BlackBerry still the corporate device of choice, but for how long?

The tablet and the smartphone have now become a common sight in UK corporate businesses and the latest Reality Checker from the Corporate IT Forum, which surveyed heads of IT at some of the UK’s largest organisations, has found that BlackBerry is still the corporate device of choice, but Apple is hot on its heels and the favourite on a personal basis.   

Over a third (36 percent) of survey respondents cite the BlackBerry as the prevalent corporate device in their organisation. Conversely, only 12 percent of the personal devices people are using in the workplace are BlackBerries.

The acceptance of Apple products continues to grow as they gain popularity with IT departments and users alike.  Just under a third (31 percent) of respondents cite iOS devices (iPad and iPhone) as the most popular corporate devices used by their organisation. iOS devices are also popular with users, representing more than a third (36percent ) of the personal devices used in the workplace. 

Despite strong consumer sales in 2011, Android is yet to make an impact as a corporate device, with only 9 percent of respondents saying that it is used within their organisations, compared to the 23 percent of people that use their own personal Android in the workplace. Findings also show that Windows devices are far less popular, with just 17 percent citing them as corporate devices and 18 percent citing them as the personal devices people are using in the workplace.

The survey by the Corporate IT Forum, an independent body that brings together practitioners from over 320 organisations, shows that consumerisation of IT will continue to grow in 2012.   The survey revealed that some organisations are hoping to realise the financial benefits of ‘Buy Your Own’ computing in the next 12 months, giving user-owned devices access to corporate networks, data and applications.   Three quarters (75 percent) of corporate IT departments are currently researching or piloting the use of smart devices within their organisation, with 22 percent already having them fully in place. This has grown since 2011, when only 13 percent had fully implemented smart devices.

The traditional PC/ laptop model is still used by the vast majority of respondents (98 percent) and, as expected, the three main devices allocated to staff are a PC, a laptop and a mobile phone. Tablets currently account for only 5 percent of corporate devices in the workplace and are mainly used by the board and senior executives (38 percent), followed by the IT department (19 percent) and sales (13.5 percent).  

Dani Briscoe, Research Services Manager at The Corporate IT Forum said, “The message from larger organisations is that Consumerisation of IT will see some major growth in 2012. But mobile security is still a contentious and highly controlled area and many organisations are still not allowing end user devices to connect to the corporate network without acceptance of certain policies, many of which contain the right to wipe the device remotely.  Geo-fencing is also being entertained as a possible solution for devices that are allowed to connect to certain networks. In 2011, 39 percent of Corporate IT Forum members already had user access and mobile strategies in place.”

This Reality Checker was published in January 2012. Contributing organisations represent an annual IT spend of £13.7 billion, employ over 1.7 million people and have over 1,400 years of collective experience managing end user devices and desktops.

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