Productivity/cost issues wrt employees with limited data plans? Companies have moved away from paying for mobile device costs. Reversal of this trend?

...so if I understand you correctly, employees are funding their companies data plans at their own expense?

So maybe my question was confusing. Over the years many companies that used to hand out mobile phones to all employees either eliminated the practice all together, or limited it to specific job functions (e.g., sales). Now we're moving to a BYOD model, and as the panel shared, many enterprise apps are being redesigned to make this new model work more effectively. My question is that if the intent is to make it easier to work in this environment, is there an even greater expectation that work occurs "anywhere, anytime" and if so, should/will enterprises consider costs associated with mobile data plans as part of their operational costs?

Robert,

For now, BYOD is still being driven by employees, from my perspective. That is, an organization has a prescribed method for obtaining/using data on corporate networks, and it allows employees that prefer to use their own devices to access email and some applications via personal devices.

But that acceptance of BYOD is hinged on some baseline support in terms of capabilities, etc. It has been a few years since I've seen organizations reimbursing for internet usage, now that broadband is readily available. Likewise, I haven't seen a lot of reimbursements for mobile voice/data plans. If the employee wants to be connected that way, then the employee bears the burden of supporting that connection.

I don't think it changes the "work anywhere, anytime" expectation that most organizations have today, if the end device is provided by the org vs the employee. That's the price of convenience that they expect employees to accept.

Corporations get to reduce their device subscription costs, at the expense of some support complexity, and at the expense of device management costs.

-ASB: http://XeeMe.com/AndrewBaker