Chances are if you work (or have worked) in a marketing, product management, or IT role, you've come across your share of acronyms — the mobile boom we are in the midst of has the enterprise mobility ecosytem in full acronym bloom. While this isn't a surprise given the astronomic growth in adoption of smartphones and tablets that we are seeing, if you've been in the workforce for say a decade or more, you've seen your share of acronyms come and go. However, as a long-time industry watcher I can say that there is one salient acronym that will also eventually "go" but whose impact will be felt in the modern workplace for years to come — no surprise, I'm referring to BYOD.
"The Genie is out of the Bottle" is a tried and true expression that folks like me like to use, and it couldn't be more applicable to what is happening in enterprise mobility today. BYOD (many prefer the term "Consumerization of IT", yes another acronym — CoIT) is prolific in the messaging from mobile-focused vendors for good reason, it refers to the increasing influence that consumers are having on the technology which we expect to use at work. This concept, along with the mobile device proliferation that is common in business environments today is bringing both challenges and opportunities for IT organizations. While IT is accustomed to “pushing back,” increasingly it is the employees who are doing the pushing, and they are regularly getting their own personal mobile devices supported on corporate networks. This trend has brought the need for investment in solutions to control and manage their increasingly mobile workforce. Clearly there is a significant opportunity in front of the growing number of vendors that are sharpening their focus on enterprise mobility — while many startups are "mobile first", traditional ISVs are positioning their product roadmaps (often via acquisition) to attack the enterprise mobility segment.