Embracing Consumer Technologies in the Enterprise

Hello Sun Inner Circle readers. It’s Bob Worrall here, the CIO of Sun and the typical author of this letter. This month I’m traveling the world, talking to customers, partners, and the press about some of the exciting things going on in IT and across Sun.

In my stead, I’ve asked John Dutra, CTO of Sun IT, to author this month’s letter. John is going to discuss a topic that I find fascinating — namely how do enterprises respond to the threat and opportunity posed by consumer technologies.

So, without further ado, take it away John.

***

Thanks Bob. I’ll try my best to live up to the high standards you’ve set in this venue.

I too find the topic of managing consumer technologies within the enterprise very interesting. And I’m going to use this letter to explain why enterprises should consider adopting emerging consumer technologies, and how to best manage them.

IT innovation used to be the province of enterprises and government agencies. Big iron, the Internet, and even personal computers owe their roots to large-scale and heavily subsidized public and private sector research. When it came to enterprise IT, corporations and government research organizations helped develop the technological foundation for what exists today.

However, ever since Apple aired its iconic 1984 commercial, a counter-trend began to emerge. Today, the consumer is the main catalyst for technological innovation — both inside and outside the enterprise. Let’s consider an early and powerful example.

While the personal computer owes its roots to IBM and Xerox PARC, once PCs entered the home, their processors and other components became inexpensive. Why is that important? Because cheap processors drove volume, volume drove power, and today the x86 processors that emerged in the consumer space form the foundation for many enterprise server implementations.

That’s just one example. Today’s enterprises are increasingly taking advantage of cell phones, podcasts, and consumer-focused services like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. The proliferation of consumer innovations has had an undeniable impact on today’s enterprise. Which begs the question: How should enterprises respond to the threat — and the opportunity — of consumer technologies?

Why Enterprises Resist Consumer Technology
Enterprises have long cast a suspicious glare on new consumer technologies, in part because they’re not fortified with the same advanced security as enterprise systems. In some ways, it’s easier and more practical for an organization to limit its set of authorized technologies.

Consider the laptop. Once upon a time, many enterprises supplied employees with notebook PCs with software and connectivity configured by the IT department. The idea was that the organization would control the laptop — but the practice introduced security vulnerabilities as people carried laptops from the office or brought their own laptops to work. Several high-profile thefts of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs laptops containing sensitive data on millions of military veterans highlighted the risks of the practice.

Then there’s the cell phone, which many enterprises vigorously resisted. Soon after the cell phone forced its way into the enterprise, the device became a camera, and enterprises that might have valuable intellectual property on a conference room white board needed to adopt policies against camera phones.

Emerging Enterprise-Ready Consumer Technologies
The enterprise now finds itself at a crossroads. Efforts to maintain security by limiting the use of consumer technologies is at odds with the massive proliferation of cell phones and other devices upon which consumers — that is, enterprise employees — depend. And by restricting the use of consumer devices, enterprises forsake any organizational benefits they might deliver.

For the enterprise, it’s time to consider how to embrace and capitalize on new consumer technologies, rather than struggling in vain to resist them.

Over the past few years, no product has captured consumer mindshare more greedily than the Apple iPod. While the media player is largely thought of as a consumer device, it’s beginning to make inroads into the enterprise. For instance, enterprises see the potential in using podcasts to disseminate corporate information, as well enabling employees to receive training and other information via iPods while they’re stuck in traffic or sitting on an airplane.

The iPod might be considered a passive device because it doesn’t directly connect to the Internet, but it still poses a security challenge because sensitive information can be stashed in its memory. Just the same, in an attempt to encourage mobility, many enterprises are open to the potential of the iPod and willing to accept its potential security risk.

The iPod is not the first nor the last consumer device to penetrate the enterprise. For instance, broadband Internet access began as a consumer play, and early providers tried to prohibit corporate use in order to limit network traffic. As with the iPod, the desire for mobility and flexibility eventually won out, and today people mingle work and play over their home broadband connections.

And now homes are increasingly populated by powerful computers that bear a different moniker — namely set-top boxes and game consoles. Is it far-fetched to imagine that these powerful graphics engines will make their way into the enterprise? Already, it’s becoming clear that the answer is no.

Many enterprises have adopted avatars to represent actual people in online meetings. And organizations have begun to see virtual reality worlds — like those at the Second Life online community — as a valid and useful place to hold corporate meetings.

Perhaps nowhere is the trend toward consumerization more apparent than in the software as a service (SaaS) space. Building on the success of services like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail, a whole ecosystem of social networking and knowledge-sharing services has emerged. Organizations are increasingly exploiting such services with corporate wikis and enterprise MySpace pages. They’re finding that it’s much easier to post a corporate training video to YouTube than to secure approval and marshal the resources necessary to post the same video behind an enterprise firewall.

Enterprise Strategies for Managing the Consumerization of IT Because consumerization is inevitable, it’s imperative for enterprises to strategize on how it can be best managed and leveraged. An exclusionary policy that restricts the use of mobile consumer-oriented technology may make sense for organizations in sensitive industries like defense and national security, or for small companies with a basic 9-to-5 schedule and limited needs for a flexible and mobile workforce.

But for many enterprises, a mobile and connected workforce can help reduce costs, improve productivity, and provide competitive advantage. These organizations should spend the time up front to decide which devices and services are important and identify enterprise-grade security protocols to support them. For instance, if mobile email access is important, devices might be made IMAP- and SSL-compliant.

The Benefits of Being Open to Consumerization
Both employees and employers stand to benefit from the mobility and flexibility made possible by consumer-oriented technologies. Employees given a choice over how and where they work are typically happier and more productive — resulting in higher quality work. At Sun, employees consistently cite our Open Work program, which helps employees work from home, as one of our most beneficial and valued programs.

Enterprises can reduce their real estate footprint and save considerable money in energy and space by embracing broader connectivity and device options and encouraging people to work off campus. At Sun, we’ve saved millions of dollars through our Open Work program. More than 50 percent of Sun employees don’t even have an assigned office.

At the same time, telecommuting benefits the environment by helping to decrease air pollution, traffic congestion, and use of finite fossil fuels. Sun is proud to have been named in October 2006 as among the Best Workplaces for Commuters by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation — a nice pat on the back in the context of our larger eco-responsibility initiatives.

From iPods to cell phones, from wikis to Web, consumerization is here to stay. It’s time for the enterprise to take a hard look at how to adapt to an increasingly wired world and start realizing the benefits of greater mobility, flexibility, and connectivity.