Research

The BYOx phenomonen again

Just when we thought we were getting a handle on BYOD, along comes another acronym - BYOS. There’s some confusion on what the newer acronym stands for, however. Patrick White wrote in Wired that it’s “Bring Your Own Software.” But just recently, Rachel Delacour blogged on Information Management that it means “Bring Your Own Services,” and that this service disruption will complement BYOD. Employees bringing their own apps to work? Yep – and just in time for BYOS to meet Big Data.

2014-02-28

By Michael Goul, Chairman, Department of Information Systems Just when we thought we were getting a handle on BYOD, along comes another acronym - BYOS. There’s some confusion on what the newer acronym stands for, however. Patrick White wrote in Wired that it’s “Bring Your Own Software." But just recently, Rachel Delacour blogged on Information Management that it means “Bring Your Own Services,” and that this service disruption will complement BYOD. Employees bringing their own apps to work? Yep – and just in time for BYOS to meet Big Data. Imagine your employees using their own app services to digest, distill, and to create reports, insightful visualizations and predictive analytics after leveraging loads of corporate and open-source data. Delacour points out that many of the services used by employees - like storage, social and cloud computing services - are now used by organizations. BYOS helps organizations innovate. On the other hand, there are definitely some security issues. Researchers say that BYOD and both types of BYOS are simply steps towards the truly virtual enterprise – the fully location and service independent organizational form. I’m not so sure BYOS equates with the virtual office and telecommuting notions, though. I would think people would want to go to a common location to show off what their apps could do with Big Data – and relish in all the glory of face-to-face accolades. After all, the word “bring” is in there. Want an example? In the 2013 Amazon Web Services re:Invent conference, an Amazon executive demonstrated a search of twitter feeds for what’s trending about planets. He gets interested in tweets about Mars, and discovers that what’s actually being tweeted about is Bruno Mars. He continues by using other AWS apps to dig deeper into Bruno’s fan base – demonstrating a GIS query that maps where Bruno’s fan base is. The app costs $5 per hour to run and took about 1 week to build. That’s a nice way to do a proof of concept without breaking the bank. Here’s the important point: employees are just a service app away from a Big Data laboratory. Loads of big data about companies, not currently in the corporate database, is available, and vendors are entering the fray to provide this virtual lab space. On the corporate side, companies like IBM recently purchased Cloudant, thereby getting into the virtual lab game. Doug Henshen of Information Week writes that this is IBM’s big move into the NoSQL market. Even CenturyLink is in the game. So what of BYOD – old news? Not so. BYOS and BYOD security issues are probably behind the new spy phone being developed by Boeing. (Read this next part while listening to the Mission Impossible theme song) If it’s tampered with, it will self destruct and delete its data. It will keep data secure. It’s going to run on the Android platform, and it will encrypt communications. Maybe BYOS will morph into “bring your own spygear.” Again, though, there’s that word “bring.” You’ll have to start thinking about how to equip your work entrance with a new spy phone – the model that produces holographic visualizations – to collect hints about the next big market your firm should enter. Or maybe you’ll just leave all of that to your early adopter friends – the ones who are signing up for early-phone-upgrade cell plans. In that case, you can start thinking about what to say and do when a co-worker turns up tricked out with devices worthy of Jim Phelps, James Bond, Evelyn Salt, Agent 99 or Ethan Hunt. They’re going to expect some accolades.

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