Growth in unified communications and BYOD but concerns remain

A new report from research firm Ovum anticipates rapidly growing  interest in the use of managed unified communications (UC) applications over the next two years. The survey, conducted with Dimension Data, found that over a third of large enterprises will be procuring managed UC services by 2015. The report also suggests that Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)  policies are supported by 60 per cent of American businesses, with a growing number of firms looking to integrate their BYOD policies with their new approach to unified communications. One technology they won’t be looking to integrate is The Cloud which only a fifth claimed they would use for UC applications.

Despite this positive approach to BYOD, questions remain about its security. According to a survey from iPass, the majority of IT teams now spend more time managing BYOD issues than the company’s own hardware. This is a direct consequence of the fact that the majority of people are now allowed to use their mobile devices for work, despite ongoing concerns about security.

Two of the most recent manifestations of this ongoing concern were the call from IT experts in this report to ban the new Facebook Home application from Android devices amid fears that the new app could seriously compromise data security; and, as this blog from the Wall Street Journal highlights, the threat from the growing numbers of pay-as-you-go phones working within BYOD frameworks.

Our own briefing on Unified Communications is still available to download here.