Business Strategy and Enterprise Information Technology Vision Mobile Workforce Software Solutions: Consumer-Driven IT. In a world of increasingly mobile and connected consumers, enterprises must adapt by offering employees greater flexibility in how and where they work. CTO of Sun IT John Dutra explains in this guest column.

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Why Enterprises Resist Consumer Technology

Enterprises have long cast a suspicious glare on new consumer technologies, in part because they’re not fortified with the same advanced security as enterprise systems. In some ways, it’s easier and more practical for an organization to limit its set of authorized technologies.

Consider the laptop. Once upon a time, many enterprises supplied employees with notebook PCs with software and connectivity configured by the IT department. The idea was that the organization would control the laptop — but the practice introduced security vulnerabilities as people carried laptops from the office or brought their own laptops to work. Several high-profile thefts of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs laptops containing sensitive data on millions of military veterans highlighted the risks of the practice.

Then there’s the cell phone, which many enterprises vigorously resisted. Soon after the cell phone forced its way into the enterprise, the device became a camera, and enterprises that might have valuable intellectual property on a conference room white board needed to adopt policies against camera phones.