Why do IT people resist end users bringing their own equipment to the enterprise network? Those same IT folks are typically pretty proud of what they've achieved with their infrastructure. The message is typically, "it's a security risk." But the implied message is: "we have an inadequate network to deal with this challenge."Infrastructure and platform services have already pushed beyond the legacy corporate "crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside" enterprise network. At some point, the cost/benefit of cloud is going to push significant data outside the corporate net. And if ISPs and your cloud providers allow random workstations to be connected, why can't you allow them?

End user devices are expensive, from procurement, to rollout, to configuration, to support. If you didn't have to worry about that piece of the puzzle and got to concentrate on procuring, customizing, and securing killer enterprise apps for your business, would that be such a tragedy?

Ok, so maybe the answers aren't easy. But to start to be able to address issues like this with actual data, we've launched a research survey about end user device practices in enterprise networks.

Click here to join us in figuring out the answers and best practices surrounding this and other conundrums in the end user device world. The answers to what your peers are doing, to be published in InformationWeek Analytics, may surprise you.

Jonathan Feldman is an InformationWeek Analytics contributor who works with IT governance in North Carolina. Comment here, write to him at jf@feldman.org, or on Twitter at @_jfeldman.

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