The booming BYOD phenomenon has created havoc in IT support groups. As more and more personally owned devices come into the enterprise, the support requirements can go through the roof. Intel Corporation has eliminated this headache by developing a standard process for pre-evaluating which mobile devices and operating systems it will further evaluate for official enterprise use. Check out Intel’s process and best practices here.
BYOD can be a dual-edged sword for most companies. One the one hand, allowing workers to use their preferred mobile devices can make them more productive as they have access to corporate data and applications anytime, anywhere. On the flip side, it can be a big challenge to manage those devices enough to assure that corporate data is not at risk. Some organizations are still debating: Do we allow people to use their own mobile devices, or not?
At Intel Corporation, there is no debate. As one of the world’s greatest advocates for “anytime, anywhere” computing (i.e., “the compute continuum”), Intel has to set the example by not just enabling but outright encouraging BYOD. But that doesn’t mean that Intel’s employees can use whatever kind of device they want. With more than 80,000 employees all around the world, the IT department at Intel decided years ago that it had to approach BYOD sensibly. That includes conducting a thorough evaluation of various mobile operating systems and devices and developing a “position statement” on each device to guide employees’ smartphone and tablet purchases.
EVENT: Network World BYOD Seminar — Philadelphia — Sept. 27
The use of handheld devices at Intel has grown rapidly. In 2009, there were 10,000 company-owned devices and no personally owned devices in employees’ hands. By 2011, employees possessed more than 29,000 mobile devices, 58% of which were personally owned. The percentage of user-chosen, user-owned devices just keeps going up.
Since 2010, employees have asked IT to support more than 450 different types of devices on seven or eight of the most popular operating systems. This kind of demand led Intel to develop a “pre-evaluation” process to quickly determine if a particular OS or device is worthy of a deeper look. If a device meets a basic set of criteria determined by company stakeholders, then a more detailed evaluation is conducted to determine if IT will agree to support the device’s use for company business.
David Byrne, handheld technology specialist, and Rob Evered, information security specialist at Intel, have documented and published their device pre-evaluation best practices for all to use. If your own organization is struggling with selecting (and limiting) the specific devices you will support for your users, this document can be a helpful guideline to separate the wheat from the chaff. I’ll summarize Intel’s pre-evaluation process here so you can see how having a formal and rapid process for evaluating new handheld devices helps meet employee demand for these devices while limiting the IT resources that must be spent on evaluation and testing.
The pre-evaluation screening is based on five criteria developed by IT with stakeholder input to ensure that devices selected for support meet employee needs throughout the company. With 45% of its employees outside the United States, Intel has to consider how to support approved devices around the world. The criteria are grouped into five categories:
• Security
• Manageability
• Productivity
• Performance
• Ease-of-use
In the Security category, evaluators look for: a power-on password; the ability to encrypt content; the ability to keep personal data separate from company data; whether the device can securely access the Intel VPN; the ability to securely store and prevent the removal of credentials; and device intrusion prevention.
As for Manageability, evaluators want to ensure that the device can be managed for both the enterprise and the consumer. It’s important that the device: support enterprise device management solutions and the standard MDM features in each OS; support discovery for provisioning of services; can be provisioned over the air; has the ability to accept configuration enforcement; can easily accept software delivery; supports health and status monitoring; and supports data backup and restore.
Productivity criteria cover those features that allow a user to complete tasks efficiently. The evaluators want to see: intelligent OS updates; a blended social interface; the ability to accept broadcast updates; a selection of available tools and applications; effective use of slices of time; and data and services for offline consumption.
Anyone who has had a battery die in the middle of an important call or activity can appreciate the Performance criteria. The evaluators consider: battery life; responsiveness; sufficient camera and video quality; a screen size large enough to provide a good user experience; sufficient on-device storage and RAM; and the capability to operate on multiple frequencies or bands.
Last but not least, the evaluators consider Ease-of-use criteria. Here’s what they look for: an intuitive user interface; easy updates to the OS, firmware and applications; the ability to easily switch between tasks; and the ability to support multiple input options such as touchscreen and an option wirelessly connected keyboard.
The evaluators assign a score of 0 (feature not present or requirements not met), 1 (meets minimum standards) or 2 (meets or exceeds best-in-class standards) to each of the criteria. The scoring process is objective and provides a comparison of strengths among the OSes or devices. Those products with a sufficiently high score in the pre-evaluation screening process go on to a deeper look, but this quick-look reduces time spent on devices that clearly aren’t worthy of use in Intel’s enterprise. With hundreds of device and OS combinations to screen every year, this process saves Intel considerable time and money while putting worthy devices into the hands of workers that much sooner.
Linda Musthaler is a principal analyst with Essential Solutions Corporation. You can write to her at LMusthaler@essential-iws.com.
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About Essential Solutions Corp:
Essential Solutions researches the practical value of information technology, and how it can make individual workers and entire organizations more productive. Essential Solutions offers consulting services to computer industry and corporate clients to help define and fulfill the potential of IT.
