3 Enterprise Takeaways From CES
CES may focus on the consumer, but that doesn’t mean the technology extravaganza had nothing to offer to the enterprise. The latest and lightest in wearables, smartphones and ultra-compact laptops are bound to find their way into workplaces sooner rather than later.
Here’s a look at three CES 2015 themes and how they are likely to have an impact on enterprises.
Wearables in the workplace: Wearables made a showing at almost every exhibit at CES, but unless your organization has a use for posture-monitoring eyeglasses or internet-enabled baby monitors, wearables are more likely security liabilities than genuine productivity boosters. Currently, most wearable and smart devices are highly specialized, supporting limited types of information. In the event that one was compromised, however, it could prove a powerful tool to siphon off employee passwords and other enterprise data.
Security concerns aside, the devices that employees connect to corporate networks represent an increased load on the system. With wearables, the paradigm of one or two devices per employee increases to three or more. Organizations should both review their BYOD security policies and ensure their network capacity is prepared to meet increased demand.
Phone fragmentation: While wall-sized tablets may find some use in conference rooms, the new generation of smartphones unveiled at CES is likely to have a larger enterprise influence. As manufacturers seek to differentiate their products, wider variations between smartphone models will complicate BYOD environments. Critical security and stability updates may be delayed for months after their release due to carrier and manufacturer customizations; in addition, varying screen sizes and hardware differences can also make custom application development and device support a challenge.
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Convertibles and mobile computing: Incremental yet steady advancements in processing power have enabled even the most lightweight laptops to offer the power of a full workstation. Organizations dedicated to a cloud-first approach (and especially those using Google Apps), are likely to benefit from the new line of Chromebooks and updated Chrome OS. Convertible laptops like Lenovo’s LaVie offer the best of both tablet and desktop environments, potentially reducing hardware costs for an on-the-go workforce. Despite these advantages, organizations supporting highly mobile environments must accept the potential for more diverse security threats, and become more dependent on employee IT security hygiene.
Each of these growing trends points to a workforce that will be more mobile and connected than ever before. Though it will be several months before many of the products shown at CES make their way onto the market, organizations should take this time to test and evaluate—in order to glean valuable insight into the potential opportunities these technologies may provide, as well as the risks they may pose.
If you attended CES this year, what did you bring back with you? Was there anything work sharing?
