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Consumer Tech: an IT Nightmare
snydeq writes "Advice Line's Bob Lewis discusses the difficulties IT faces in embracing the kinds of consumer technologies business users are demanding they support. 'Let's assume the consumerization of IT is the big trend many think it is. But using consumer tech in a business environment is a very different matter from being satisfied with consumer tech in a business environment. One of IT's legitimate gripes is that we're often asked to turn consumer-grade technology into business-grade technology with a wave of our magic wands. On top of the intrinsic technical challenges, there's this: IT doesn't have anything that even resembles a methodology for performing the business analysis we need to figure out what it means to put consumer tech to productive day-to-day use.'"
we're often asked to turn consumer-grade technology into business-grade technology with a wave of our magic wands
This is nothing new. We've been expected to do this with Microsoft Windows for nearly two decades now.
for the IT department here.
1. lock it all down:
ive worked for companies that insist IT is the gatekeeper for everything from remote controls to pagers and cellphones. While you get great control, you also have no time or resources to dedicate to projects and ostensibly everything with a wall wart becomes "your job." Powerusers view you as some sort of hitler-incarnate so you wont get help or input from them at all.
2. trust your users:
im working at a company that embraces google apps, that trusts its users in the cloud, that appreciates anything that frees up resources so that projects can be accomplished and new achievements in the organization can be made. the downside to this is your IT support is often branded as a group of do-nothings as IT can really only help people with approved technologies. IT guys find themselves in elevators and hallways, cornered by desperate users who swear the problem theyre having in the cloud is something your IT department works on. If the bitching gets loud enough, you may end up supporting it anyhow, and that subset of 8 systems your team used to directly assist users begins to look like 'infinity.' you really need strong management for this type of environment to work. ready and open paths for users who bite off more than they can chew to safely make their way back to known desktop technologies is also a big plus. You can in some cases leverage power users to evangelize people in certain directions or help out where possible. Wiki's work wonders.
Good people go to bed earlier.
You want to run the thing, you want it to be yours, but you want someone to bail you out if you can't make it work. That is the nightmare IT scenario. That is the one that sucks tons of time from the group: When users want to run their own devices in their own way, but want IT to fix it when there's a problem.
Now I should say such a situation would be feasible, but only if you are willing to hire a bunch more IT people. Have a large enough group and sure, you can have people to do all the hand holding as well as all the all the central functions expected (like making network and all the servers work, developing new custom apps, and so on). However in a typical IT environment where there are not many support people, hand holding takes time away from other tasks.
Basically if you want to use your toys that's fine, but don't expect IT to want to waste time on them. They are your devices, you deal with them.
In terms of the "not on my network" I don't usually support that idea but there are cases where it makes sense. Security is a concern with companies and if the management decides they want only approved devices on the network, well then that is what IT has to enforce. There are reasons for that too: User devices are the biggest source of problems easily. I work at a university and we do allow for personal laptops and other things on the network. 99.9% of the time when there's a virus or other issue, it is from one of them. Of course they bypass one of the layers of our security, our border firewall, since they come inside the network, which makes them a bit more dangerous.
To me wanting IT to support your personal devices is the same as wanting the motor pool to work on your personal car. It just isn't reasonable. Your stuff is yours to do with as you wish, but don't expect corporate support to help you out. They have other things on their plate.
iPhones fully support exchange activesync, with remote wipe and everything.
In the mail settings, you add an account, and tap the first mail type in the list "Exchange"
Feed it your email address, then password. Done.
It uses the encrypted outlook web api (Same as the web app in a browser would over https) so works on the internal wifi as well as outside on 3G.
Employees are warned about the remote wipe feature, both in the employee handbook and directly when I'm asked if they can get their mail on their phone.
Users can even log in to web mail and perform the remote wipe and remote password reset features on their own, including from home, and most importantly whenever they need it.
Otherwise it has been one of the more simple non-windows devices I've had to support on a windows network. :P
I come from a Linux/Mac background as well, which doesn't translate the best to running a windows domain. I'm the reverse equivlant of the ditsy windows admin installing x11 and gnome on all the servers so he can remote admin them
The less I have to do to dig deeper into the windows world, the better.
Most android devices are basically as easy, but usually also ask for a username instead of extracting it from the email address for the first try.
Only two people with android ever had mail problems, both solved by removing and re-adding the mail server entry.
I'm just thankful the CEO is no longer using that blackberry... BES was hell!
About 25 years ago, my boss, the IT manager, had the same attitude towards PCs. He referred to them as "toys". They lacked security. At the time you didn't even need to log into them. You had to upgrade and install software on them independently. Backing them up was problematic, etc. etc.
Of course the mini-computers and terminals we all used at the time were eventually replaced with PCs.
It's about productivity. It's about not depending on an IT department with a backlog of 2 years for every little thing. What we've done to the PC in the name of security and making life easier for IT is to make them part of a centrally controlled system just like the mini computers were 25 years ago.
Want to use a great new piece of software? Is it on the approved list? No? Too bad.
That is not how we should be doing things.
I'm an IT director. Yes, you need security. Yes, centrally controlled admin is good. Being able to roll out tested software patches on mass is good. However, our role in IT is to FACILITATE, not to be a road block. That doesn't mean we have to say yes to everything but we need to understand why people want to use these devices for work and if there is a legitimate purpose, we need to figure out how to make it happen.
Our job is to support our people, even if that makes our job harder.