BYOD, Bring Your Own Device, has become a buzzword in the era of Cloud. Many businesses are utilizing this new way of doing business. Employees like having the ability to use the device they prefer for work and personal without the need for multiple devices. Employers appreciate the freedom from expensive hardware procurement and maintenance. While BYOD has become relatively common, some business owners are uncomfortable with what they feel is a lack of security and control. There are other options that may give business owners, and their employees, the best of both worlds.
CYOD, Choose Your Own Device, is a twist of the BYOD idea. In the case of CYOD, the employer creates an approved list of devices. This give the employer the ability to choose devices with heightened security features and/or approved OS environments. Some devices allow for separate interfaces for work and personal. This duality relieves some of the security concerns while still freeing the employee from multiple devices.
COPE, Corporate Owned Personally Enabled, is one of the more restrictive options. COPE is similar to the days of the brick-and-mortar office in that the devices are all owned and controlled by the company. This discharges many security concerns since the company still retains complete control of the devices and have the ability to do a complete wipe of information in the case of a lost or stolen device. Employees are welcome to use these business owned devices for personal use, eliminating the need for multiple devices.
Business owners should consider a complete Cloud deployment when making hardware decisions. Cloud would greatly reduce security worries since no data will reside on the device itself. Confidential and business critical data is stored on servers, either owned by the business or a Cloud Service Provider.
