BYOD – Just not right now

BYOD may be one of the hot terms at the moment, but a new survey by Ovum shows that despite the buzz, the majority of large enterprises in New Zealand and Australia still provide devices for employees who need mobility. Only around 10% of companies surveyed said their preferred model was for employees to provide their own devices and reclaim costs through expenses. Claudio Castelli, Ovum senior analyst, says enterprises are 'not inclined to adopt a bring your own device policy – at least not in the short term' preferring to retain a high degree of control over mobility. "In the long-term, however, chief information officers will be pressured to respond to users' preferences and will need to support an increasing number of applications and devices chosen by users. "Providers should take a proactive approach and make sure their device management capabilities and partnerships expand to support enterprises in dealing with this greater diversity. Cloud-based solutions will help." The survey also indentified a number of opportunities for providers of mobility services for large enterprises in ANZ. The growing appetite across enterprises for smartphones and big-screen devices is creating a foundation for greater adoption of mobile applications. This will ultimately drive higher data traffic usage and new access technologies. Providers with either in-house professional services capabilities or partnerships with system integrators will be in a good position to support enterprises in mobilising data applications, and profit from these additional services and greater use of their networks. "Telcos in ANZ have a strong reputation in enterprise mobility and should take leadership and profit from the mobility trend. They should partner with other players to offer end-to-end solutions and choose their SI partners for complex and highly customised projects carefully," says Castelli.