BYOD: Do IT managers in analyst firms walk the talk?

• Survey results indicate that majority of analysts in APAC prefer a Mac
• But their employers do not provide support for Macs, or a BYOD policy

A FORECAST by Gartner in May 2013 indicated that about half of the world’s enterprises will adopt bring your own device (BYOD) programmes by 2017. Are we on track?
 
As conversations about the growth in BYOD adoption continue in the industry, we at Parallels decided to conduct a quick survey. We targeted analysts based in Asia Pacific to find out where their firms stand in the BYOD scheme of things.
 
In our survey, we polled 40 analysts from major firms (such as IDC, Gartner, and Forrester Research): 77% of these analysts are Mac users and would like to use a Mac at work; 23% are neither Mac users nor interested in using a Mac at work.
 
Of those polled, 15% said their companies allow them to choose between a Mac and a Windows machine.
 
Surprisingly, only 38% indicated that their companies have a BYOD policy that allows them to use their personal Mac computers at work. Of those whose companies allow employees to use a Mac at work, the majority (61%) said that there are between one and nine Mac units running at their organisations, while 15% estimated 10 to 25 Mac units and another 15% estimated 51–250 Mac units.
 
For those analysts who indicated that their firms do not have a BYOD policy, Parallels asked why they are not allowed to bring a Mac to work. All of them cited a lack of support by their IT managers; 23% also mentioned inconvenience, as they have many Windows-only applications in their workplaces.
  
Overall, our results indicate that although the majority of analysts polled in the Asia Pacific region prefer a Mac for personal use and are open to using a Mac system in their work environment, their employers have yet to demonstrate support for the use of Mac in the workplace, as well as implement a BYOD policy.
 
While some of the analyst firms’ IT managers may share common concerns about BYOD adoption – security, management issues, incompatible IT environment, and so on – sophisticated technology abounds to address these issues.
 
As the analysts themselves have espoused, BYOD adoption is still growing, with many of the big enterprises continuing to embrace it by allowing a mix of devices (including Mac and PCs) to coexist in their network infrastructures.
 
So what’s stopping some IT managers from giving BYOD a push? Why do some of them still seem to lack support for Mac systems at work? Do they need more convincing and enlightenment from their colleagues, the analysts?
 
Perhaps they just need to read more of their own recent research and industry surveys – we hope this article provides a boost of motivation in that direction.
 
From our vantage point, it looks like the perfect time to embrace Mac at the office.
 
Eugenio Ferrante is Parallels’ head of Marketing Operations, Asia Pacific. This article was first published on the Parallels Enterprise blog and is reprinted here with its kind permission.
 
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