Over at f5 DevCentral, Lori MacVittie has written about how IT departments might stop the consumerization of technology in the enterprise space.
I really don’t think that overly-restrictive MDMs are going to really stem the tide, but I would rather have IT departments view the changes coming as an opportunity to really look at the processes in place and change the ones that are now outdated.
What does the consumerization of IT free IT departments up to do better? What new challenges are brought in? How can we mitigate the security and reliability issues by changing how we provide services?
I think THAT is how we should be looking at the changes and not trying to grab onto the old way of thinking.
7 replies on “Don’t Stop Consumerization”
Agreed, but as ive learned in the non-mac world, IS likes to be able to predict and prepare for the future, a consumerized world makes this hard, esp with apple…….. yearly updates to both software and hardware make it difficult to predict… and or purchase! But mac support…. always on our feet and ready to rock, the question is how do you scale it?!
How does Facebook scale it to serve 750,000,000 people? How does Google scale it? How does Apple scale it? How does any large-size company provide services to almost anyone with an internet-enabled device and do it reliably and (somewhat) securely?
By providing services. IT/IS has for too long thought that being “secure” and “manageable” means having control over everything. Why not give up control over the hardware and instead focus on infrastructure and services instead? I think that those larger corporations is what IT/IS should be focused on and not on trying to keep as much control as possible.
agreed…. but i dare u to say facebook has scaled on ios devices…. crash crash crash 😛
I don’t think that has anything to do with ‘scaling’ necessarily … otherwise Windows …
I’ve come to believe that worrying where your data is and how people handle it is misguided. Stop letting people put data on their devices, corporate or otherwise. For non-sensitive data, to the cloud! For sensitive data, VDI and streamed apps. Some day we’ll be past managing endpoints and we’ll start innovating new ways for people to work anywhere, any time, on any device to meet the needs of the organization.
I don’t think many IT shops want any control at all because that’s an endless arms race on the endpoint. Management needs to learn how to manage employees who work in and use 21st century tools. Management (and legal obligations) is the real reason why orgs demand control over everything, IMO.
Good point, Bob – out of adversity (managing the explosion) comes opportunity if you’re willing to embrace it. Thanks for the link and for pointing out it isn’t all bad apples. 😉
You are welcome. Always interested in how people are viewing the challenges of the ever-changing IT landscape. I think there is an opportunity to really have MORE, no, BETTER control over the information now than there has ever been before while also mending the fences that have been neglected by the seemingly never-ending need to control everything.
I look forward to the future.