Managers once recoiled at the idea of employees using their personal phones to connect to the corporate network.

But that fear seems almost quaint at the many companies that have embraced the BYOD trend. The Bring-Your-Own Device movement has been heating up, drawing more companies to the bandwagon. At IBM for example, 100,000 IBM employees were able to connect their personal handheld devices to the corporate network, with another 100,000 employees scheduled to be offered the option in 2012. That would bring about half the company’s workforce in to the fold.

Can the other half be far behind? The big concern has always been security. To address those issues, we’re seeing a bevy of new vendors--from large solutions firms to smaller security firms--rise up to make security and enterprise-level management applications much easier. If the trend fizzles out, it does not appear that we’ll be able to blame security issues.

But the trend is not likely to fizzle, which is bad news for BlackBerry in the enterprise, as much of the movement is driven by employee demands that they be able to use their Apple and Android products. Indeed, the new BES will allow for non-BlackBerry products. The focus now is shifting from mere adoption to driving ROI and productivity via personal devices.

We’ll likely see more companies invest in more sophisticated mobile management tools as the trend unrolls, a prospect that has vendors downright giddy. In addition, well-known security companies will likely enter the fray with their own offerings. To be sure, more than half of all IT manages still oppose BYOD, but in the end, their opposition will not matter if the CEO wants his or her iPad connected to the network.  

For more:
- here’s an article from InfoWorld­
- here’s some interesting commentary

Related articles:
Risks of BYOD trend
Some think tablets in enterprise will bring security boon