BYOD

BYOD = "bring your own device," the enterprise technology management construct that encourages/allows/tolerates employees using their personal devices -- their own smartphones, tablets, laptops -- to access and use corporate information system assets. That is, in addition to -- or perhaps even instead of -- issuing you a company-owned and -managed device, we'll set up a technical environment that provides for you using your own, personally owned, device. 

BYOD is a corporate reaction to the consumerization of IT, which is the notion that, nowadays, innovation in information technology is generated by the consumer market, rather than by what corporate IT shops might develop, distribute, and support, as had been the case up through the mid-1990s. 

Smartphones are a principal manifestation of consumerization of IT and the accommodating BYOD construct. Computerworld has a Digital Spotlight on BYOD/Consumerization of IT, with pieces on 

• how three companies -- Starz Entertainment, Ricoh Americas, and CareerBuilder -- are dealing with Android devices (for example)
• software to manage mobile devices 
• how BYOD empowers employees 
• a columnist's -- Mke Elgan; he's great -- experience using only Google's offerings