If you haven't figured this out already, then you better get a move on if your responsible for mobility solution at your company. Why you ask? Because the iPad 2 is here and it's going to be real hard to stop it.
The consumerization of Information Technology has been pretty aggressive over the past few years, but the action is about to heat up with the release of the Apple iPad 2. Actually the release of the iPad 2 will be the catalyst for introducing tablets to the workplace and in my opinion there are three positions the IT department can take.
Position One, try and keep them out. (Good luck with this strategy). Even if people can't use them on your companies wireless network, they'll still bring them to work and either use their 3G connection or piggyback off of some open wireless network in the neighborhood (something that is always done, but not nice). Eventually enough people will show up with them or someone in the "C" level suite will ask for it to be connected, so I would forget this strategy.
Position Two, meet in the middle. You can still keep them off the internal network and keep the tablet crowd happy, by offering a wireless network that is only connected to the Internet. It's a little more work for the network folks to setup and the security group to approve, but once done all of these rouge users with their non-standard devices can then connect to the Internet and surf and run applications to their hearts content. I would recommend creating some internal policy that informs them about avoiding using the device for business use, etc, but this is no different than using a wifi hotspot in say Starbucks.
Position Three, embrace the new technology and let the users connect to the internal network and have a good old time. I suspect many of you would like to avoid this position; especially anyone with a security background. However, for those companies that are more leading edge and are using tablets to replace or supplement the desktop computer this position is the way to go.How much you decide to embrace tablets really depends on what you think these devices should do; other than look cool and allow the user to think they are being more productive. If you already have or are planning to develop a tablet application then embrace you must. If it is a public facing application then developing for both Apple and Android is a must and you might have to deal with both platforms. If it's a private application for internal use, then you might be able to pick the platform. This will of course mean you'll need to create another policy and choose a device (operating system and hardware). Neither the Apple OS or Android are highly secure (they were designed for the consumer market) and most consumers don't pick the devices for the operating system, but unless your company is considered a Macintosh or Apple shop and you have iTunes readily available (because you need it for the iPad) then an Android based tablet is probably a better bet. The downside is that there are a bunch on the market, so unless your IT department wants to support multiple hardware standards you'll need to choose something. Apple makes it easier, everyone gets an iPad 2, but you'll need iTunes on every desktop computer to support this. It goes without saying that unless you get ahead of this TODAY, the consumer will choose which platform to go with and guess who will get stuck support them, you (or someone in your IT department).
So IT professionals, go answer the door and see what the Tablets want. You haven't won a sweepstakes but with some good planning you might still be a winner in the consumers eye.
BTW - by the time you've figured this out, written the policies, documented the support processes, gotten security and help desk approval two things would have happened. One, the consumers (users) will not have waited around and you'll have a bunch of miscellaneous tablets to contend with and two, a whole new crop of these devices will be on the market. So get going before it's too late.
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