Gartner: Tablet and smartphone adoption to take four forms
CIOs will either be control-oriented, choice-oriented, innovation-oriented or hands-off as they cater for consumerisation boom, says analyst
Resellers pushing tablets and smartphones to businesses should ready themselves for the emergence of at least four CIO mobile management styles, Gartner research suggests.
According to the analyst, smartphone sales will reach 461.5 million in 2011, outstripping PC shipments for the first time.
Combined sales of smartphones and tablets will be 44 per cent more than PCs this year, Gartner added.
With more of these devices inevitably finding their way into enterprises, Gartner predicted that CIOs will adopt one of at least four management styles to cater for the differing needs of their employees. These are:
• Control-oriented, where the primary goal is to guarantee quality of services, security, support and cost. All aspects of the device and its applications will be controlled and supported by corporate IT.
• Choice-oriented, where the primary goal is user satisfaction. This will typically encompass firms in which users demand a greater choice of devices but have relatively undemanding application and service needs. The firm will exert lightweight control over devices and the service portfolio, often limiting the range of services provided and choosing safe architectures, such as a thin client.
• Innovation-oriented, where the goal is to empower users who want autonomy and are in roles over which IT has little control. For such firms, the IT organisation won't abandon responsibility for critical issues such as data privacy and corporate risk; however, the controls will likely be more policy-oriented than technology-oriented.
• Hands-off, where the goal is to take the minimum level of responsibility for mobile devices and services. This regime is about finding approaches that mean it is not necessary to take responsibility, such as employee-owned devices and bring-your-own (BYO) IT. Any controls that are necessary will be applied in the cloud, in applications or by policies.
Gartner also estimated that Android will remain the top smartphone platform for several years, with Apple set to take second spot in 2012 until 2014 before being displaced by Windows Phone.
Nick Jones, vice president at Gartner, said: "CIOs must be ready for the BYO programmes sooner than they realise. BYO is a principle that most organisations will adopt and organisations must prepare for this change."