Tag Archives: Consumerisation

Is Apple hardware and software really ready for business?

Apple products are beautiful to look at and easy to use. But are iPads, iPhones and the technology specialist’s other user-friendly tools really ready for enterprise deployment? Five CIOs gave their opinions to me for silicon.com on whether Apple technology is really resilient enough for the modern organisation:

Opinion 1 – Apple tech best suits certain industries: “Enterprises used to drive innovation and that is now definitely not the case,” says Julian Self, group operations and IT director at information specialist IPD, who says people are now entering the workplace with their own devices and their own demands.

“There’s significant pull-through from consumerisation,” says Self. “If strategies to allow workers to buy their own device continue to increase in number, then we will see much more Apple technology in the office. But is it really enterprise-ready?” Self believes the answer is definitely ‘yes’ for some organisations in specific industries, such as media and marketing.

But while he believes MacBooks have a great reputation, and that iPhones and iPads can be used as channels to create apps that build brand awareness, he is not convinced there will be a rapid move towards a broad range of Apple-led enterprises.

“Our clients don’t really make decisions in the field and, in many businesses, people still need a Windows-led approach,” says Self. “At the same time, attempts by Microsoft to move towards gesture-based computing might have an unexpected effect and show sceptics that other operating systems and techniques, such as those produced by Apple, can work in the business.”

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

Consumerisation is the elephant in the room for CIOs

I’m just putting the final touches to the summer edition of CIO Connect magazine. As usual, there’s a strong focus on IT leadership but there’s also a take on consumerisation, which will be the topic for CIO Connect’s annual conference later this year.

Entitled Power to the people?, the scene for the conference was set in the spring edition of the magazine, from which the following slice of the editorial is lifted:

Now people have access to better technology at home than in the office, it has become almost de rigueur to be able to show off a bunch of cool apps on your latest Steve Jobs device.

One CIO mentioned to me recently how his 10-strong board had been given iPads. It was, he believed, the epitome of forward thinking. Other companies have taken a similar strategy, giving devices to executives on the move.

Some IT leaders are honest enough to admit that the device is mainly used to keep their children happy playing ‘Angry Birds’. Others, however, are convinced the device provides the future of enterprise connectivity.

But there is an elephant in the room: consumerisation, which turns the traditional model of IT procurement inside out. Increasing number of users are buying their own devices and expecting the business to provide secure connectivity.

Another CIO mentioned to me recently how he was surprised that Apple seemed less concerned by enterprise than consumer concerns. But why should the technology giant’s focus be the enterprise?

A purchase order of 10 iPads for a single company looks diminutive next to global consumer tablet sales. Estimates suggest that by year-end 2010, Apple had sold somewhere near 15 million iPads.

It does not stop there. Analysts expect the technology giant to ship as many as 30 million units of its second-generation iPad during its first year of sales. In short, Apple and innovative technology peers such as Google are helping to break the traditional model of enterprise computing.

Rather than licences and devices being purchased internally, employers are picking their own technology and expecting to be able to plug and play. It is a development which creates new and rapidly emerging challenges for the CIO. Are you ready?

Millennials: Can CIOs win the generation game?

And here’s another piece from mid-January for silicon.com, this time about a new set of customer-focused challenges for CIOs. Faced with a new wave of people and technology, how are IT leaders preparing the business for the next generation of customers and workers?

Young people are different. They live like cyborgs, collaborating and connecting online with multiple contacts across various forms of social technology. How they use IT will completely disrupt how your business engages with its employees and customers.

That, at least, is the popular myth. But generalisations are unhelpful, as was wonderfully exposed in a recent first-person account of millennials on silicon.com. Yes, millennials are enthusiastic, technology-literate multitaskers. They are also far from the clichéd media depiction of tech-savvy anarchists set to destroy established corporate hierarchies.

It is a viewpoint that resonates strongly with Keith Collins, CTO at technology specialist SAS and a business leader with 25 years’ experience of how IT is used and consumed. “Generation Y has grown up with technology but it’s rubbish to suggest that such individuals will only want to be independent and not have strong relationships with the company,” he says.

To read the rest of the feature, click here.