BYOD: Bring your own device (BYOD) refers to the policy of permitting employees to bring personally owned mobile devices (laptops, tablets, and smart phones) to their workplace, and use those devices to access privileged company information and applications – Wikipedia, 2013
Recent statistics indicate that:
- “38% of companies expect to stop providing devices to staff by 2016” – Gartner, 2013
- “75% of employees in high growth markets such as Brazil and Russia and 44% in developed markets are already using their own devices at work” – Logicalis, 2013
- “44% of job seekers view an organization more positively if it supports their device” – Information Week, 2013
It’s been happening for years however around 2012 there came a turning point. Essentially, people realized how much more they could do on their personal devices than on their work devices. In most cases this was no fault of technology, but rather a result of the strict IT blocks, rules and restrictions that were put in place to protect data and to block porn (among other things).