No easy choice for BYOD

The advent of "bring your own device" (BYOD) poses a problem for companies and their system administrators and support teams. What hardware/software combination shall we choose as the company standard?

In the "old world" of desktop PCs, the choice was easy: Microsoft. Microsoft was the dominant player with the largest market share and the largest set of technologies. Microsoft was also the familiar choice; companies had a lot of Microsoft technology and companies knew that new offerings from Microsoft would work with the existing tech.

The brave new world of tablet/cloud technologies offers us choices, but there is no easy choice. The dominant vendors are not the familiar ones. Microsoft, the familiar choice, has some offerings in cloud technologies but they are not the dominant player. (That role is held by Amazon.com.) With tablets, the leader is Apple. With cell phones, the leader is Apple (or Google with Android, depending on how you look at the numbers). In any of the new tech of phones, tablets, and cloud, Microsoft is not the leader.

If one cannot choose Microsoft, can one at least choose a new single vendor for all the tech? Yes, with some complications. First, the new tech will coordinate poorly -- if at all -- with the existing (probably Microsoft) equipment. Second, the technology lead is split among vendors. Apple may lead in the cell phone and tablet market, but its iCloud offering is significantly less than Amazon.com's AWS offerings. Amazon.com offers the most popular cloud environment, but their tablets are designed for e-books and they have no cell phones. Google has a strong contender with Android for cell phones and tablets, but its cloud offerings are limited compared to AWS and Microsoft's Azure.

The situation is similar to the game of "rock-paper-scissors": no one vendor wins in all categories. If the game depends on cloud tech, then Amazon.com is the safest bet. If instead the game depends on tablets, you may want to use Apple technology. But who can tell the win conditions for the game?

My position is that the choice of a new standard for BYOD is a false one. Or at least the choice of a single set of technology across the company is the wrong choice.

The idea of a single standard, a single set of hardware (and limited software) is a hold-over from the desktop PC model of hardware. In that model, companies purchased, supplied, and supported the hardware and software. When you purchase and supply the equipment, you have to support it. Support costs money (you have to train people) and more configurations means higher costs. Fewer configurations means lower support costs, which is why Southwest Airline operates only Boeing 737 aircraft.

But with BYOD, the support is shifted from the company to the employee. The employee purchases the equipment. They purchase the software. They maintain the device. Forcing a single configuration (or a limited number) is possible, but it saves you nothing. If anything, it will irritate the employees who will see no reason for the restrictions. (It is similar to insisting that your employees all drive cars made by Ford. Unless you are the Ford Motor Company, you have no moral standing for such an edict.)

I recognize that the different tablets and phones run on different platforms. Apps written for iOS must be re-written to run on Android. There are some tools to assist with multi-platform apps. Some apps are best converted to HTML5 and Javascript with style sheets for the different platforms. But this question of platforms is applicable to only your custom, in-house applications. The "big" apps, the popular, general-business apps will move to all of the platforms, just as Facebook and Twitter run on the major platforms. You care about platforms only for your custom applications.

Transitioning from the "we supply everything" model to the "bring your own device" model requires changes for the company and for the employees. It is more complex than a simple "go get your own device" memo. Employees have to take ownership of their devices. Employers must let go of certain decisions and some control. Don't make it harder than it needs to be.