Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is definitely an important issue for companies and IT departments, but what the vast majority of reporters and CEOs seem to forget is that context is extremely important.
Looking at this from a company perspective, when we are talking about phones and tablets, then BYOD is a pretty important issue. It seems to be creeping into the laptop side of business a little, but as far as desktops are concerned, BYOD it is virtually non-existent. So when Marc Benioff talks about the affect of BYOD on Windows 8 uptake I think he is living in some sort of dream land. I’m not suggesting Windows 8 will be a success in business, but it’s failure will not be down to BYOD.
Ignoring the board rooms and the sales teams, who are essentially consumers, the real IT work in companies is still being done on PCs. Yes, you can use a cloud service on your phone, but look around the office and you will see those cloud services are actually being used by people on PCs. Applications such as Oracle Fusion Apps have mobile device interfaces, but typically people will be sitting at a PC doing all the real work, not using some crappy little software keyboard. This idea that the office is full of people doing their job on an iPhone is just stupid.
Since we are going to have PCs on our desks for quite some time, then Microsoft are going to do OK. The PC on your desk at work will be replaced and Microsoft will get their pound of flesh, because there is no real alternative. Apple is a tiny fraction of this market and Linux desktops have never taken off. Whether the company install Windows 7 or Windows 8 is another issue, but Microsoft get paid all the same.
So please stop insulting our intelligence by telling us BYOD is a game changer on the office desktop. It’s not!
Note. I’m looking at this from a company IT perspective, so don’t start telling me how your granny got rid of her PC and happily replaced it with an iPad! Your Granny is not running SalesForce.com!
Cheers
Tim…