Mobility and enabling mobile workforces is top of mind for federal agencies today. From the Department of Defense (DoD), which has nearly 70 mobile pilot programs in place today to civilian agencies like Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who had piloted a bring your own device (BYOD) program featured in the White House BYOD toolkit, there is no doubt that mobility will be implemented in one way or another.
On TechSource this month, we will feature best practices and expert opinion from our own Practice Directors and partner community on the issue of mobility and BYOD. Recently, we sat down with Scott Montgomery, VP of Public Sector Solutions at McAfee, to get his perspective. In this three part series we’ll get his perspective on BYOD, mobility and the warfighter.
TechSource Editor: How is BYOD impacting federal agencies today?
Scott Montgomery: There’s “A Tale of Two Mobiles” going on today. There is the government issued Blackberry, which is perceived as antiquated and a non-starter from the apps standpoint. However, it performs the mail and Personal Information Management (PIM) functions with a long history of security and extreme reliability.
Then there’s the ‘other’ gadget: a personally purchased smartphone or tablet which is almost universally either an Apple iOS or Google Android device, the latter from an increasing number of manufacturers. This is the true mobility tool for its holder because it gives them instant access to their electronic lives using a variety of personas: student, teacher, gamer, photographer, parent, traveler, music lover, consumer, child, community member, friend and so on.
The one persona that isn’t fulfilled by the ‘other’ gadget is as a warfighter, or someone who supports warfighters. The complex rules and policies for connecting devices to the Non-Classified IP Router Network (NIPRNet) are so onerous and the pace at which the devices, their OS, and their apps evolve is so fast that there are currently only a finite number of ways to do it – all with their own shortcomings.
At no point in technology history has an enormous portion of an organization’s consumers said all of the following:
- ‘I actually care a great deal about what device that I use to connect to the organization’s services.’
- ‘If you let me use the device I want, I’m willing to pay for it.’
- ‘If you don’t help me use the device I want, I’m going to try to use it anyway.’
When you couple this user demand with the staggering effects of sequestration, continuing resolution and diminishing budgets, it creates the perfect storm. Many organizations will be crushed under its waves by either doing nothing or not enough to either meet user demand or ensure security.
Some organizations will use this perfect storm as a catalyst to innovate and will reach greater degrees of productivity, accessibility and an energized work force. For instance, the Department of Agriculture recently outsourced its mobility efforts in order to ensure that its users (who are typically 100% mobile, working from a cube in a county office and their car rather than day to day in a federal building) are able to utilize the productivity gains and accessibility advances that mobile technology can create.
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