There’s been a trend lately that makes Managed Service providers nervous. In a time when people have more access to technology more than ever in history and where people often have on them more than one internet enabled device at a time, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has become a popular method for companies, especially startups, to keep their own costs down. But, this can bring significant security risks to the company that puts this practice into place. Especially since most do so without a written policy.

BYOD may seem like a great idea. The employee gets to use the system they already own and are comfortable with, making the learning curve of say a regular Mac user to a PC disappear. The employer gets to completely cut the cost of hardware and software from their budgets saving a considerable amount of money. But at what cost? If there is no policy in place, the computer owner has complete rights to deny any virus protection in favor of what they may or may not have in place, can object to the data on their systems being backed up and can download any and all data to their local hard drive, quit and walk it right over to their next employer, your competitor.

A BYOD policy can protect the company from some of this, certainly by having the employee agree to have the system maintained and managed by the company for the duration of corporate use, but not all of it. Which is why a hosted desktop solution is a great, cost effective middle ground. By having the desktop hosted in the cloud, the employee will still use their personal system to access it but none of the data will ever touch their hardware. It will remain virus and malware protected by the cloud service provider and if the employee ever leaves the company, the hosted desktop is simply turned off and access turned off. The employee remains with no trace of company information to take with them. Hosted desktop prices are utility model based, meaning you pay for what you use, making it very scalable and a good fit for companies with seasonal employees that have the BYOD practice in place. Are you considering instituting BYOD in your organization? Have you put together a policy for BYOD? How comfortable are you with your company data on systems you cannot manage or control? Answering these questions can help you determine if hosted desktops make sense for your organization.