Which Gadgets Are Employees Bringing To Work That IT Managers Need To Worry About?

This post is part of the "Future of Business" series, which examines how cutting-edge technologies are rapidly reshaping our world, from how businesses run to how we live. "The Future of Business" is sponsored by SAP.

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You've heard about the huge "bring your own device" trend that's taking over enterprise IT.

It's not going away.

According to a CDW study, 94 percent of workers say their own gadgets make them more efficient, and 85 percent of IT managers agree.

But which devices do IT managers really need to prepare for?

Thanks to our access to BI Intelligence, we've got the data in charts.

First of all, the two main types of gadgets workers are bringing to work are smartphones and tablets:

Between the smartphone and tablet, the first one to worry about is the smartphone:

Of smartphones, the only platforms you really have to worry about are iOS and Android:

Apple's smaller market share may have IT managers thinking they don't have to worry about iPhones. But they do.

The reason is that iPhone owners are the ones who tend to actually use their smartphones as smartphones:

Look how, despite Android's dominant market share, iPhones have far more activations in the enterprise (not that Windows Phone activations are close to zero):

After solving for smartphones, IT managers will want to worry about tablets.

When they do, they should start with iOS tablets — the iPad and iPad Mini — which dominate both market share …

… and activations:

So it all boils down to these takeaways:

• Worry about tablets and smartphones before laptops.
• Worry about smartphones before tablets.
• Worry about Android and iOS smartphones, and forget the rest.
• Worry about iOS tablets, and forget the rest.