Living BYOD and MDM in a Land Down Under

Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover. ARN of Australia put together an insightful roundtable about the emergence of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs, and how the new technology is effecting the enterprise along with Mobile Device Management (MDM).  With leaders from companies like Citrix, Harbor IT, Kaseya and more discussing this growing trend and its implications we are provided with great examples, advice and visions on where the industry is headed.

Dermot McCann of Kaseya states that, “the security threat, in itself, has grown about 155 percent over the last 12 months purely from malware on these mobile devices”.  Other members of the round table support those numbers saying the complexity comes from lack of control and MDM within organizations.  The discussion flows to how they have combated their own organizations MDM issues when embracing BYOD. We hear from Stuart Driver of Citrix who states, “For us it’s purely a hardware – including operating system – conversation around BYO. So we pay our people $2,100 for them to bring their device, which has to be a Mac or a Windows, or Windows 7 these days on software that we then provide.”

While much of the corporate initiatives for BYOD and MDM are driven by upper management and C level needs, one thing seems to be clear:  Mobile technology is transforming the enterprise and reshaping the IT Department by redefining their focus and priorities.  Best stated by Channel Dynamics’ Moheb Moses, “It’s a playing field that we all need to get onboard with.” Read the entire recap of the ARN roundtable here.