Now, most companies, individuals who have been working in companies that rely on communications these days have been trying to advocate Bring Your Own Devices scheme, where individuals have or can bring their own personal devices for internal communication uses. Of course, there are increased security risks in doing so but it does give employees the flexibility to choose what they want to use. Another keypoint of it is the potential to cut costs since the company no longer need to fork out cash for these devices, but the question is, does it really help?Now, according to CIO, Annual IT costs for managing smartphones will soar by 48% next year compared to 2011, as they quoted a new survey by Osterman Research.

Why will it?

The increase is mainly due to the need for better security and management as workers bring consumer smartphones to use at work, according to the survey.

Osterman’s survey was based on interviews with 117 mid-sized and large companies and funded by Azaleos, a cloud services company.

Increased mobile device management means a growing need for IT workers: 2.9 full-time IT workers per 1,000 mobile devices were needed in 2011. That number rose to 3.6 full-time workers per 1,000 devices this year, and it’s expected to reach 4 full-time workers per 1,000 devices in 2013, Osterman said.

So now, those costs convert to a yearly IT labor cost per user of $229 in 2011, $294 in 2012 and a projected increase to $339 per user in 2013.

So for a company using on one system (device), less support for other devices is needed, less IT workers required, less amount of money needs to be poured into the security, support and management of the IT system. Even with integrated solutions such as BlackBerry Fusion, external devices are always more vulnerable than a secured enterprise device (example, one solely on BES).

What do you guys think?