Apple Watch expected to be most popular workplace wearable in 2015
Picture credit: iStockPhoto
41% of respondents in a new Accellion and Vanson Bourne survey expect to see the Apple Watch in its organisation in the coming year, ahead of Google Glass and the Sony Smartwatch.
Apple’s smartwatch, which is still at a tentative early 2015 release date, is certainly getting a lot of consumer and enterprise buy in compared to Glass, the second generation of which will be powered by Intel chips according to reports. Even though it’s not available yet workplaces can already see it being used, when compared to Glass (36%), the Sony Smartwatch (20%), the Samsung Gear 2 Neo (17%) and the Pebble (16%).
Employees see the greatest use case of wearable tech as email (29%), followed by updating social media (20%), internet browsing (10%) and document access through Word, PowerPoint or Excel (10%). Only 6% of respondents said they were interested in using their wearables for calls.
The survey chimed in with other recent reports on wearable uptake in the enterprise. Call it bring your own wearable (BYOW), wear your own device (WYOD), IT and employees don’t seem all that keen. 37% of IT decision makers said they saw no need to embrace WYOD, although 62% said they expected to see employees bringing their own wearables to work in 2015.
General security trends were even more worrying. More than three quarters (77%) currently don’t consider wearables as part of their broader mobile security strategy, yet a greater number (81%) admit bringing wearables to work would constitute a major security risk. Opinions differ on the security of wearables; some see it as insignificant while others, like Good Technology CTO Nicko Van Someren, see wearables as a prime target – not much information, but what is there is juicy.
“With the anticipated launch of various new wearable devices in 2015, the age of WYOD is upon us,” said Paula Skokowski, Accellion CMO. “Enterprises need to wake up to the security threats posed when employees use these new wearable devices to access confidential work-related information.
“Although UK enterprises are beginning to come to terms with the need to securely enable the use of smartphones and tablets by the workforce, the next challenge is to ensure that wearables are given the same attention,” she added.
What do you make of these results?
Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their use-cases? Attend the co-located IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, AI & Big Data Expo and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam and explore the future of enterprise technology.
Leave a comment
Alternatively
This will only be used to quickly provide signup information and will not allow us to post to your account or appear on your timeline.
3 Dec 2014, 3:20 p.m.
This is a very interesting article. We recently addressed the issue of data security with BYOD (bring your own device) becoming more popular. You can find my post here: http://blog.dmcsoftware.co.uk/2014/12/are-you-at-risk-of-data-theft/ I believe wearable technology will grow in popularity, and businesses do need to put a security strategy in place now, and sooner rather than later.
Reply