What are the differences between BYOD and COPE, Why you should care and, Who can you go to for help?

BYO or Bring Your Own Device, BYOD, BYOD……..seems to be the most used acronym over the past few years…..for good reason…it’s become an epidemic and a serious challenge for IT support teams. In short it is a policy by where a company, EDU or government entity allows their IT users to use their own personal device (laptop, tablet, smartphone etc) to access the network and internal applications and information. Net-net it allows for a possible free-for-all by users on the network where IT needs to support their needs and hopefully provides security to all concerned.

COPE or Corporate Owned Personally Enabled seems to be just coming of age and is touted by many as the “happy medium” between users and IT. This policy often appeases users by allowing them to select devices (sanctioned by IT) that provide them with the mobility they desire and increasing their productivity. Great for the user and great for IT right? Well it’s the “Corporate Owned” piece and the “sanctioned by IT” piece where it seems to get a bit fuzzy and angst appears.

Why you should care is the fact that both BYOD and COPE are here in full force and IT shops whether internal or external need to deal with it. Just look at a brief recap of what a number of different outside sources are saying about this.

• The rise of bring your own device (BYOD) programs is the single most radical shift in the economics of client computing for business since PCs invaded the workplace – Gartner
• 70% of mobile professionals will conduct their work on personal smart devices by 2018 – Gartner
• Across the United States, the professions with the highest rates of personal smartphone use at work are in education (95%) and tech (90%). The profession with the lowest rate is retail. – New York Post
• Analysts have forecasted that, by 2016, worldwide shipments of smartphones will reach 480 million, with 65% being used in bring-your-own device environments. – Analyst firm IDC
• 53% of information users use their own personal devices for work; install unsupported software; or use unsupported Internet based services like Dropbox, Skype, Twitter, or Facebook to help them do their jobs.—Forrester

Who should you go to for help in understanding all of this? First which is better for you….BYOD or COPE? Good question with many technical to “human element” items to consider. The good news is there are many, many avenues you can go down to help you get your arms around this whole BYOD and COPE issue from your favorite vendor, VAR or MSP or existing IT staff. No matter which avenue you chose to go down and who you decide to partner with I suggest you consider one main factor in your decision criteria….Is this partner “in the cloud”? BYOD and COPE are all about mobility and mobility is all about cloud and many, many vendors, VARs, MSPs etc are “not” truly in and committed to the cloud with many having one toe in the water. As this space continues to evolve and mobility becomes even more mission critical to your business the partner you select needs to be as committed as you are to leveraging these technologies around the cloud.

Do you have a BYOD or COPE strategy and policy? If so great! If not, why not? And BTW, if you do when was the last time you reviewed it?