Happy Friday everyone! I’m sure it’s become obvious that we here at Matrix42 are interested in all things BYOD and IT Consumerization. Why? These are two driving factors behind delivering what we call the “dynamic workplace” – part of our new company messaging. As you’ll see in my last blog post, our approach is very user-centric – as we feel it must be – to meet user demands for freedom, flexibility, and mobility. And, in case you missed it earlier this week, Virtual Patrick (@virtual_patrick) wrote a great post on the convergence of laptop and desktop PCs with mobile devices and virtualization. Maybe it’s just because Valentine’s Day was this week, but that sounds like a match made in tech heaven to me! Check it out here and let us know what you think. Now that we’ve got those two things crossed off our list, on to the news of this week… 

The fundamental tenets of employment – and the business world in general – haven’t changed: employees want to be productive and do the best job they can. What has changed is the way today’s professionals work – they’re at the office, they’re on the road, and they’re at home. They are no longer tethered to their office desk from 9-5; they work wherever, whenever and on whichever device they prefer. The acronyms BYOD and CoIT are being discussed around a lot these days, but this is no passing trend. This is the new work standard, what we call the dynamic workplace – and it could be physical, mobile, or virtual.

We’ve written a lot here about Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives and the impact they have on IT departments. Last week I wrote about BYOD as a perk many companies are offering to attract and retain top job candidates. In fact, 60 percent of companies already are enabling BYOD, according to a July 2011 Forrester Research survey. However, many companies are still overwhelmed by the tablets and smartphones proliferating their offices and it‘s with those folks in mind that I submit the following five tips for integrating BYOD into overall IT service management.