BYOD is not just a purchasing policy

Bring your own device (BYOD) is more than just a purchasing policy and requires a full-fledged applications strategy, Gartner warns.

A key decision to make about BYOD revolves around applications architecture and system design, according to Gartner Research Director Darryl Carlton.

“Designing your applications to meet the demands of BYOD is not the same as setting usage policies or having strategic sourcing plans that mandate a particular platform,” he said. “BYOD should be a design principle that provides you with a vendor-neutral applications portfolio and a flexible futureproof architecture.”

If an enterprise’s applications pose technical constraints that limit device choice and deployment opportunities, a BYOD purchasing policy is irrelevant, he said.

The growing use of external contractors and independent professionals, coupled with other changes to the workforce, mean that IT no longer has complete control over the tools used to access corporate systems and data.

“The community of users has expanded to include suppliers, customers, employees and a very broad range of stakeholders,” Carlton said. “We are no longer developing applications for deployment to an exclusive user base over which we exert standards and control.”

This is prompting a need for IT to adopt what Gartner calls “global class computing” - an approach to designing IT architectures that puts computing processes in the hands of the employee, consumer, mobile worker and business partner.

“BYOD is an indication that internal IT is not providing adequate support for a segment of the user population and they are seeking alternatives elsewhere,” Carlton added. “It’s important to recognise that BYOD, bring your own application (BYOA) and cloud adoption are leading indicators of long-term structural change occurring in the industry.”

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