Saying what many of us think, CEO of InfoWatch and former Kaspersky Lab CEO, Natalya Kaspersky recently told Computer Business Review that the BYOD push is an "unregulated mess" to which someone simply attached a "beautiful name."
This goes against everything that the industry marketing hounds would have you believe, yet, I've been very vocal in my unsupportive stance of the whole BYOD strategy and I agree with Natalya. When you move beyond the key factors, like security, privacy, and legal that make BYOD a time bomb for both IT and the business, you're left with two very irrational ideas being used to dupe businesses into catching the BYOD wave:
- Somehow business users using their own personal devices to connect to the company network makes them happier. Honestly, if all it takes is a new, pretty gadget, I'm sure HR would have figured this out long ago. A new gadget doesn't make people work harder, or enable them to develop a stronger work ethic.
- The industry is trying to create new sources of revenue in an area that has never existed before. In a PC downturn it makes sense for vendors to attempt something new to soak businesses of budget money, but in the case of BYOD, they are putting the cart before the horse. The technology is just not mature enough to pull it off. 5 years from now, it might be a different story, but, right now, businesses are allowing themselves to be used as guinea pigs (beta testers) until the industry can get it right.
Natalya goes on to suggest that there are two types of companies currently implementing BYOD on a large scale. The first company is uneducated, believing it doesn't need security and totally naive. The second is a company that knows it needs security, but either doesn't care or has a habit of kowtowing to the whims of the employees.
Read Natalya's full range of statements here: BYOD is an ‘unregulated mess’
