Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.
Two big IT events happened in Las Vegas last month: Interop and Symantec Vision. Both events made a very good impression on me when I downloaded the apps and found out I could do my check-in, confirm my schedules, follow the event agenda and much more even before arriving.
The most common subject in both events was mobile devices, especially the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend.
Through consumerization, BYOD is a reality that we can’t avoid. People are buying gadgets for which IT security is not ready to support. From the beginning, the “C-Level” didn’t want to have one device for the office and another device for the home. Now everybody wants just one device.
Considering anyone can buy and configure any mobile device by themselves and companies are extremely interested in having their employees connected 24 hours per day, consumerization is becoming more and more a part of the IT domain.
For this reason, companies around the world are worried about mobile security, so we see the biggest IT brands planning or doing something to help us, CIOs, address the day-to-day challenges posed by BYOD.
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Unfortunately, the trouble is just beginning because the mobile device market is growing fast, and there are no solutions available to solve all the IT security vulnerabilities, even for companies who offer free Internet access.
Mobile device sales will exceed desktop and notebook sales by 2014; therefore, BYOD will grow quickly. If your company has not met this challenge yet, it will very soon. So, get ready, start thinking about it and fast!
Aldo Navarro Zuquini Junior is IT general manager at Brazilian Grupo Águia Branca
