I remember the day well. It was 2007, and I was traveling. I needed to access my work e-mail, but my company at the time did not provide me with a smartphone. So I used my personal Windows Mobile phone to access the e-mail. It was the first time I stepped into the bring your own device (BYOD) world, and certainly wasn’t the last.

Nor am I alone in mixing personal devices with professional responsibilities. Employees at companies of all sizes are using their own devices for work, and overall it is a trend that boosts productivity. But also it brings challenges for corporate IT.

Biggest among the challenges is security. If an employee is accessing corporate documents from a personal device, those documents are subject to the security or lack thereof that is on that personal device. If an employee accesses the company intranet from a personal device, the intranet is potentially at risk if the personal device is stolen or left on without a password. If there is a virus on my Android (News - Alert) tablet, it can piggyback to the corporate network when I move my work files back to the corporate-sponsored computers.

Mobile device management (MDM) is the main solution that software vendors have developed for this BYOD problem. MDM is installed on a BYOD device, and the software helps ensure that the personal device acts like a corporate device when needed.

One of the better MDM solutions comes from a company called MobileIron. The company creates separate identities for work and home, and from this concept it is able to enforce a parameter around corporate resources so enterprise security is enforced even on a personal device such as an iPhone (News - Alert) or iPad.

“A successful BYOD program requires a clear separation of corporate and personal information, apps, and content,” noted the company. MobileIron delivers a complete multi-OS enterprise persona that separates personal and professional apps and content while preserving the native mobile user experience. Mobile IT controls the corporate e-mail, apps, documents, identity, and policies without monitoring or modifying personal data on the device.

In particular, it allows businesses to enforce a privacy policy and selectively wipe to secure corporate data while protecting personal data. It has embedded certificate authority to manage device and user identity. MobileIron’s MDM has posture monitoring and automated policy workflow so non-compliant devices do not get enterprise access. Further, it delivers certificate-based security to secure email end-to-end and minimize the risk of data loss.

MobileIron’s MDM also comes with a BYOD portal for self-service, helping to reduce BYOD demands on IT.

As we noted earlier this year, the reality in this environment is that smartphone adoption continues to grow and corporate users are increasingly accessing the corporate network. Without clear policies in place and robust MDM solutions at the ready, the network, users and business data are all at risk.