Smartphones Have Split Personalities - And That's a Good Thing

ITBusiness Edge, By: Carl Weinschenk

One of the most potentially powerful approaches to organizing and protecting a company’s data and applications on an employee’s smartphone is giving the device a split personality.

In the age of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), dividing a smartphone into business and consumer profiles has several significant advantages. It’s a new concept, however, and the way to approach doing so is still up in the air. “Separating [identifies] is the Holy Grail,” said Vizay Kotikalapudi, the group product manager for Symantec’s Enterprise Mobility Group. “It is what every vendor in this space is doing. There are multiple approaches to get there. There is no one option.”

While it is unlikely that the way in which the device is departmentalized will be the sole reason one platform is chosen over another, it should play a role in the decision. The key questions concern the security of these systems and how they impact usability.

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