Why do we buy smartphones and treat them as stupid?

Here's an idea for you.   Next time you are deciding on your standard company mobile, suggest going with old BlackBerrys.  

The chances are you will be laughed out of the room. 

But why?

Most companies wouldn't dream of giving out anything less than a smartphone and many users would be in open revolt if they didn't get a shiny new iPhone.But what are we using them for?

Email?  Calendar?  Contacts?  Texting?  Making Calls?  So far, so BlackBerry. 

So why do we want smartphones? 

Apps. 

We want Whatsapp.  We want Facebook.  We want Twitter and Skype and Netflix and Trainline.  These are apps that make our lives better.  They help us to stay in touch.  They help us to organise our lives.  They help us to save time. 

But these are work phones.  Surely we should have apps on them to help us work better.  The truth is, lots of us do but lots of us don’t.  There are loads of great work apps out there like Box, Just Call Me and Office365.  Some of us use some.  Some of us use others and some use none at all. 

We need to help each other to make the most of these amazing work devices we have.  The best way to do that is Mobile Device Management. 

We wouldn’t hand out a Laptop without putting the correct work applications and security on it.  Why hand out a Smartphone without doing the same.

Without MDM we are wasting incredibly powerful and expensive technology and, which is far worse, we are wasting our own time.

Let’s treat our Smartphones as smart and be smarter about how we manage them.