IT pros can be excused for feeling besieged by the influx of user-owned smartphones and tablets that are linking up to corporate WLANs, email systems and Web apps. But employees are only one source of IT's stress. The other is vendors. Companies large and small are stampeding IT into buying MDM software and services as the wonder app to fix all their BYOD security problems. But MDM isn't a silver bullet, nor necessarily needed for all situations, particularly at SMBs.

MDM replicates the central command and control model so dear to IT that was originally disrupted when PCs invaded the enterprise. Fast forward a couple decades and we're into the latest iteration of client chaos and IT's ongoing battle for control. Indeed, the notion that IT can install some software hooks into every employee's phone or tablet and gain unfettered command over every setting and bit of local data is seductive. But in an era where the phone or tablet is an extension of someone's personal life, this dream...

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