Better for employers and employees alike: BYOD is the way of the future

The problem with BYOD is that it's in the businesses interest to ensure all employees have the same tools/capabilities. If I'm sending a document to a co-worker should I have to guess what format his device will be capable of receiving/displaying? Not everyone is capable of owning and maintaining the proper equipment. If employees are asked to meet a certain minimum standard on their own, what are you going to do for those who can't or won't? Conversely if you ask IT to support any device brought to them, you'll end up spending more than just buying a standardized device to begin with.

The success or failure of a BYOD based system would be based on how low you can set the functional standards bar combined with the average tech capability of your users. If you've got an organization of geeks, and all that's expected is email/voice/texting then BYOD works. Conversely if you've got an organization of low tech skill users, and business critical/complicated/proprietary apps then BYOD will fail. How poor would UPS delivery be if every driver brought their own bar code scanner?

Rats. I was hoping a new "Bring Your Own Dog" trend was on the rise.