Global Nerdy

Why employees hate BYOD

In a CIO article, Tom Kaneshige opens his article about the dislike of BYOD with a couple of examples where employees were “burned by BYOD”:

At a New York banking firm, a couple of executives lost their jobs because they didn’t report lost phones within 24 hours, in violation of a draconian BYOD policy. At a California law firm, the CIO knew every time one of its lawyers slipped away to play golf, exposed by watchful BYOD management software.

Employee issues with BYOD, as Kaneshige points out, isn’t so much about technology as it is about trust — or the lack thereof. People hate BYOD when it encroaches on their privacy, particularly with:

• GPS location tracking, which many people liken to prisoner monitoring ankle bracelets,
• App inventory, which can be a bit too revealing about your personal life: “No one wants to be approached in the cafeteria by a co-worker sympathizing with you about your cancer, just because word got out that you have a cancer-related app on your iPhone,” and
• Bad user experience, which is worsening as more management and security controls are added to BYOD solutions, which are already viewed as electronic shackles.

What causes “Shadow BYOD”?

Bad BYOD experiences or outright bans on the work-related use of personal mobile devices often lead to “Shadow IT” or “Shadow BYOD”, a term used to describe when employees use their own devices and applications for work and to access corporate resources without IT’s knowledge or approval. A recent survey by custom business application company TrackVia features these statistics on the mobile work habits of millennials, who are expect to make the majority of the workforce in a few short years:

• Nearly 70% of millennials surveyed have admitted that they bring applications from outside the enterprise to support their work, such as Box, Evernote, and Google Drive.
• 69% of millennials surveyed said that they never work with IT to select new business apps.
• 60% of millennials surveyed weren’t concerned about corporate security when they used personal apps instead of corporate-approved apps.
• 35% of millennials use their own apps to support use across different devices, something that the corporate-approved apps didn’t support.

You can see TrackVia’s complete survey results on their site, where you’ll find the infographic shown below:

For BYOD to really work, there’s got to be trust and training

“Like many other aspects of IT, BYOD operates across a spectrum from ‘definitely not’ to ‘anything goes’,” says Rob Bamforth, an analyst at the research firm Quocirca. “There will be some for whom BYOD is not the route to go down, principally due to concerns over their ability to implement effective data segmentation and access monitoring.”

Bamforth’s observation is important to keep in mind. A simplistic, restrictive, one-size-fits-all approach to BYOD is more than likely to backfire, as employees find work-arounds to such restrictions and as a result, expose the company to risk as they store company data in unsafe places, using unsafe apps, on unsecured devices. While there are certain lines of work where the security and liability requirements are too strict to allow employees to bring their own devices, most businesses can accommodate a BYOD program that balances security with usability.

SecureData’s head of cloud services, Alan Carter, suggests that setting mobile device policy should first. “Before even thinking about investing in technology, get the policy sorted. Doing it the other way around will result in anything but a perfect rollout.” We agree: an user base who’ve been taught about secure mobile use and who are working under a policy that treats them as intelligent people — and hey, if they’re not, why’d you hire them? — is as important a part of mobile security as any mobile device management solution.

Recommended reading

• CIO: Why Your Workers Hate BYOD
• TrackVia: Rebels with a cause
• The Register: BYOD: don’t let the dream turn into a nightmare
• GSG’s BYOD solution

Found via CatsMob. Click the photo to see the source.

That crazy old wizard just typed grep . ./droids.txt | grep -v r2-d2 | grep -v c-3p0!

Whenever you read a story about telcos and data plans, keep this graph in mind

We posted this graph back in July, but it’s worth repeating from time to time: according to tech consultant Chetan Sharma’s US Mobile Market Q1 2014 report, where he pointed out that as of late last year, more than half of the “Big Four” mobile carriers’ ARPU (average revenue per user) comes from data:

Click the graph to see it at full size.

As mobile devices become more powerful and take on new forms (first phones, then tablets, now watches and “smart bands”), and as they find their way into more aspects of our work and home lives, their usage — and in turn, mobile data usage and spending — will continue to increase. If you’re in the business of managing mobile expenses like we are, knowing what drives the carriers’ behaviors and offerings is key to finding efficiencies and savings opportunities.

AT&T and Verizon’s “more data for less money” offerings

Forbes recently posted an article looking at AT&T and Verizon’s current “more data for less money” offers, where they looked at both telcos’ offerings and compiled them into a single table, which we’ve adapted below:

* AT&T has a 6GB plan at this price, but it may be discontinued.
Data from Forbes. Click here to see the source.

Some notable bits of info from the article:

• AT&T are aiming at the low end of the market, offering a better deals at the $40 price point.
• Verizon’s deals are more enticing once you approach paying $80 or more a month. If you’re considering AT&T’s $70/month plan, you may want to consider paying an additional $10/month and get an extra 4GB of data.
• Verizon is offering a $150 credit to people who move their mobile number over to them, taking a page from T-Mobile’s playbook. Forbes reports that this is increased competitiveness rather than a response to customer loss.
• Will this sort of pricing, which will increase data usage, make service worse? The article suggests that the real culprit in Verizon’s service degradation in the San Francisco Bay Area is HD Voice, which allows for markedly improved call quality on select flagship phones, such as the Galaxy S5 and iPhone 6 series.
• And most importantly: Will these offers go away? Yes, but keep these in mind:
  • If you sign up for any of these plans, you’ll be “grandfathered” and be able to keep it for as long as you like.
  • Given the market’s currently competitive state, more offers like these are likely to come in the near future. Expect carrier plan deals after the holidays, when customers will be looking for the best plans for their shiny new mobile presents.

“Refuse to unlock my device for international travel? Goodbye forever.”

Ars Technica’s Lee Hutchinson was a happy and loyal customer of his carrier until he tried to unlock his device so he could use a local prepaid SIM card while visiting Germany for a week. That’s when it all went downhill, and he shares his story in this article.

Profiles of Sprint’s and T-Mobile’s CEOs

The Kansas City Star reports that newly-minted Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure will present his first quarterly report today, the 2Q 2014 report, after the markets close. His first three months — he took over from former CEO Dan Hesse in August after their failed attempt to buy T-Mobile — have seen the carrier change strategies, lay off employees, and cut prices.

Bidness Etc. aren’t very optimistic about the report: while Sprint will likely show an increase in the metrics for current subscribers, there probably won’t be an increase in the number of subscribers, and between price cuts and the cost of network upgrades, ARPU (average revenue per user) is likely to take a hit.

And finally, because a lot of people can’t get enough of him, here’s Sci-Tech Today’s profile of T-Mobile CEO John Legere. He’s loud, he’s audacious, and in a mere two years changed both the company and its public perception dramatically, as well as the way the other carriers have had to do business in response.

Tablet shipments grew, but the big players’ shares in the market dropped

Click the graph to see it at full size.

Market research firm IDC reports that while the number of shipments of tablets from the third quarter of 2013 to 2014, from 48.3 million units to 53.8 million units, the big players — Apple, Samsung, and ASUS — lost market share. It was the smaller players — Lenovo, RCA, and others — who moved more units than ever, and grew their slices of the market pie.

In their article on the topic, VentureBeat predicts that while the small players are enjoying their moment in the sun, they’ll eventually get pushed out:

Yet this can’t last forever, as IDC Senior Research Analyst Jitesh Ubrani notes in his statement. “Although the low-cost vendors are moving a lot of volume, the top vendors, like Apple, continue to rake in the dollars. A sub-$100 tablet simply isn’t sustainable — Apple knows this — and it’s likely the reason they aren’t concerned with market share erosion.”

Wait — RCA sells tablets?

If you read the previous section, you probably asked yourself “RCA sells tablets?” They do — in fact, they make a number of Android tablets, with which they gave the tablet market a surprise boost:

• Pro10 Edition: 10″ screen with 1024 by 600 resolution, quad core processor, 16GB storage and Android 4.2.2 ($199.99 MSRP)
• 9 Gemini: 9″ screen with 1024 by 600 resolution, quad core processor, 8GB storage and Android 4.4 ($139.99 MSRP)
• 8 Apollo: 8″ screen with 1024 by 768 resolution, quad core processor, 8GB storage and Android 4.4. ($119.99 MSRP)
• 7 Mercury: 7″ screen with 1024 by 600 resolution, quad core processor, 8GB storage and Android 4.4. ($89.99 MSRP)

According to IDC’s research director for tablets, Jean Philippe Bouchard, RCA’s recent boost in sales comes from a one-time deal between RCA and Walmart to put low-cost Android tablets on their shelves. They’re expected to sell in these larger volumes straight through the end of the holiday shopping season.

For more details about RCA’s tablets, visit their dedicated site, RCATablets.com.

Intel: Late to the tablet party, but still attending

In their article, Intel-Based Tablets Offer Competent Low-Cost Android Alternatives For The Holidays, Forbes looks at the Acer Iconia Tab 8 and Dell Venue 8, two Android tablets powered by Intel-based chips rather than the Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets you’ll find in many popular Android devices. Both are priced just below $200.

The Acer tablet features Intel’s Atom Z3735 quad-core processor, which sound better than the Dell’s Intel Atom Z3480 dual-core one, but Forbes recommends you consider these numbers, which show that while Acer’s quad-core tablet is better at number-crunching, multitasking, and mainstream computing, Dell’s dual-core device does better with graphics, gaming, and multimedia thanks to its graphic core. “Better”, in this case, depends on what you’ll end up using the tablet for.

For a more in-depth look at these tablets, see this writeup on HotHardware.com.

And now, some stats and facts about BYOD, a.k.a. Bring Your Own Device…

People really, really, really love their mobile devices. They love them so much that many keep them within arm’s reach nearly all the time:

Click the graphic to see the source.

Since “nearly all the time” includes that 25% of the time we spend at work (based on a 40-hour week, and these days, 40 hours is for part-timers), they want to have their mobile devices at work, too:

Click the graphic to see the source.

And not only do they want to have their mobile devices at work, they want to use them for work as well:

Click the graphic to see the source.

If you want to hire the best of the up-and-coming generation, your odds are better if you have some way to let them use devices of their choosing:

Click the graphic to see the source.

Gartner predict that BYOD will grow to the point where it’ll be the norm at a lot of workplaces:

Click the graphic to see the source.

And when done right, BYOD is win-win. Business owners get the competitive advantage that comes from enabling “any time, anywhere” work, IT gets to provide tools that make people more productive, and users can get their jobs done more efficiently and balance their work and personal lives:

Click the graphic to see the source.

Communications lifecycle management (CLM) is a set of practices and processes that lets managers, teams, and people from different areas of a business find, share, and use actionable information related to their telecom assets, services, and costs. When this information is connected to the business’ organizational information and processes and organized into clear, comprehensive reports, it becomes much easier to answer these crucial questions:

• How can I forecast, budget and accrue my communications costs easily and accurately?
• How can I get a good handle on all my telecom assets (lines and equipment) at each location?
• How do I find out the true costs of these assets and if they are able to meet business needs?
• How can I articulate best practices and cost control policies to everyone managing the domestic and international telecoms of my business — and measure their performance?
• Could I save the business large sums of money by eliminating billing errors and instilling tactical processes around telecom vendor contracting and procurement?

Given the complexity of today’s wireline and mobile telecom environments, it’s essential to ensure that your business has an effective communications lifecycle management structure. Our latest white paper, written by GSG VP of Operations Mohan Sathe, defines communications lifecycle management, and describes in detail the five best practices that will help your business answer the tough telecom questions listed above.

Download our white paper [4.5MB PDF] to learn about communications lifecycle management, getting better visibility into your telecom spending and assets, reducing costs, managing risks, and being better able to plan for the future.