal device management policies and procedures help reduce your company's risk with very low cost and complexity. In a review of its own, internal BYOD program, Intel noted three types of employee education necessary to minimize risk:

• User Training: Training end users about the content and ramifications of the employee service agreement and sharing best practices for data protection inside and outside of the office.
• Security-Desk Training: Training the Help Desk to answer questions quickly, efficiently, and within the allowable legal scope created by the program.
• Developer Training: Training developers to build secure data access and storage into their application code.

With its favorable cost-benefit ratio, education is low-hanging fruit. In the IT manager survey referenced earlier, managers from all four participating countries that had begun securing their BYOD systems had most commonly implemented device management rules and an employee code of conduct. Employee education is a rewarding place to start, but – based on the fact that security concerns persist – it is obviously not a standalone solution.

2. Secure Your Data

Tomorrow's devices could be completely different, future applications may handle data in entirely new ways and users will always find ways to use devices inappropriately. Future-proofing your network against the unknown requires a shift from protecting devices to protecting the data they use. Encrypting and backing up data is essential, but IT should also consider other, complementary methods of making sensitive information less accessible.

One popular software-based security method gaining steam in BYOD environments is the Virtual Hosted Desktop (VHD). VHD (sometimes known as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI) creates a complete desktop image that includes an operating system, all applications and settings. The hosted desktop can be accessed from any compatible machine, and processing and storage take place on a central server. With enough network bandwidth and powerful hardware, this type of virtualized environment can combine acceptable performance with high-levels of security.

For high-security environments in which manageability and recovery trump everything else, it is often the default computing paradigm. But for most BYOD workers, VHD's drawbacks usually outweigh its advantages. VHD cannot take full advantage of all the features of local hardware, and it performs poorly on marginal networks – a major issue for remote workers. Furthermore, the desktop paradigm may break down on non-PC devices, limiting the available audience.

Example showing multiple containers on a single device. Containerization is way to address VHD's issues by placing native applications inside a safe zone on a device. A virtual machine manager (VMM) abstracts the container from the client hardware, boosting performance and reducing server strain by allowing client-side execution - while still improving security by isolating the container from certain functions, such as wireless network connections, USB ports or device cameras. Some virtual containers contain an entire operating system and productivity application suite, while others are purpose-built, single-function virtual devices that provide services like compliance monitoring or highly secure applications.

IT can create or purchase containerized applications for every platform, including smartphones, providing a much broader client base than VHD. Containerized applications also run at or close to the speed of fully native applications, and caching lets users continue working through network disruptions. However, containerization can compound development and administrative burdens, and since containerized apps require client-side storage, they are inherently less secure than fully virtualized solutions.

3. Use Your Hardware 

Selecting the right subset of hardware to support will bolster software-based security measures while lowering management costs. For example, if a company chooses to support a variety of Intel-based devices, IT could implement a 100% Windows-based environment. This would reduce the cost of developing and securing applications for different platforms while allowing IT to leverage Windows' existing security infrastructure, virtualization tools and anti-malware. And it would still allow employees a wide choice of devices to meet their individual needs.

On an application level, properly chosen hardware can augment your management tools. Mobile Device Management (MDM) software can identify devices that are out of compliance, but it has limited reach into rooted, broken, hacked or otherwise compromised systems.

Chipset-level security technologies like Intel VPro (found in 3rd-generation Intel Core processors) allow MDM to reach underneath a managed device's operating system, performing remote wipes and pre-boot virus scans, regardless of the device's status. By providing access below the operating system, VPro allows administrators to correct problems by loading software patches and virus definitions, and its integrated support for Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) allows IT to use the devices themselves to authenticate users, removing the need for third-party software tokens or hardware-based authentication devices. Intel Anti-Theft technology extends security features such as remote, OS-independent device locking and unlocking to earlier processors, as well as newer, VPro-compatible chipsets.

Finally, selecting the right hardware can make other software options more viable. For example, VHD's biggest drawback is performance. Hardware that accelerates common virtualization tasks can mitigate that sluggishness, making the security of VHD more acceptable to users.

Securing BYOD will always be a challenge, but with the right planning and proper device selection, IT can make users' hardware work for the cause, rather than against it.

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Last Wednesday, ReadWrite Editor-in-in-Chief Dan Lyons sat down with 27-year-old Box CEO Aaron Levie to discuss the complex market of enterprise cloud technology in the third ReadWrite Mix event in San Francisco.

(See also Box CEO Aaron Levie On The Uncertain Landscape Of Enterprise Software [Video])

In the one-hour sit-down, Lyons and Levie covered surprisingly diverse topics, from Levie's personal life as a notorious workaholic to what it means to sit in the middle of the enterprise and consumer software landscape that has steadily begun to merge. Levie also showcased his sense of humor with descriptions of the companies he started as a teenager (Zazap, the fastest search engine on the Internet - except for Google), and spot-on caricatures of stuffy enterprise types to illustrate how he keeps his company loose and fast-moving. 

This 2:28 video touches on Levie's thoughts on having grown up in the startup landscape with his high school friends, the laughable stereotype of enterprise software culture and seeking out mentors in Silicon Valley (Hint: There's no risk to to sending an email. So what if you don't get a response, he says). 

On Tuesday, Dell faced Wall Street analysts for what could be the last time, as Michael Dell and a collection of investors prepare to take the company private. And though Dell Inc. reportedly exceeded Wall Street's expectations, the results were disappointing overall. And in some ways, that's a good thing.

Dell revenues fell 11% to $14.3 billion. Profits were down, too: 31% to $534 million. Dell's consumer business fell by a whopping 24% to $2.8 billion; The slogan "Dude, you're getting a Dell" is now a distant memory.

The earnings call is a unique event in American business; although chief executives occasionally deign to hear questions from business reporters, rarely do they sit down with their upper management and submit to questions about their past and future financial and operational performance. Calls following quarters in which a business dramatically exceeds expectations, taking a drink each time an analyst congratulates execs ("Great quarter, guys!") will usually result in a long nap under one's desk.

After a lousy quarter, on the other hand, analysts feel unusually liberated to ask the pointed questions that should always be asked. And - hurray! - some of them did their jobs on Tuesday.

Here are the five questions that Dell will need to answer going forward:

1. Does Dell Belong In The PC Market?

In many ways, this is the same question that Hewlett-Packard faced in the wake of Leo Apotheker's decision to shop the PC business, Meg Whitman's decision to retain it, and then the ultimate reorganization into a combined printer/PC business. With very little room for adding value besides bundling a printer with a PC, adding the crapware software that users hate, and striking out into relatively untested waters such as ultraportables and tablets, the answer seems to be: "Yes, but barely."

Dell's strengths are its XPS tier and its Latitude line of business PCs. But as Dell chief financial officer Brian Gladden noted, the growth continues to be in tablets and in the low-value desktop and notebook space - both areas where Dell, seeking higher profits, has consciously avoided.

2. Is There An Opportunity To Refresh Older Corporate PCs?

Yes, definitely. And that's the primary reason Dell won't bail out of the PC market any time soon - it has established longstanding ties with corporate America. This was one of the most telling quotes of the call:

"I think that’s really tough to get at, but the data that we’ve seen would suggest there’s still somewhere in the range of 40% of the corporate installed base for PCs that is XP or Vista that needs to be upgraded," Gladden said. "So that’s, I think, pretty consistent with the data that we see for our installed base, and for what we hear from our corporate customers."

Corporate IT departments rarely, if ever, update a PC operating system without refreshing the hardware, too. Microsoft may have to worry about corporate customers turning to Windows 7 rather than 8, but Dell doesn't care either way. And with support ending for Windows XP in April 2014, Dell knows there's a windfall ahead.

"All the data that we’ve seen, all the conversations we’ve had with customers, would lead us to believe that there’s still a significant refresh activity that has to happen in the next 12-14 months," Gladden said.

3. Is BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) The Answer?

Yes. Or it was in December, when Michael Dell said exactly that. 

"And in the customer conversations that we’ve been having, the interest in Windows 8 is quite high, even with commercial customers, who would normally wait a few releases to adopt the new versions," Dell said. "What we’re seeing here is really an immediate need, because CIOs are worried about the ramifications of a BYOD world. With Windows 8 products... we’re pleased with the incredible experience that they expect, while you get the security and versatility and reliability that your enterprise really requires."

Since then, Microsoft has reported terrific Windows 8 numbers, although there has been some suspicion that the company hid behind previouslysold Windows 8 licenses. Still, Dell and the rest of the PC industry will certainly help try and make Windows 8 a success. Ultimately, however, Michael Dell has bet his farm on Windows, while other hardware makers, like Samsung, have diversified into Android and phones. Time will tell who made the right choice.

4.) Will Server Customers Keep Buying From Dell, Or Roll Their Own?

If you're not following the datacenter market that runs the cloud services we use and love, you're may be unaware that Facebook has pioneered an industry-wide program called Open Compute, which publishes detailed specifications on building your own servers via components from no-name manufacturers. Facebook recently said that a major European datacenter would be constructed entirely from these "white box" servers, and companies like Rackspace have also signed on.

Revenue-wise, Dell’s Server and Networking Business unit grew 11% in the last quarter, to $9.3 billion. But ISI Group's Brian Marshall asked one of the key questions: given the Open Compute model, will the trend continue? Gladden waved off the question.

"It is relatively isolated to a few number of large-scale customers who can make the economics work, and given that, we’re still seeing strong growth in that business, and significant opportunities to continue to grow the hyperscale business," Gladden said. "So I don’t think it’s a new dynamic."

Gladden's right; most companies are not going to exert the time and effort to design their own servers, Open Compute or no. But over time, this may eat into the server businesses of Dell and others.

5.) What Effects Will Virtualization, Consolidation and the Cloud Have On Servers?

Virtualization, where a number of "virtual servers" can share computing resources, helps effectively consume underutilized servers, especially older hardware. Some of the older hardware can be retired, as data centers "consolidate" their hardware and run virtual machines on top of them to maximize their use. At the same time, as more cloud services are deployed, the number of servers they require goes up. Unfortunately, analysts have reported that the number of servers sold has flattened - the trends of consolidation and virtualization are holding down sales, and revenues are actually decreasing.

For a long time, notebooks became the escape route out of the quicksand of commoditization that has dragged the industry down. Then servers were the answer. Now, they're apparently sinking into the mud, too.

Dell may in fact continue to provide updates to Wall Street as it goes private; it hinted as much when it talked about a fiscal first-quarter earnings release. But as the company moves into the financial shadows, away from public scrutiny, it did not provide any guidance for the future. One can wonder whether its outlook is equally cloudy.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is more than a fad. It's a movement toward a different kind of enterprise computing. BYOD requires a lot of planning and work, but businesses that embrace the change can find new efficiencies and actually increase security. Here are 10 tested tips to make your transition as smooth and productive as possible: 

1. Engage Stakeholders In Discovery

The biggest benefit of BYOD is a happier, more productive workforce. But that can't happen if your workers don't support the process. To get everyone on board, start with these four steps:

• Identify Stakeholders: Create a manageable-but-representative committee of key influencers from all relevant departments. Be sure to include the CEO or a designated representative so you have buy-in and visible support from the top.
• Identify Targets: Using your committee, create and prioritize a list of necessary applications and desired use cases for personal devices.
• Take A Pulse: IT will ultimately decide which devices to support, but a quick poll of your committee (or your entire workforce, if that's possible) can identify promising places to start the evaluation.
• Work With Legal & HR: Throughout the process, you'll need to work with your Legal and Human Resources departments to build your policies, service and support agreements and other procedures. Having a representative on the committee will help you identify potential complications before they become problems.

2. Think TCO, Not ROI

BYOD will not usually show cost-savings up-front. Don't plan on offsetting development costs with hardware savings, as personal devices will typically supplement your existing work devices, rather than replace them. That also means you should think twice before offering device stipends to employees.

Properly implemented BYOD can expand your device footprint at close to zero cost. In 2010, Intel implemented a personal device program. Three years later, it supports nearly 25,000 employee-owned smartphones, eliminating unsecured devices, increasing job satisfaction, and adding nearly an hour of productivity per employee, per day, with little to no increase in IT Service Desk calls. With no net impact to Intel's ongoing costs, initial investments in a well-designed BYOD program have been well worth it.

3. Think Users, Not Devices

Traditional IT operations focus on maintaining and securing the PC device image, including the operating system, applications, data and personal settings. In a BYOD environment full of disparate devices, this strategy crumbles. On a conceptual level, the goal of a BYOD program should be a security model that follows the user across multiple device classes in a variety of situations. On a practical level, that requires a shift from securing device images to securing data, at rest and in transit. 

4. Create BYOD Policies

Even if you don't have plans to use personally identifiable information gleaned from your users' personal devices, it's a good idea to document your plans in a privacy policy. If you do plan to use such information, be very clear about how you plan to do so, how and where you plan to store the data, and when and how you will dispose of it. Your legal department will help you create the policy, and your HR representative will help implement procedures to keep your employees apprised of changes.

You should enlist the help of both departments in the creation of your usage policy, which will outline safe usage practices and prohibit any behavior that could put the company at risk. This policy will inform the content of the education program detailed in Step #9.

5. Evaluate Operating Systems First, Then Devices

Giving users choices doesn't mean you have to support everything. In fact, if you're going to get the most out of your BYOD system, you shouldn't support everything.

Since devices change constantly and new form factors are continuing to emerge, beginning the selection with specific devices can be tricky and expensive. IT should first evaluate which operating systems it chooses to support, and work toward device support based on that decision. Selecting a dominant, uniform operating system (OS) environment can allow IT to leverage existing security and performance benefits. For example, most businesses use Intel-based Windows systems for their desktop and laptop systems. Extending that combination to other device types can help IT leverage existing security features (for example, Secure SMB, used by Windows 2012 and Windows 8), share common applications, and reduce support and training costs.

Within the subset of devices that support a chosen OS, IT should then select models with the most management-friendly hardware. For example, Intel Core vPro processors found in business-level laptops, Ultrabooks and other devices provide chipset-level device locking, auditing, and wiping. Embedded management features can increase security and eliminate the need to build or integrate redundant systems in software. 

6. Maximize Commonalities

Commonalities provide efficiencies. Wherever possible, strive to use the smallest possible number of tools. Sharing applications, hardware and vendors will save additional costs and minimize the number of integration points in your system. In descending order, IT should look to:

• Shared Platforms: A common operating system and hardware configuration (for example, Intel-based processors running Windows 8) produces an almost identical support and maintenance case, even across multiple form factors. In situations where duplicating hardware is impossible, look for compatible systems from the same vendors, if possible. For example, a smartphone running Windows Phone 8 on an Intel Atom processor will still be able to share many of the same applications and remote management tools as Windows 8-based Ultrabooks running Intel Core processors.
• Mobile Application Management: MAM tools such as Microsoft ActiveSync can provide secure synchronization between servers and non-Windows devices, allowing users to access corporate assets through their native applications, while still enforcing your internal business and security rules. While these tools don't provide the full set of options available in a shared platform, this type of synchronization can allow participation of other device types, if necessary.
• Virtualization: With proper hardware, virtualization can provide a level playing field across many classes of devices and a number of disparate operating systems. It is not a panacea, since many form factors cannot support virtualization, and performance can suffer versus native environments, but it can be an effective method to pull other devices into the fold.

7. Address Compliance

Properly implemented BYOD can actually help businesses enhance their compliance efforts. Poorly implemented BYOD can destroy them. The key to BYOD compliance is understanding the weaknesses and exploiting the strengths of each device. For example, a smartphone's unsecured 3G or 4G connection could be considered a liability, but with properly implemented Mobile Device Management (MDM) locking down that feature and allowing access to the filesystem, the phone could be as secure as any PC on the network. Low-level hardware functionality that provides system control below the operating system layer is extremely helpful, as it allows IT to manage, wipe and potentially recover sensitive data from hardware that has fallen out of compliance or may not be properly functioning.

8. Evaluate Management And Deployment Tools

Once you've selected supported devices and platforms, you can begin building your tools. Each project will require a different blend of security controls, but at a minimum, IT should evaluate:

• Two-factor authentication
• Secure storage using encryption
• Secure policy settings and restrictions
• Secure data transmission to and from the network
• Remote wipe capabilities (where possible)
• Server-side virus protection
• Mobile Device Management (MDM) software to secure monitor, manage and support mobile devices over the network

Wherever possible, IT should leverage hardware-embedded options for greater reliability and enhanced security. For example, Intel Core vPro processors' embedded PKI tokens eliminate the need for third-party devices or software.

9. Create An Employee Education Program

Employees understand their own devices and your corporate network, but they may be unaware of how to manage the union of the two. It's important to provide initial and ongoing education on new security risks and the proper conduct required to minimize them. For example, an employee's child may use work tablets in off-hours to view videos. In this case, simple steps, such as creating user profiles on the device and avoiding password-sharing can dramatically reduce the likelihood of accidental data loss.

10. Assess Feedback

User needs and consumer hardware continue to evolve, and so should your BYOD program. You won't get everything done in your first iteration, and you'll want to engage your user committee to review hits and misses to plan Phase Two. Having everyone involved keeps everyone accountable, and it ensures that IT will be seen as a critical business partner - not a roadblock.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Microsoft.com.

Guest author Christian Buckley is product evangelism director at Axceler, a designer of collaboration solutions.

Users have wrested more control from the information technology department than ever before. Now that they have become tech-savvy in their off-hours, they're demanding work products with the same degree of usability as their home devices. Better yet, they want to bring their home gear to work (Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD).

The consumerization of IT means empowerment for users, a (potential) headache for tech professionals, and an opportunity for third parties that offer products and services that increase the productivity of non-technical consumers.

Here are seven tips for third parties who looking to jump on the trend:

1. Data Anytime, Anywhere. Ten years ago, controlling data access was the central piece of intellectual property management. Today, companies are weighing the legal and competitive risks against the productivity benefits of allowing data to flow more freely to employees, partners and customers. Enterprises will need products that allow the protection of the most highly sensitive data while letting subsets of the rest of it to become more accessible. 

2. Pick A Tool, Any Tool. Today’s world is app-centric. Companies hoping to break into the enterprise market should look to use apps as an entry point - the most common categories are mobile apps, browser add-ons or some flavor of Web service. But beware, the vibrancy of the third-party app market means that users can find three or four different competitive offerings in just about any category. To be successful, third parties have to find a way to distinguish themselves from the pack - either through technical innovation, superior user experience or brilliant marketing.

3. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Users are no longer married to a single device. They’ve become polygamous: depending on circumstances, they'll use smart phones, tablets, laptops or PCs. And they want to use device they’re most comfortable with - often one they’ve purchased themselves – at work. Smart organizations caught on early to the BYOD trend and have expanded the array of devices they support. To do that, they’ll need tools able to work across multiple platforms, applications and services  to help them manage the newly expanded variety of devices they've pledged to support.

4. Let Me In. Users expect to connect to work, while at the same time staying plugged into their private circle of friends and activities. And they want to do it with a minimum of hassle. Personal and corporate applications should be designed with a minimum of security checkpoints so users can toggle easily between them. And applications should be able operate independently without either impinging on the other.

5. Be Social. This means more than using Facebook-like features for workplace chat. Applications and networks should be designed so that data can be shared across environments and conversations can take place between users on competing platforms. An interconnected world will prove challenging. And that opens up a myriad of opportunities for tool providers and integrators to differentiate their products with innovative social features.

6. The Business Proposition. The next generation of IT tools will be built for lay users, not techies. Increasingly, complex business tools offer easy-to-navigate, intuitive interfaces. Keep in mind that the person who now writes checks for new gear is a line of business manager and will expect the same level of usability that consumers do.

7. I Can Do It Myself, Thank You. Much of the consumerization wave has to do with self-service. The IT team decides which piece of hardware the company purchases, but have little control over what is installed and how those machines are configured. Smart solution providers will create tools with the individual user in mind. Make a user happy and the eventual result may be an enterprise sale. or the effective equivalent as users bring it into the enterprise from the bottom up.

Power To The People

The consumerization of IT is the ultimate in user empowerment. Increasingly tech-savvy users want their managers to tell them what they need to do, but not how to do it. They want to pick the tools and processes they believe will best help them to meet goals. Those offering products and services that let them do that with a minimum of fuss will be the biggest winners.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Since the invention of the laptop, employees have been trying to bring their personal devices to work. And ever since that first employee-owned laptop crossed the corporate threshold, the IT department has almost always said "No way you're bringing that un-supported, un-secure, un-productive consumer machine into my nice clean business network."

Until recently, the idea that you might Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work has filled IT folks with fears of:   

• Rootkits and other malware
• New operating systems to support
• Proprietary, insecure applications
• No remote management
• Incompatibility with enterprise security and encryption

For the vast majority of businesses, securing, managing, and supporting user-sourced devices just wasn't worth the potential upside. In some heavily regulated environments, it wasn't even a possibility.

BYOD Grows Up

But times have changed. As shifting cultural norms and new devices have increased employee pressure for BYOD, the industry has finally responded with the tools IT needs to safely open its doors to personal devices.

Let's not kid ourselves. BYOD is still a major undertaking. But over the past few years, companies like Intel have made huge improvements to consumer technologies that make BYOD a very real, manageable possibility. Low-level hardware enhancements have extended the reach of operating systems and device-management applications, making it possible for IT to maintain order while still letting users have the machines they want.

With a bit of planning and work, IT can now allow employees to use many of the personal devices they actually enjoy - without sacrificing security or causing too much disruption. Here's a look at some of the most important factors turning BYOD from an IT pain-in-the-neck into an opportunity.

The Case for BYOD

BYOD isn't just about "cool" anymore. For many workers, it's a necessity.

Many Gen X and Millennial workers and customers prefer video chat, social networks, and text messages to email. They expect near-constant availability and immediate responses, and even office-based employees are doing more remote work at off-hours. Businesses support this, expecting workers to be available at all times, yet most employers issue only a desktop or laptop PC. That disconnect is precisely why groups like Field Sales tend to bypass established procedures, and it's dangerous for everyone involved.

The mobile device landscape changes every day. Tablets, Ultrabooks, and an evolving line of hybrid devices fill the gap between laptops and smartphones. With constant media coverage of consumer technology rivaling or surpassing the capabilities of enterprise hardware and software, many employees are convinced that they, not IT, can identify the best tools for their jobs. Modern workers know exactly what they want, but traditional enterprise provisioning and purchasing systems often can't keep up. Managing employee devices can bridge that gap and rein in rogue behavior before it starts.

The Hardware Industry Responds

Simply put, consumer mobile devices have gotten better during the last few years, and IT doesn’t have a good reason to dismiss them anymore.

Consumer devices have long outperformed equally priced business machines, but they've usually sacrificed stability, reliability and security to do so. In the last few years, though, the hardware industry has made up a lot of that ground. 

Features that used to require specialized, custom hardware are now supported in off-the-shelf devices. Mobile device processors now offer low-level features that protect against malware and reduce the complexity of implementing a secure environment. For example, all current Intel Core processors support remote device locking through Intel Anti-Theft Technology. Newer Intel Core vPro processors (found in newer enterprise and small-business laptops, Ultrabooks and even some tablets) add two-factor PKI-based authentication with Intel Identity Protection Technology, and pre-boot system integrity verification through Intel Trusted Execution Technology. These features offload a large amount of the complexity needed to build and maintain a secure system. And since they're embedded at the chipset - applications, malware and nosy users can't alter them.

Software Reduces Complexity

Consumer operating systems have matured, too. For example, we've moved beyond the days of the single enterprise smartphone or tablet operating system. There are now several viable options for each device class, allowing IT departments to base their choices on synergies across multiple platforms, the ease of integration with other devices and total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations.

As the mobile device market has exploded with new manufacturers and form factors, operating system vendors have provided platform consistency. For example, it's now completely plausible for an enterprise to run Windows across all of its servers, desktops, tablets, smartphones, and hybrid devices, while still retaining user choice. A common OS allows IT to share applications from desktops to smartphones, lower training and management costs, and extend the security and performance advantages of a shared infrastructure without having to sacrifice device variety. 

At the same time, its easier than ever to mix operating systems as needed.

The BYOD Payoff

Of course, writing a BYOD policy and building the systems and procedures to support it still takes work. Is it justified?

If you’re willing to expand your thinking beyond this year’s balance sheet, the answer can be a definite “yes.”

Quantifying return on investment for BYOD implementations can be tough. IT should not plan to recoup the costs of a BYOD project through immediate hardware or staff savings. On the other hand, BYOD can create happier, more productive workers and a more secure workplace. 

According to an internal review of Intel's own BYOD program, BYOD creates a huge boost in employee productivity. In 2011, the 17,000 Intel employees bringing personal devices to work reported an average productivity increase of 57 minutes per day. That helps create a halo for IT, positioning the department as a productivity enabler instead of a roadblock, which can help smart CIOs collect political capital for other projects.

While it may sound counterintuitive, a properly implemented BYOD program can actually increase enterprise security by locking down corporate assets and forcing overdue security updates. In the case study above, Intel assigned higher security scores to employee-owned mobile devices than to many of its internal PCs, since all of the mobile devices were subject to rigorous compliance monitoring.

BYOD is here because it needs to be, and because IT finally has the tools to make it make sense.

Hybrid image courtesy of Microsoft. Other images courtesy of Shutterstock.

BYOD - Bring Your Own Device - is one of the hottest trends in IT right now. The idea is to let employees use their own preferred smartphones, tablets and/or laptops, and have the company's technology department allow them to connect to company networks and applications, as well as make sure they're secure and supported.

But what are companies really doing about BYOD?

To find out, ReadWrite ran a survey of our readers. (See Is Bring Your Own Device - BYOD - Changing Your Company?)

The survey attracted 261 responses, and 176 completed every question. While this is far from a scientific or statistically valid study, the results do offer some intriguing data points as to how BYOD is being used.

The results painted a remarkably clear picture of how and why companies are using BYOD:

1. BYOD Is Popular Among Companies. Half (49%) of the companies responding let all employees use personal devices for work purposes. Another 33% let some employees do so. Only 18% don't support BYOD. Of course, this was a BYOD survey, so it's no surprise that this group was interested. But the percentages were higher than I'd expected.

2. BYOD Is Less Popular Among Employees. At 44% of companies, fewer than 25% of employees participate in the BYOD program. A quarter to one half of employees BYOD in 27% of companies. More than 50% participate in a fifth of the BYOD companies, and the policy is mandatory for everyone at 10% of companies.

3. BYOD Isn't New. Surprisingly, 41% of the BYOD companies began their programs more than two years agao. Another 22% started more than a year ago. Despite the hype heating up, only 12% have moved to BYOD in the last 3 months.

4. BYOD Has Widespread Benefits. Asked what the prime justification for BYOD, respondents were fairly evenly split among Employee Satisfaction (29%), Employee Productivity (29%) and Saving Money for the Company (23%). The rest didn't know or weren't sure.

5. Paying For BYOD Is Up To The Employees. Companies pay for the BYOD devices at less than 10% of the companies responding. Workers and the company share costs at another quarter (27%) of responding organizations. Only 10% of companies buy the devices for their employees.

6. Employees Who BYOD Are On Their Own For Support. Support is one of BYOD's big issues, but most companies (56%) simply leave it up to employees. Another third (31%) supply internal IT support, while just 6% employ outsourced support for employee-owned devices.

7. BYOD Is All About Smartphones. At the vast majority of BYOD companies (82%), smartphones are the most popular employee-owned devices. Tablets are often BYOD at half of the companies, while laptops get the BYOD treatment at about a third of companies (33%).

8. Security Is The Biggest BYOD Concern. This one wasn't a surprise. Almost half (49%) named security as the biggest BYOD issue - and another 5% worried about lost or stolen devices. Management and support were the top issues for 16% of respondents, while performance problems troubled 7%. Not surprisingly based on Number 5 above, cost was a concern for less than 5% of companies.

9. Ensuring BYOD Security Is A Multi-Dimensional Job. Usage of various security measures were all over the map, with multiple responses showing that many comapnies were using more than one approach. Top security tactics included limiting device access to networks (38%), requiring employees to lock screens (37%) and VPNs and virtual desktops (31%). Security software (24%), enforced updates (24%) and mobile application management software (21%) were also widely used. There was less enthusiasm for making employees report issues quickly (17%), restricting downloads (11%) and building a internal app store (7%). In a victory for employee privacy, only 6% of respondents said they installed location tracking software on employee devices.

What does it all add up to? BYOD isn't some Johnny-come-lately concept being pushed on reluctant IT departments by gadget-loving workers. Instead, it seems more like a viable business strategy for letting workers have access to the right tools without having to spend a fortune.

There are plenty of concerns, but overall, BYOD participants seem pretty happy about how things are going.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Guest author Mat Young is senior technical director at Fusion-io.

Many enterprise employees no doubt received new tablets this Holiday season. And many are likely to bring them to work on Wednesday, January 2, 2013 - perhaps the biggest day ever for the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend.

Will corporate IT be prepared for the challenge?

Managing BYOD devices like tablets poses many security and compliance challenges. Forrester has predicted that that tablets would become the primary computing devices in 2013, so it will be instructive to watch how corporate IT policies evolve to support or discourage BYOD with tablets. (Of course, some lucky workers will end up with tablets provided to them by their employers!)

Recent research has noted that - not surprisingly - many tablet users use their devices for email. With traditional data-storage infrastructure, the added workload of all these new tablets connecting into corporate networks could create quite a strain on applications like Microsoft Exchange. If organizations are running virtualized infrastructure or virtual desktops (VDI), delivering consistent performance gets even more complicated.

Easy-to-use apps with data served from the cloud make tablets especially attractive to mobile workers. This has led to a boom in mobile applications. It will also be interesting to track how download and adoption rates for mobile apps delivered through the cloud are impacted by the BYOD influx in 2013.

Keeping on top of network performance will be a critical requirement for IT teams watching to see how the BYOD influx affects their infrastructure. One possibility is to boost the use of flash memory on the server side as well as on the device side.

From cell phones to tablets, NAND flash powers just about every mobile device. But investing in flash on the server-side as well can help improve performance of specific applications and remove overall bottlenecks.

As BYOD brings ever-more mobile devices into corporate environments, IT faces a very real challenge to keep up. The proud owners of all those new tablets will demand nothing less. 

Even though 2012 was a tough year overall for small businesses - the stubbornly slow economy didn't help - technology improvements continued to offer hope of lowering costs, boosting efficiency, increasing sales and opening new markets. To the extent that they could find the cash, investing in technology remained a top priority for savvy smaller companies.

These half-dozen technologies are the ones small businesses were most involved with in 2012:

1. Social Media Surged

In a survey by VerticalResponse, more than one-third of small business owners wished they could spend less time on social media (nearly half spend 6+ hours per week). But they can’t, because that’s where the customers are. A recent report by NM Incite found Internet users spend more time on social networks than on any other type of website. 2012’s breakout star, Pinterest, showed a whopping 1,047% increase in unique visitors — so if you haven’t gone there yet, you might want to. However, Facebook is still the top site, used by 90% of entrepreneurs, according to VerticalResponse, and 152.2 million unique visitors, according to NM Incite.

2. Consumers Went All-In On Mobile

The rabid adoption of tablets over the 2011 holiday season gained even more momentum in 2012. Smart retailers took advantage of the tablet’s leisure-time nature to create customized mobile shopping experiences for couch-surfers. On Black Friday, IBM reports, mobile sales topped 16%, up from 9.8% last year, with the iPad dominating. Small businesses also took advantage of mobile marketing to reach customers on their smartphones. The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports 56% of mobile users go online with their phones and 50% use them for email; both figures more than doubled compared to two years ago. Some 84% of small businesses that used mobile marketing found it increased new business, a Web.com and Lab42 study found.

3. Mobile Dominated Business

In 2012 savvy businesses of all sizes incorporated tablets into the workplace as presentation tools, payment devices or simply to entertain customers (for example, providing iPads for customers to place orders or entertain kids in restaurants). In The Mobility Edge: CDW’s 2012 Small Business Mobility Report, 75% of mobile users report mobile devices have become “critical” to their jobs, and 67% say without mobile devices, their businesses would be less competitive.

4. BYOD Arrived

Bring Your Own Device has long been business as usual for cash-strapped startups, but in 2012 the trend took hold at companies of all sizes. Since many job seekers consider being able to bring their own device a workplace perk, BYOD could even give your small small business an edge in competing with bigger companies whose IT managers don’t like BYOD.

5. Crowdsourcing Continued

Technological changes sped the growth of crowdsourcing, a boon to many small startups, this year, the Dell Evolving Workforce reports. Contractors and even customers increasingly contributed to small business solutions, doing everything from coding to innovating new product and service ideas.

6. The Clouds Rolled In

2012 was the year cloud services went from mysterious to mainstream—or as SMB Group put it, “as normal rather than cutting edge.” More and more, small businesses and startups turned to cloud storage and solutions to streamline operations and save money. At the same time, consumers’ increasing comfort level with the cloud opened up a whole new world of startup possibilities.

What mattered to your small business most in 2012?

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

The growing trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to the workplace is having dramatic effects on corporate IT plans, policies and staffing. That's the conventional wisdom, anyway.

But ReadWrite wants to know what's really happening. How is your company dealing with employees using their own devices for work purposes? Why did you decide to do it? What are your biggest concerns? How is it working out so far?

That's why we put together this little 9-item questionnaire: ReadWrite BYOD Survey. (There are also a few demographic questions at the end, so we can better analyze the results.)

Once we have enough responses, we'll put together a post detailing the insights we gained, so if you'd like to share additional BYOD thoughts in the comments, we're all ears.

Take the ReadWrite BYOD Survey now!