Interesting pivot in the approach to the enterprise phone market
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I think two phones should be normative. I'm probably in the minority, but I don't like BYOD. Can you consider a phone a secure business device if it is used for Netflix, Candy Crush, and for keeping the 3 year old quiet? This is a significant orientation change in my opinion. It is putting a small computing device in the hands of employees that can be secured and controlled in a major way. The "app gap" is almost a feature :). I'm not sure I'm communicating clearly, but even if this is not currently the standard, it should be.
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@Kelly said:
This is a significant orientation change in my opinion. It is putting a small computing device in the hands of employees that can be secured and controlled in a major way.
For companies that depend on the LAN and can't figure out BYOD. As someone who spent a long time in this world where a second phone was needed, it caused revolt. People just stopped working rather than keep the device charged, protected, etc. It's horrible, especially when the device starts becoming enormous like this. If this was my only device, sure, but as a second "carry this around all the time" no thanks.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Kelly said:
This is a significant orientation change in my opinion. It is putting a small computing device in the hands of employees that can be secured and controlled in a major way.
For companies that depend on the LAN and can't figure out BYOD. As someone who spent a long time in this world where a second phone was needed, it caused revolt. People just stopped working rather than keep the device charged, protected, etc. It's horrible, especially when the device starts becoming enormous like this. If this was my only device, sure, but as a second "carry this around all the time" no thanks.
Was there a specific reason you excluded the forgoing portion of my post? It seems that those considerations are very germane to the discussion. Yes, people revolt at even the slightest inconvenience, but that doesn't mean it is in the best interest of the business to cater to them even at a larger inconvenience like having two phones (one of which replaces their laptop).
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BYOD was never something that was good in the view of securing and maintaining company communications. It was initially a way to save money, and then became normal.
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@Kelly said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Kelly said:
This is a significant orientation change in my opinion. It is putting a small computing device in the hands of employees that can be secured and controlled in a major way.
For companies that depend on the LAN and can't figure out BYOD. As someone who spent a long time in this world where a second phone was needed, it caused revolt. People just stopped working rather than keep the device charged, protected, etc. It's horrible, especially when the device starts becoming enormous like this. If this was my only device, sure, but as a second "carry this around all the time" no thanks.
Was there a specific reason you excluded the forgoing portion of my post? It seems that those considerations are very germane to the discussion. Yes, people revolt at even the slightest inconvenience, but that doesn't mean it is in the best interest of the business to cater to them even at a larger inconvenience like having two phones (one of which replaces their laptop).
Well it becomes a thing to workaround, based on the company not figuring out a better way to do things. It's an invite to revolt NOT because it is good for the company but because it is a company that is lazy.
I left off the first part because I didn't feel that it applied. BYOD is extremely secure, if companies need mobile devices on their LANs I think they've lost the security battle already in most cases.
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@Kelly said:
BYOD was never something that was good in the view of securing and maintaining company communications. It was initially a way to save money, and then became normal.
I don't agree. I think BYOD caused modern security to happen. It wasn't about saving money, it was about better design. Once you went to what I call the "citadel" design of your network, BYOD was trivial. In the enterprise, I saw functionality drive BYOD, not cost savings. The cost savings thing I only heard about in the SMB a decade later.
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As an individual product - meh.
As the first of a new line of windows 10 mobile devices... could be interesting. I like the focus on one device with the brains that docks with everything else. I could see this having legs.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Kelly said:
BYOD was never something that was good in the view of securing and maintaining company communications. It was initially a way to save money, and then became normal.
I don't agree. I think BYOD caused modern security to happen. It wasn't about saving money, it was about better design. Once you went to what I call the "citadel" design of your network, BYOD was trivial. In the enterprise, I saw functionality drive BYOD, not cost savings. The cost savings thing I only heard about in the SMB a decade later.
I feel like I'm inviting a @scottalanmiller firehose of information here, but what functionality gains were seen by using BYOD? The devices were unchanged generally. Perhaps it is the difference in our experiences, but I don't even see how what your describing makes any sense. The decade thing seems a bit farfetched as BYOD really only became a thing, in SMB afaik, in the late aughts. To put enterprise BYOD back into the late '90's seems a bit incredible.
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@Kelly said:
Perhaps it is the difference in our experiences, but I don't even see how what your describing makes any sense. The decade thing seems a bit farfetched as BYOD really only became a thing, in SMB afaik, in the late aughts. To put enterprise BYOD back into the late '90's seems a bit incredible.
SMB wasn't really into quite by then and by the early 2000s it was old hat in the enterprise space.
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@Kelly said:
I feel like I'm inviting a @scottalanmiller firehose of information here, but what functionality gains were seen by using BYOD? The devices were unchanged generally.
Devices didn't change, but thinking did. The era before BYOD people used to assume that end points were secure. Of course, they are not. The changes were that the network was designed such that BYOD happened naturally by securing resources assuming that the end points were insecure. They didn't do it "for" BYOD, BYOD became a natural extension of the improvements in security.
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@Kelly said:
what functionality gains were seen by using BYOD? The devices were unchanged generally.
I've done BYOD twice:
First (Enterprise size) was a corporate fleet of BB's and it was simply because VIP staff wanted iPhones. No functionality gain, they still were only used for email. Did gain some "sales team bling factor" which apparently "helped boost sales".
Second (SMB size) was pushed by Finance to get rid of corporate bills. Easier and cheaper for us to give each employee $50/mth and install MDM on their device of choice.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I think BYOD caused modern security to happen.
@scottalanmiller said:
They didn't do it "for" BYOD, BYOD became a natural extension of the improvements in security.
You can't have it both ways, you need to pick one
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@Kelly said:
I think two phones should be normative. I'm probably in the minority, but I don't like BYOD. Can you consider a phone a secure business device if it is used for Netflix, Candy Crush, and for keeping the 3 year old quiet? This is a significant orientation change in my opinion. It is putting a small computing device in the hands of employees that can be secured and controlled in a major way. The "app gap" is almost a feature :). I'm not sure I'm communicating clearly, but even if this is not currently the standard, it should be.
I completely get what you are saying - but the end result is that the non technical CEO does not want to carry around two devices - one for facebooking/twitter/personal email/personal texting, etc and a second one for business.
Nor should he have to. Virtualization already exists that allows business apps to exist in a type of container that can have separate authentication requirements than the base phone.
There was a named TouchDown that did this at least for Exchange based email.
I know other products also exist to create this separation between the user's junk and the business stuff.
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I'm all for companies offering devices, but requiring them feels like an epic fail except in the most extreme special cases. This is why people hate Blackberry, it was just the shitty second phone you had to carry.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I'm all for companies offering devices, but requiring them feels like an epic fail except in the most extreme special cases. This is why people hate Blackberry, it was just the shitty second phone you had to carry.
This phone is dual SIM, so you could put both a personal number and a work number in it, so for someone who didn't want the full smartphone experience on the personal front, it could do both.
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@Dashrender said:
@Kelly said:
I think two phones should be normative. I'm probably in the minority, but I don't like BYOD. Can you consider a phone a secure business device if it is used for Netflix, Candy Crush, and for keeping the 3 year old quiet? This is a significant orientation change in my opinion. It is putting a small computing device in the hands of employees that can be secured and controlled in a major way. The "app gap" is almost a feature :). I'm not sure I'm communicating clearly, but even if this is not currently the standard, it should be.
I completely get what you are saying - but the end result is that the non technical CEO does not want to carry around two devices - one for facebooking/twitter/personal email/personal texting, etc and a second one for business.
Nor should he have to. Virtualization already exists that allows business apps to exist in a type of container that can have separate authentication requirements than the base phone.
There was a named TouchDown that did this at least for Exchange based email.
I know other products also exist to create this separation between the user's junk and the business stuff.
It would be very cool to have a containerized, secure, business OS run within a personal phone. I would push to move in this direction almost regardless of the platform or other considerations.
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@Kelly said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I'm all for companies offering devices, but requiring them feels like an epic fail except in the most extreme special cases. This is why people hate Blackberry, it was just the shitty second phone you had to carry.
This phone is dual SIM, so you could put both a personal number and a work number in it, so for someone who didn't want the full smartphone experience on the personal front, it could do both.
But why is Windows phone failing today? It is because the OS sucks - NO - anyone why uses it with a real open mind will see that it's just as usable any Android or iOS - it's failing because of the lack of apps. There might also be programming reasons weren't written there in the first place.
Of course I will toss in that that MS phones have in general sucked since the beginning, only with Windows Phone 7 did they really start being worth looking at, but with no real carrier buy-in, and iOS already doing so well - and Android starting to do better... MS had a huge uphill battle that they just continued to loose ground to.
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@Kelly said:
It would be very cool to have a containerized, secure, business OS run within a personal phone. I would push to move in this direction almost regardless of the platform or other considerations.
But as Scott said, users will revolt. They'll passively revolt if that's their only option - i.e. not charge it, forget it at home, etc. People don't want to carry multiple devices around anymore.
And if your business rebuilds its apps like Scott mentioned - to consider the endpoint unsecure, basically just a device on the internet trying to access your app, then using any device become a possibility. And in that case why wouldn't the user just use whatever device they like?
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@Kelly said:
@Dashrender said:
@Kelly said:
I think two phones should be normative. I'm probably in the minority, but I don't like BYOD. Can you consider a phone a secure business device if it is used for Netflix, Candy Crush, and for keeping the 3 year old quiet? This is a significant orientation change in my opinion. It is putting a small computing device in the hands of employees that can be secured and controlled in a major way. The "app gap" is almost a feature :). I'm not sure I'm communicating clearly, but even if this is not currently the standard, it should be.
I completely get what you are saying - but the end result is that the non technical CEO does not want to carry around two devices - one for facebooking/twitter/personal email/personal texting, etc and a second one for business.
Nor should he have to. Virtualization already exists that allows business apps to exist in a type of container that can have separate authentication requirements than the base phone.
There was a named TouchDown that did this at least for Exchange based email.
I know other products also exist to create this separation between the user's junk and the business stuff.
It would be very cool to have a containerized, secure, business OS run within a personal phone. I would push to move in this direction almost regardless of the platform or other considerations.
Samsung has containerization with some of their new Android phones.
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A large portion of using mobile devices for accessing things... isn't that what Remote Desktop & ilk are for?
If I have my phone, I can operate any device I need to manage thanks to apps like JuiceSSH, MS-RDP, Citrix, et al.
And note, this is my phone, not my employer's.
