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Wed, July 9, 2008

Dark Reading Column: Attack Of The Consumers (And Those Pesky iPhones)

By Rich

I have a sneaking suspicion my hosting provider secretly hates me after getting Slashdotted twice this week. But I don’t care, because in less than 48 hours it’s iPhone Day!!!

Okay, so I already have one and all the new one adds is a little more speed, and a GPS that probably isn’t good enough for what I need. But I use the friggen thing so darn much I can definitely use that speed.

It’s been up for a few days, but with everything else going on I’m just now getting back to my latest Dark Reading column. This month I take a look at what may be one of the most disruptive trends in enterprise technology- the consumerization of IT. Here’s an excerpt:

That’s the essence of the consumerization of IT. Be it laptops, cellphones, or Web services, we’re watching the walls crumble between business and consumer technology. IT expands from the workplace and permeates our entire lives. From home broadband and remote access, to cellphones, connected cars, TiVos, and game consoles with Web browsers. Employees are starting to adapt technology to their own individual work styles to increase personal productivity. The more valued the knowledge worker, the more likely they are to personalize their technology — work provided or not. Some companies are already reporting difficulties in getting highly qualified knowledge workers and locking them into strict IT environments. No, it’s not like the call center will be running off their own laptops, but they’ll probably be browsing the Web, sending IMs, and updating their blogs off their phones as they sit in front of their terminals. This is far from the end of the world. While we need to change some of our approaches, we’re gaining technology tools and experience in running looser environments without increasing our risk. There are strategies we can adopt to loosen the environment, without increasing risks:

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