I attended a Telindus sponsored Consumerisation of the Workplace workshop on Tuesday on my way down to the Convergence Summit. Jean Marie Stas of Belgacom gave a talk about tablet adoption – his experiences seem to exactly reflect my own – especially when it comes to the wife always asking if she can borrow your iPad.
The workshop came up with a few interesting snippets. Firstly Cisco has stopped buying mobile phones and just give staff vouchers so they can go and buy their own. They are apparently looking to do the same thing with tablets and PCs. This seems very much to be the way forward.
Some of the service providers around the table were reporting that there was a significant interest from many areas in BYOD, notably in the Financial Services market. Workers in this industry are highly paid and typically want all the latest gadgets which is at odds with the need to maintain security and compliance.
This correlates quite nicely with Timico’s recent Mobile Workplace Report which found that 89% of IT Directors in this sector were worried about people bringing their own device to work (BYOD). There doesn’t seem to be the same degree of concern in all sectors – I learned that Bolton Council has gone and given all employees eligible for a “company” phone an iPhone. The Local Authority uses Apple’s own device management tools to manage these handsets.
The subject of the 2012 Olympic games came up. Apparently London Mayor Boris Johnson is really worried that the city’s mobile infrastructure will not cope with demand when the games are on. I think he is right to be concerned. I imagine that every single person watching the events will also be tweeting from their smart phones, checking results online and watching repeats on iPlayer – the Beeb is opening up 24 online channels especially for the Olympics.
Expect to hear more about technology relating to the Olympics as we get nearer the time. In the meantime if anyone in the London area is planning on data network related work in 2012 drop me a line. There is doing to be significant disruption caused by a freeze on any work that might in turn disrupt the smooth running of traffic around the time of the games. This will mean no digs and no duct access in certain areas. More on this as I get more specific info.
Oh and by the way the workshop was held at the Williams F1 Conference centre – hence the admittedly somewhat cryptic post title. I didn’t have time to stay for the tour but don’t worry I have seen it before.
