How Intel Is Using BYOD and the Cloud to Get Ahead
If “BYOD” and “the cloud” are terms that make your IT team scream, perhaps you can steal a bit of courage from semiconductor chip maker Intel.
As one of the veterans in the IT industry, Intel has a history of invention and innovation, so it shouldn’t be surprising to hear that the company is experimenting with two of the latest trends in the consumerization of IT. What is surprising, however, is the speed with which this “experiment” has become commonplace and gained adoption throughout the company.
In a blog post on Intel Open Port IT Community, Intel chief technology officer Ed Goldman explained the company’s reasoning for embracing BYOD and the cloud so quickly: Being connected in deeper, more meaningful and constant ways is good for business and good for agility.
In my role as IT Chief Technology Officer, I have observed parallels and interdependencies between our adoption of IT consumerization, which provides employees with a wider range of choices for compute capability, and the advent of cloud computing, which offers businesses additional options for IT services. Intel IT is coordinating our cloud computing efforts with our bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives, to enable us to reap maximum business value from both.
We feel that both cloud computing and BYOD are important enablers for our agility and enterprise velocity. But historically, application development has been a rigid process that can slow agility, especially in the areas of larger enterprise systems such as ERP.
To increase our ability to develop applications and deliver services quickly—and to a wide range of devices—we are implementing a pace-layered approach utilizing a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to help us abstract away our slower-to-evolve applications, such as our ERP system, from our quicker-moving capabilities, such as new supply chains to support new business. By being able to connect existing services faster, it also allows us to implement better capabilities such as transforming our shopping carts into purchase orders.
The consumerization of IT might seem scary at first, but once your company realizes the benefits of some of these trends, you’ll wonder why you didn’t jump in sooner.
