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BYOA 'shadow IT' grows in the enterprise: Telsyte

BYOA 'shadow IT' grows in the enterprise: Telsyte

But many organisations lack official policies

Nearly two-thirds of Australian enterprises have staff using personal apps for work even though only about half of the organisations allow it, according to a Telsyte report.

For its Australian Enterprise Mobility Market Study 2014, Telsyte surveyed 460 CIOs and ICT decision makers on their organisation’s approach to bring your own device (BYOD) and bring your own application (BYOA).

Telsyte found that 27 per cent of Australian organisations allow users to use personal apps with no restrictions. And 25 per cent allow BYOA from an approved catalogue of apps.

Conversely, 48 per cent of organisations do not allow personal apps at work. However, of those, only 34 per cent actively enforce the policy while the remaining 14 per cent conceded that staff go ahead and break the rule.

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Some of the most popular BYOA apps referenced in the report include Dropbox, iCloud, GoToMeeting, WebEx, Skype, Evernote and QuickOffice.

Telsyte analyst Rodney Gedda said using personal apps at work has become “a new form of shadow IT”.

He said that while there is much interest among organisations in the BYOD trends, many have overlooked the growing practice of BYOA. The research found that nearly 80 per cent of Australia’s IT departments have no plans to officially support BYOA.

“Local businesses can take advantage of the emerging BYOA trend by allowing staff to be productive with public software. However, in many cases this will need to be balanced with the security and integration requirements of corporate IT,” Telsyte said.

“If businesses ban BYOA outright they will miss out on productivity and innovation that comes with people managing their own IT requirements.”

Also in the report, Telsyte found that 44 per cent of organisations currently support BYOD and another 34 per cent plan to do so within two years. About 25 per cent of Australian businesses use a dedicated mobile device management (MDM), double the number from last year.

BlackBerry leads in Australia as the most implemented MDM, followed by AirWatch, MobileIron, Good Technology and SAP, Telsyte found.

Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of a dystopian novel about surveillance. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam

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Tags BYODmobileappsapplicationsshadow ITbring your own deviceBYOAbring your own application

More about AirWatch AustraliaAirWatch AustraliaBlackBerryDropboxEvernoteGartnerGood TechnologyMobileIronSAP AustraliaSkypeTechnologyTelsyte

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