The Not So Hidden Costs of BYOD

Yes, at face value “Bring Your Own Device” programs seem like an excellent deal…employee purchases wireless device, not us. But, not so fast, there’s a host of security and compliance costs associated with mobile BYOD. Typically, BYOD brings the iOS® iPhone® and iPad®, BlackBerry®, and Android™ tablets together into one shop. Now CIOs have to invest in a multi-platform mobile device management solution as well as other software, and possibly a virtual private network (VPN) layer.

And, while most mobile devices have some type of management tool to help locate a lost phone, perform a remote lock or wipe, or even change the pass code remotely, the tools may not meet your enterprise standards. What’s more, you can’t force fit an Android phone into a BlackBerry Enterprise Server paradigm.

Aberdeen analyst Hyoun Park adds, “The cost of compliance – ensuring governance, risk management and compliance - is also more difficult when devices must be chased down individually.” It’s quite different for an organization to inventory and set-up a hundred devices from a hundred directions than a bulk upload of machines from one vendor.

Avanade, a business technology services firm, surveyed more than 600 IT decision makers late last year and discovered that more than 50% of the companies reported experiencing a security breach as a result of consumer devices.

According to Jim Reavis, executive director of the Cloud Security Alliance, “The challenge for administrators is to provide business data to end user devices while keeping that data separated, segmented and managed.”

Time to sharpen your pencil when examining the overall cost savings of employee owned devices, don’t forget to factor in additional management time, increased risks for a breach and the need for policy enforcement.