With a rise in demand for smart devices, people now use their multiple personal devices, such as smartphone, tablet, laptop, smartwatch and other smart gadgets.
In offices, a person is usually provided with an official computer due to data protection and security reasons. This mindset is quite changed now because of BYOD.
What are the main drivers behind BYOD, and what is its present and future market size?
There are various companies playing a major role in supporting BYOD market which include Apple, Citrix, Cisco, HP, IBM, MobileIron, McAfee, Oracle, SAP, and Wombat Security Technologies.
There are various advancements in progress related to security concerns of BYOD. One of the examples is of Microsoft, which announced in November 2019, the integration of mobile threat defence (MTD) software with its Intune Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) platform.
The main purpose of this integration is to spot un-registered devices and employees’ devices which have infected applications and has the potential to disturb the network. This new capability by Microsoft is very beneficial for companies with BYOD policies.
Bring your own device (BYOD), as the name suggests, is the term used for the office environment. It allows employees to bring their own personal devices to the office. It allows them to access or use office data through their own personal computers. BYOD usually comprises of personal devices, such as cameras, laptop, mobile phone and tablets.
There are now other terms similar to BYOD, which are BYOT (bring your own technology), BYOP (bring your own mobile phone) and BYOPC (bring your own PC).
The term Bring your own device (BYOD) was first used by BroadVoice, a VOIP service provider in 2004. Since then, BYOD has been getting tractions. At first, the idea of BYOD was rejected by companies, but now BYOD policies are used in several leading companies, and others are looking to adopt the policy. IBM also allowed its employees to bring their own devices.
There are various drivers behind such success, such as:
The one drawback of using BYOD is the security risk of a company official and confidential information. For that purpose, companies have to put some security policies on all the personal devices used in the company.
The average market value of BYOD in 2018 was about US$ 97 billion and is expected to reach US$ 210 billion and US$ 250 billion in 2025.
According to a study conducted by Cisco in 2017, approximately 69% of IT-based companies were in favour of BYOD and considered it a positive addition to their organisations.