iPads in Business

There is a seismic shift happening with ‘bring your own devices’ in business as workers are using their own devices to do their job better. And research firm IDC highlights that the ’byod' movement is getting a major push from executives wanting to access their own iPads in meetings. The sheer size is impressive- Apple sold over 40 million iPad tablets last year. Some enterprises have started to support iPads by choice, but the majority are doing so by necessity. The sooner organizations identify this new ‘normal’, the better they will be to be able to deliver the needed security and incorporate the new applications that are available. Here are some areas to look at when planning to incorporate iPads into your business.
First, it needs to be acknowledged that iPads are currently being bought, deployed and managed differently than notebooks and desktop PCs:

- Many IT professionals tasked with supporting iPads have expressed surprise at how different iPads are to acquire, manage, secure and support compared with traditional PCs. A lot of iPads are being purchased personally, so bringing these into secure environments require work. It's recommended that you review all security practices to minimize data that is exposed or recoverable on iPads and then assess the risk level of exposure for the remainder of the data.

- Although iPads offer security features, there are many ways for the security to fail. While no perfect solution exists, a combination of iPad tools, third-party tools and attention to where data is stored can create a security environment sufficient to meet the assessed risk level of many organizations.

In particular, users have numerous ways of moving files from public or private data sources and storing them outside security boundaries on an iPad, like Dropbox. For protection, you should consider some password security and regular password changes. For example, you can enforce a wipe after a set unsuccessful tries and you can support the Apple data protection APIs to ensure that data is protected, even if a device is compromised. And in cases where iPad users access sensitive data, require employee-owned devices to be secured and managed by the enterprise.

The good news is that there are third-party tools for IT organizations to do central application provisioning and application management and there are also a number of service providers offering hosted mobile device management (MDM) services. For users of Windows, hosted virtual desktop (HVD) capabilities from suppliers like Citrix and VMware can allow iPad users to access server-based legacy Windows applications in a secure, manageable fashion. But there is a trade-off here and you need to recognize the costs of a HVD infrastructure.

With iPads, you can be proactive by empowering end-users to take care of some part of MDM. Think about creating a self-service portal that allow them to enroll their devices, lock and wipe their devices if they think they’ve been stolen, to reset their passcodes and to locate their lost devices. You can also develop your own application storefront and have a list of approved applications to ease the delivery and access.

One major major issue is the ‘fidelity’ of documents. Fidelity refers to the ability to maintain all templates, formatting and formulae when moving documents from one platform to another. Documents created in a desktop version of Office, for example, can lose critical details when sent to an iPad. Even worse, not all iPad applications will give notice of what formatting detail was lost. Images may be repositioned, fonts changed or text realigned in a slide deck. This needs to be addressed when bringing in iPads and you need to alert users about potential fidelity issues.

But the upside for supporting iPads in business is enormous. With the top-level management push wanting to use them, iPads are becoming a standard business tool. There is talk that Microsoft will be releasing an Office Suite for iPads soon which will also push the device into the mainstream. With literally thousands of apps for business and growing, this device is going to transform the way we do business in a big way!