BYOD, BYOC, BYOE...Alphabet soup...

BYOD, BYOC, BYOE…Alphabet soup…Net is…telecom, network and applications support, nightmare for IT departments

Like many folks who are early adopters, we jumped into the BYOD game as we thought it would be good for the bottom line, particularly since we have a flexible, virtual workforce combining dedicated FOX group professionals, combined with subject matter experts that we bring in as and when required.

From our research and analysis working hands on with early adopter enterprise and government clients, we have identified, measured, analyzed and calculated the real IT and end user costs of BYOE.

From our analysis involving many different types of end users and end point devices, it ends up that the true, really accurate costs of deploying and supporting the wide variety of smart phones, laptops, tablets and even PCs has been much higher than anyone had predicted, let alone expected, and has not netted the promises of significant cost savings that the industry had promised. What a surprise!

What do the numbers look like? We have found that the IT/support/end user time and effort ranges from 1.5 x 3.5 times, sometimes more, the cost when using non-standard devices, different operating systems and versions of common desktop applications, compared to common, consistent types of devices, operating systems and corporate applications. This doesn`t sound like much, but if you have hundreds or thousands of end devices, this is taking away valuable IT resources from other projects that could actually help improve business.

Only major exception would be bleeding edge early adopters of non-PBX organizations using Lync and other telephony/collaboration applications. Different numbers, reasons and benefits.

A few examples of some of the reasons for increased IT and end-user time investment - When you have BYOD, IT support staff have to become familiar with how to navigate through numerous combinations of operating systems, printer drivers, access rights, network access differences, let alone the challenges of different versions and configurations for different desktop applications and versions.

Add on top of that different desktop templates with different fonts, stylesheets, even colours…it becomes a three-dimensional matrix nightmare that is next to impossible for IT support staff to learn, document and keep up to date with changing devices, operating systems and apps. Hardware and software is changing so rapidly (OS, Firmware and Apps updates), that it becomes necessary to allocate your most capable resources to work out the configurations for each new situation.

This is reinforced by some of the telecom carriers reducing their smart phone portfolios due to some of the same reasons as I commented.

End users who thought it would be much easier have also learned (and complained) that they have more challenges trying to work across different platforms, network and applications than in the past…hence why they are contacting IT shops even more than before.

So what are some of our original early adopter BYOE customers doing? They are moving back to pre-determined supported devices, whether smartphone, tablets or laptops, and defining personal use policies for expense reimbursement of these devices (some subsidized, some not).

The good news is that newer versions of Microsoft OS allow for multiple profiles, as do some of the smartphone operating systems. This provides the best of both worlds…the company gets to "lock down" and manage the corporate devices and information, and doesn’t have to worry or be responsible for the personal side.  

Net Future Direction - We do believe that many organizations will have to enable employees to bring and use their own devices and use them within their corporate locations, but they will be challenged as to how to support them for the lowest cost and resource time by both IT departments and end users.

We will continue to monitor this trend, and as always, welcome any real world facts, challenges or guidance from end users, IT departments or others in the industry.

You can contact me at , 1.866.FOX.GROUP or Single number reach (289) 648.1981.

2 Responses to "BYOD, BYOC, BYOE...Alphabet soup..." - Add Yours

Michael Finneran 3/12/2014 2:08:47 PM

Frankly, if an IT department "threw open the doors" to all devices with no plan for how to support them, they got exactly what they deserved! Having worked on BYOD programs since this whole thing began, we always recommended limits on the range of supported devices with an approved list that specified manufacturer, model number, O/S, and release level. Beyond that, we used internal support portals with instructions to tell users how to do the most common functions themselves. Hardware questions? Call the carrier!

I have seen my share of "fools", but I've also worked with a lot of companies that went BYOD with well thought out plans to address security, management, and support. For the most part, they're doing fine.

Art Rosenberg 3/13/2014 8:55:13 AM

Michael,

What you and Roberta are describing is the need for BYOD devices to support multiple end user "personas" on a single mobile device, which is like a desktop user having multiple OSs, multiple networks to connect with multiple "clouds," and multiple end user identifications/addresses for communication applications and carrier support. Each persona will require its own IT support and APIs for the various applications that they will authorized use.

When it comes down to the bottom line, end users will have to decide which persona will have priority and when it comes to multitasking with a single connection device. It's like having several telephone numbers or extension numbers,and they all ring at once, or, selectively, depending on which persona "hats" the end user is wearing. Maybe that can be helped based on location, time of day, and relative pre-set priorities.

I remember running into this kind of problem many years ago, when I was at Delphi Communications developing the first telephone "call center." I spent a lot of time away from my desk, so I purchased one of the new cordless handsets to take or make calls when I was roaming the call center. However, I had two extension numbers on my desktop phone, and one day they both rang at the same time. If I were at my desk, I could choose which extension to pick up, based on caller ID, but if I were roaming, I would only see the extension to my cordless handset I carried.

Today, we can embed screening at several levels, not just for incoming calls, but also for all forms of messaging, as well as identifying the call/message sources. The top screening level will have to be at the endpoint device level of the individual end user, across all forms of contact and interaction. That has to be the responsibility of the end user, but can they do that acceptably by themselves?

Enterprise IT can only be responsible for access controls, including authentic