Ye Olde debate on whether companies should issue all IT equipment including laptops, tablets or mobile devices is an everlasting argument.

Perhaps employees should use their own personal device, and charge back the company a fixed sum on a monthly basis?

I know many procurement departments who would be thrilled with this idea with less inventory and tracking headaches.

You can even argue employees will take better care of their own devices, for example, like dropping their mobile phones into the urinals?  When it’s yours, you take better care of your goodies.

And then there is security.  Losing your phone.  Or terminating an employee with all that IP and customer lists. (Don’t worry, they have them anyways).  That’s another ball game.

Below is a press release from United Planet to help businesses benefit from the ‘Bring your own Device’ initiative.

United Planet helps businesses to benefit from the ‘Bring your own Device’ initiative

London – The ability to develop web-based applications for all mobile devices will be the key to the emerging ‘Bring your own Device’ (BYOD) initiative, according to United Planet (www.unitedplanet.com), one of the leading developers of Enterprise Portal software in Europe.

Employees are increasingly using personal mobile devices in the business environment but whilst this ensures that staff are able to use their preferred mobile device and are therefore contactable outside of the office, it does present certain problems. Although BYOD can reduce the purchase and maintenance costs associated with mobile contracts, it requires companies to think carefully about how they provide access to business applications via multiple device types such as the iPhone, Android devices, BlackBerry, iPad and others.

Axel Wessendorf, managing director of United Planet, explains that: “It is vital that employees are provided with the same access to mission critical applications as each other, regardless of which mobile device they use. Companies can only profit from the advantages of BYOD when they are able to provide the same information from the company’s existing ERP or CRM system, for example, to each and every employee – without having to invest in separate software solutions for each device. That’s simply not cost efficient.”

United Planet’s platform-independent software, Intrexx, is designed to solve this problem. Intrexx not only allows the creation of web-based applications without the need for programming. Special page wizards also enable companies to generate mobile application pages for any mobile device with a few clicks of the mouse. One simply selects the target device, the data to be displayed and the required navigation elements – the mobile page is generated automatically. This enables visually stimulating web applications that are optimised for the relevant mobile device to be created in only a few minutes.

“Even applications designed to be accessed using an older Internet-capable device can be created with our software,” adds Wessendorf.

To find out what a complete mobile Enterprise Portal looks like, enter www.intrexx.com/tsum into the address bar of any mobile phone browser.

About United Planet

United Planet is one of the leading developers of Enterprise Portal software in Europe. Its Java based, standard software Intrexx enables companies to create Enterprise Portals, Intranets and Web Applications cost effectively, without the need for programming by using ‘drag and drop’ technology and pre-created solutions for quality management, document management and process management to optimise internal workflow. Intrexx runs on Windows as well as on Mac OS X, Linux and Sun Solaris, and incorporates several Business Adapters to ensure that third-party data from Lotus Notes and other ERP solutions can be easily integrated in the Intrexx Portal. A special Business Adapter for MS Office also makes it possible to integrate and edit Microsoft Office Documents without the need for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). United Planet is headquartered in Freiburg, Germany and also has offices in Windsor. The company is supported by over 100 Business Partners worldwide.