Over the last year I have been quite a convert in the area of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) as part of the Consumerization of IT in Enterprise Mobility. It allows the Prosumer in the company to bring their own device into the workplace, increasing their productivity. Less training etc ! Mobile Weapon of Choice ;-). Though for the Company it brings in the areas of device management and security above and beyond any reduction in cost of supplying any such devices. Some would class it as a win-win and it has been for a while.

I see one drawback of BYOD which is the fact that in certain industries features of cool devices may need to be disabled, making that great device a little less useable. For example, the camera or Bluetooth may not be allowed by some Mobile Governance Policies. Going even further, some policies may try to restrict consumer apps and usage scenarios... Ouch! Now not so much of a win for the Prosumer, but acceptable to many? I also wonder if BYOD is sustainable going forward in the economy?

More and more I am seeing the next phase, which I believe is... Chose Your Own Device (CYOD) where Corporate IT tries to control the diversity of the devices supported and any push back from the draw backs mentioned above, as well as keeping the Prosumer happy and productive. They still need to keep the devices secure and managed either way. I supposed you could call this Corporate Controlled Consumerization (CCC), if that is not an oxymoron, but then are we back to the same rules of You Get One Device (YGOD) which we had before, losing the personal usage?

Then yesterday I saw a great article from Philippe Winthrop (@the_emf_dot_org) of http://www.theemf.org. It was called "Could There Be a Better Way to COPE With BYOD In The Enterprise?" and can be found at http://theemf.org/2012/02/13/cou…

He defines COPE - Corporate Owned Personally Enabled. Philippe and I both agree that this could help COPE with with reduction of unloved/lost/damaged/underutilised Corporate Mobile Devices, by adding back personal use scenarios, so adding back the value to Information Worker, within Mobile Governance Polices, of course!

I see COPE as the icing on the cake of CYOD and an evolutionary stage from BYOD, now that Mobile Devices such as the iPad and other Tablets have become mainstream as part of, dare I say it... the post-PC era for Mobile Workers