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Saturday, January 21, 2012

BYOD!!!

Loosely taken from:

So ... your employees want to bring their tablet computers, smartphones, and all kinds of laptops into the environment (i.e. BYOD - bring your own devices). Is that good?

Quinnipiac University used to have a standard laptop - (maybe with two or three options for processor and storage) - basically a Dell Laptop. If you ordered it from the campus - it came preloaded with standard campus-wide software (Microsoft Office, etc.). It had security on it.

But students (yes, those crazy students) [with their parents] started to bring in Macs, and other laptops. This was a real problem for the help desk - who (at that time anyway) said "Sorry, we don't support that device". If you had a problem with a campus laptop - great - turn it in, get it fixed, reimaged, even get a new computer if things were too bad. (I once got a new keyboard after I spilled coffee into the old one).

In recent years (with some reluctance), campus IT has allowed (and somewhat supported) all laptops and devices - Mac's, other PC's, tablets, etc. This is harder for the help desk to support, but is more user-friendly to the campus population.

Can a business get by with a BYOD policy? Maybe - what if the applications the business wants are only on iPads or iPhones? (Or Blackberry or just PC laptops?) What about security and protection of data? With a lot of work and support, a company can do the BYOD - and keep employees happy - and productive!!!

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