Survey: BYOD is Driving IT Admins To Look for Better Mobile Support 
Even as Bring Your Own Device policies at corporate firms are gaining momentum, IT admins admit there’s a lot more their companies need to do to support such any-device-goes mobile policies, according to a survey from Mimecast, a provider of cloud-based email management.
Even as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies at corporate firms are gaining momentum, IT admins admit there’s a lot more their companies need to do to support such any-device-goes mobile policies, according to a recent survey.
The survey found awareness of enterprise mobile IT was on a sharp rise. For instance, two-thirds of those IT admins surveyed said they have a “mobilized” workforce, and 41% support some BYOD mobile policies for their workforce. Despite this strong growth in awareness, the levels of mobile support are not without limitation. When it comes to BYOD, for instance, only 28% of companies with less than 4,999 employees can support three or more devices. A scant 14% can support five or more devices, the survey found.
Most remarkable, the survey reported an astounding 100% (that’s right – everybody) of 600+ survey takers said their companies “lack enterprise-wide mobile infrastructure and resources” needed to support all their employees.
The survey was conducted by Mimecast, a provider Microsoft Exchange email management via the cloud. They survey interviews 600+ respondents who attended ‘Exchange Connections,’ and event for Microsoft Exchange admins and other IT professionals working on messaging and collaboration issues.
“The results clearly show that worker mobility matters, but IT departments need solutions that can quickly support all platforms, while ensuring business security and employee flexibility,” said David Goldberg, vice president of product strategy at Mimecast, in a statement. “An event such as ‘Exchange Connections’ …provides insight into “what is keeping IT administrators up at night,” he added.
Other notable results from the survey are:
- 67% of companies support some kind of “mobilized” workforce, and 41% support BYOD
- 12% of companies with 100-1,000 employees have workers telecommuting between 25% and 50% of the time.
- 36% of companies with 1-100 employees, have 25% or more of their workforce working outside the office.
- For companies with 100 to 1,000 employees, the number of mobile workers jumps to 42%.
- Companies with 1,000 to 4,999 employees had the highest level of support for their mobile workers, with 44% having a quarter or more of their workforce typically online, outside the office.
Add it up, and the Mimecast survey makes this conclusion: “In the future, IT departments will be challenged to figure out how to deploy company-wide support as well as control the increase in mobile devices within a secure environment.”
