BYOD Successes? Private Sector Keeps It Under Wraps; Agencies Share

Recently EEOC share BYOD successes with Federal Technology Insider and we’ve tapped into other sources that best practices. Yet, private sector seems to be keeping projects under wraps.

Want to know a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) secret? Good luck gaining any insight from corporations.

While these organizations are generally considered to be further along with such policies than the federal government, corporations are much less willing to share information about what’s working.

“Behind the scenes, a lot of government folks are sharing ideas,” Tom Suder, co-chair of the Advanced Mobility Working Group within the American Council for Technology/Industry Advisory Council, recently told FCW. “But in talking with larger integrators, they are uncomfortable sharing these policies – corporations are touchy about it. In fact, these companies seem intent on maintaining their competitive advantage and are often hesitant to share information.

A recent Advanced Mobility Working Group survey sent to Federal CIO Council members asked whether agencies had a BYOD strategy or working policy in place, whether they would publicly share it, and when they expected to have a policy if guidelines weren’t in place.

But as federal agencies seek ways to catch up to where corporations are in terms of BYOD policy deployments, they may only get stonewalled when seeking an understanding of what has been successful in the private sector.

Meanwhile, though, a SANS Institute study released last year found that only nine percent of organizations surveyed felt they were fully aware of the devices accessing corporate resources.

The government sector has gained some direction from the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s draft version of Guidelines for Managing and Securing Mobile Devices in the Enterprise as well as the Federal CIO Council’s BYOD toolkit but the majority of government organizations still haven’t set a policy in stone.

For most agencies, “it’s so new that it’s kind of a ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ kind of thing,” Suder told FCW.