"BYOD is about offering choice to customers. By embracing the consumerization of Information Technology (IT), the government can address the personal preferences of its employees, offering them increased mobility and better integration of their personal and work lives. It also enables employees the flexibility to work in a way that optimizes their productivity."
The above is from thenew Federal agency "Bring Your Own Device" toolkit published by the Digital Services Advisory Group and Federal Chief Information Officers Council. The toolkit provides a list of key considerations to inform an agency BYOD policy, as well as a series of sample policies and three case studies on agencies that have put BYOD into practice. For all of this, the document has nothing to say about how - from a practical mobile app provisioning perspective - agencies can most effectively and securely accommodate BYOD. Appian has the answer through our revolutionary and highly-secure "write once, deploy anywhere" Mobile BPM platform.
The toolkit talks about the mobile revolution as evidence of the changes that are required in how Federal teams approach IT projects. It states, "The growing trend of BYOD demonstrates that we as IT leaders have changed how we adopt technology. Gone are the days of long projects that address every demand. We must now integrate new technologies in a rapid, iterative, agile, interoperable, and secure method to meet changing market and customer needs. Device agnosticism is more important than ever."
This echoes the sentiments towards Agile methodologies expressed in the various "Firsts" initiatives from the Federal CIO's office. It's sound advice, and a strong endorsement of modern application development strategies that are possible through BPM's zero-code composition approach. What it doesn't address is the reality the creation of new slews of mobile apps - even if developed through Agile techniques - could seriously overload already-burdened IT departments. A true BYOD policy necessitates that every mobile app created must be made available on multiple mobile operating systems. That means three (or more) versions of each new app, all developed and supported separately, using different development skills and maintenance resources. The end result will be a dramatic escalation of today's siloed IT landscape, pushing IT teams past the breaking point.
Appian's write once, deploy anywhere approach is the astoundingly simple solution. Any application built on the Appian platform can be turned into a native mobile app through a simple series of check-boxes. Those apps are instantly available and tuned to the specific capabilities and usage patterns of iOS, Android and Blackberry devices. No separate development. No separate maintenance and upgrades.
Government agencies and commercial organizations can learn more about Appian's unique value proposition for supporting BYOD strategies in our "Business Agility in the Mobile Age" white paper.
Ben Farrell
Director of Corporate Communications
Ben Farrell
