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60 Part 1 • SyStemS analySiS FundamentalS

of time, such as 24 hours. Peruse the support services documents accompanying the purchase of
equipment and remember to involve appropriate legal staff before signing contracts for equip-
ment or services.
Unfortunately, the process of evaluating computer hardware and cloud providers is not
as straightforward as simply comparing costs and choosing the least expensive option. Before
becoming convinced that buying cheaper compatibles is the way to endow your system with
add-on capability, you need to do enough research to feel confident that a hardware vendor or
cloud provider is a stable corporate entity.
Understanding the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Option
Bring your own device (BYOD) or bring your own technology (BYOT) is a trend appear-
ing in a variety of organizations in different industries. These organizations range in size and
have employees of differing skills. In general, BYOD or BYOT means that rather than using
a smartphone or tablet issued by the organization, the employee uses his or her own device to
access corporate networks, data, and services remotely when working outside the office. The
BYOD approach is often presented as a way to keep the organization’s hardware costs down and
improve morale among employees who, on average, already bring one or more mobile devices
to work for personal tasks.
Loading up an employee’s mobile device with work software can also extend the workplace
into leisure hours. This continual connectivity was initially welcomed as a way to ensure that
employees were responsive to the company all of the time, but organizations are now re-
examining this ’round–the-clock approach. Now, organizations and unions often curtail the
hours that an employee will be emailing or interacting with the corporate office so they are not
conducting business during the valuable “off hours” they need to maintain balance between their
work and personal lives.
As a systems analyst, you will work to discover through a combination of interviews, sur-
veys, and observation what personal technology is being used by the majority of the group you
are designing for. For example, if you observe that all the executives in the decision-making group
already bring in iPads every day, you might conclude that designing dashboards for the iPad has
some merit. They are devices you want to include in your original design rather than as an after-
thought. If your observations show that most executives prefer face-to-face meetings, but they use
their handheld devices (such as mobile phones) to check other corporate data and emails during
meetings, then you might want to consider supporting corporate email on their personal phones.

BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS OF BYOD. The benefits of BYOD computing include building
employee morale, a potential for lowering the initial cost of organizational IT hardware purchase,
facilitating remote, ’round–the-clock access to corporate computer networks regardless of
location, and building on a familiar user interface to access corporate computing services,
applications, databases, and storage. Security risks posed by untrained users are probably the
biggest drawback. Identified threats are loss of the device itself, theft of the device and its data,
unauthorized access to corporate networks using personal mobile devices, and so on. Other
threats are posed by commonly occurring behavior with mobile devices that may be fine on the
private side but not on the corporate side, such as using free Wi-Fi hotspots, using apps such as
Dropbox, and others. While these and other behaviors may not meet high levels of corporate
security, they are well within the realm of typical behavior for the use of one’s own phone
or tablet. Users might be lulled into thinking that their mobile device, since it is theirs, is no
different once it is put in service to the business.
Creating Custom Software
Analysts and organizations are increasingly faced with a make, buy, or outsource decision when
assessing software for information systems projects, particularly when contemplating upgrades to
existing or legacy systems. Analysts have three choices: creating their own software, purchasing
commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, or using software from a Software as a Service (SaaS)
provider. Figure 3.8 summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of each of these options.
Several situations call for the creation of original, custom software or software components.
The most likely instance is when COTS software does not exist or cannot be identified for the
desired application. Alternatively, the software may exist but be unaffordable or not easily pur-
chased or licensed.