Nearly three quarters of the smartphones and over 60 per cent of the tablets being used at work are devices purchased and brought to the office by employees, according to a new global study released today by Forrester Research.
In the survey of over 9,900 IT workers in 17 countries, 73 per cent ofemployees said they use their own smartphone for work and 66 percentuse their own tablets in the workplace. Overhalf use laptops at workwhich they purchased themselves, according to the study authored byForrester’s Frank Gillett.
The study confirms continued growth in the BYOD trend and also shedsfurther light on issues such as multiple device use in the workplace,cloud adoption, and the outlookfor Microsoft enterprise use.
About 75 per cent of workers use two or more devices at work and 52 percent use three or more. This means workers will increasingly look forsolutions to manage multiple devices throughpersonal cloud serviceslike Dropbox, Box, Apple iCloud and Google DocsApps, Gillett said.
One-third of all devices being used at work do not run on a Microsoftoperating system, a situation that Gillett predicts will only intensifyas time goes on.
“With the strong growth of mobile devices – personal orissued by IT (managers) – and Microsoft’s miniscule share of mobiledevices, that means that Microsoft’s share of the OS on devices used atwork will continue to erode,” Gillett writes.