Have You Heard About CoIT and BYOD? You will…

You may already be shaking your head thinking how many more buzz-words and acronyms do I need to be aware of and do I even care.  Well, that depends.  If you are an employee, owner or consultant you probably should care.  It affects you and could actually make your job better, depending on your viewpoint!

Let’s start with CoIT or Consumerization of Information Technology. Simply put, this concept is about the transformation of how people are using technology.  Two good examples are mobile smartphones and social media.  Mobile smartphones today are quite easy to use and the touchscreen concept creates a more natural interaction with technology.  Most people do not need formal training to operate a smartphone.  The same is true with social media.  With more than 900 million users, Facebook would have quite a burden on its hands if it were required to provide training to its users.  Most people can figure out how to use Facebook relatively easily and social concepts have become a part of our daily lives.

It is these concepts that allow information to be more easily managed by consumers and the idea behind CoIT.  CoIT is about the way in which people are using technology.  The days are fleeting where an expert in server administration is required to run basic applications.  The control is shifting to you, the user.

BYOD on the other hand is about the actual device.  The device typically being referenced when discussing BYOD is a mobile tablet or smartphone.  BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device and is the concept of using your own personal mobile tablet or smartphone to perform company functions in the workplace.  Rather than companies footing the bill for devices, they are allowing staff to use their own personal devices.  A staff member is more likely to be responsive to their personal device rather than a company issued one.  Also, since smartphones are “smart”, they offer a wide variety of applications and tools to help you get your job done.  Newer mobile phones have built-in enterprise management solutions.  The Samsung GALAXY S3 for example, includes “AllShare” allowing you to remotely access documents and media on your desktop, and also has integrated communications offering dashboard-type screen-sharing, web conferencing and other enterprise mobility options.

Tying all this together is MAM or Mobile Application Management.  This is the way in which companies are managing mobile applications and BYOD and CoIT concepts.  The tangible implementation of MAM is typically in the form of software that allows authorized users to manage the permissions, security and distribution of mobile content within the business network.  Private app stores are a part of the MAM solution.  Businesses are creating their own internal private mobile application stores where staff can login and download mobile apps that will help them with their specific jobs.

There is much more to this emerging set of mobile business trends and solutions, and we will keep you up to date as the industry continues to change. eSavV can help you through these enterprise solutions and we can help build your own MAM solution and manage your mobile initiatives.  Call us at 888-316-6303 or visit our website at www.eSavV.com for more information.

Until next time, stay mobile!