[falcontrainer]

It seems that my (newish) server admin wants to dis-allow personal bb's on our corporate BES. We have been allowing this now since we brought in the devices and the BES(4+ years).

He is arguing security risks of allowing the personal devices.

I disagree with that statement saying that they are connected to the BES and I can/will wipe the devices if something happens. To that we have a auto-lock policy in effect on the company owned devices, but it's an option for the personal devices (which we can change).

There is also the cost of having to buy a license per device but I mark the cost up to a service of our group.

What do you think?

[SteveO86]

As long as the personal BlackBerries have appropriate IT policies assigned to them you should be o.k. security wise.

I don't support personal devices in my settings because I don't want to hear about users complaining about the password... Any device on my BES gets a very nice IT policy assigned to it

[juwaack68]

We used to, but no longer allow personal devices on our BES mainly for unwillingness to support them (there are still a handful on there). Since I also manage all of our wireless accounts, if there is an issue of some sort with the device provisioning, I can contact the carrier to resolve. I cannot do that with a personally owned device - the end user has to do that and many time they don't know what to say to the carrier.

Also - you don't enforce a password on a personally owned device??? Wow, IMO you're asking for trouble and that's a huge security breach. Do you allow someone to bring their personal laptop into work and connect to the work network without restrictions? It's the same thing as not enforcing a password on a personal BB. Anyone that is connected to the BES should have the same IT Policy - like it or not. My 2 cents.

ALL of our devices have the same level of security - personally owned or not.

[falcontrainer]

Juwaack68- I inherited a badly managed environment and have wanted to push out the policy to others but am still waiting on mgmt decisions since there are so many people (and there are many mgmt since the company wont buy bb's unless you meet certain requirements(which is a whole other conversation/argument)). It's a sticky situation and I am trying to not get burned by just rolling things out with out support.

Just getting frustrated with the extremely slow workings and waiting for a decision.

Plus I forgot to mention in my first post. If the end users are willing to pay the extra $15-$45 a month to add the BES connectivity on their phone I figured the license will be the least our group could do being a service group.

[dmbascfan]

WOW! It sounds like you work for my customer...lol. About a third of our devices our personal. The other big problem I have is that they do not have one standard device. In fact, we have 5 different carriers and like 15 different models. It makes it extremely difficult to manage. I brought up the suggestion when I first got here about consolidating the devices, but got shot down. But to the other points, we do enforce the same IT policy on all handhelds, regardless of ownership.

[Backitup]

I am with juwaack68 - if it connects to the network, it must have a password. We do allow personal phones, but all that are on our BES have an IT policy applied. The user knows that when they sign on, we have the ability to control their device and may wipe if deemed necessary.

If I were you, I would start with any new additions and require a policy, work on the existing users as time/administrative approval allows.

[CanuckBB]

There is also the legal implication of when a user leaves. A corporate device, you just wipe. But try to wipe a personal device and you may run into a myriad of issues. And what happens if the user just calls you up one day and tells you he just sold his old device on eBay, and an you just Enterprise Activate the new one?

[hdawg]

Corporate only devices allow for easier overall management
Allowing personal devices allows for some added user pleasure

Regardless, all devices should be treated the same. You leave, device gets wiped. You don't like it ... back it up.

[steveoevets]

We don't allow personal devices on our BES. There are some exceptions tho (very few). The user is instructed to back up their device prior to connecting as once they leave the company IT WILL be wiped. It is also explained to them that a wipe may be required as part of the trouble shooting process.

We also have them sign an agreement so that we have a paper (pdf) trail.

Policies are applied to all devices regardless of their position in the company.