SMBs Report Rise in Use of Tablets, Concerns About App Access

Five Best Apps for Business Travelers

As I discussed in a previous post, an IDC study confirmed that SMBs are driving the rise of BYOD in the workplace. And that sentiment seems to ring true with further research from Dimensional and NComputing. Their global study of 300 small to midsize businesses (SMBs) revealed that 75 percent of those companies surveyed currently employ workers who use tablets. The study focused on SMBs and tablet adoption and the full, free report is available for download.

Of those companies surveyed, 56 percent currently have employees who use personal tablets at the workplace. Of those businesses, 75 percent have serious concerns about company data on personal tablets and nearly 50 percent consider BYOD to be challenging and tedious for IT staff to properly manage. More than 40 percent of companies with BYOD in full force also have user privacy worries.

One key takeaway from this report is that granting users “anywhere, anytime access to business applications” is integral to employees performing their jobs effectively. More than 80 percent of respondents believed that “making business applications and data available on mobile devices” was of high impact in making employees more productive.

In fact, 89 percent of participants said that employees who use tablets are requesting ways to “obtain better work capabilities on their tablets,” including apps and data. However, IT staff is finding it difficult to provide the applications that many tablet users seek. The survey showed that 86 percent of IT pros have experienced significant challenges in fulfilling such requests and the largest percentage (41 percent) found “simply that Windows applications are not compatible.”

Raj Dhingra, CEO of NComputing, released a statement about the findings:

“This research underscores that the use of tablets in both BYOD and company-owned scenarios, while beneficial, is creating real challenges for IT. Today’s IT professionals need to fulfill ever-increasing demands to support the modern work environment by ensuring secure, easy access to all the applications and files they need – including legacy Windows applications – from their device of choice.”

Obviously, Microsoft should pay close attention to this report. If SMBs continue to be on the forefront of BYOD and the drive toward increased mobility spending, it is evident that users of such technology will expect to be able to access typical business applications—including Windows apps—from their mobile devices no matter where they are doing business.