IBM: Security Impedes Adoption Of Some Major Technologies

New data from IBM shows how security has become a major part of the IT decision-making process for adopting new technologies -- and how much it shapes those choices.

Security is one of the top two hurdles in adoption of business analytics, mobile, social business, and cloud, according to the new IBM 2012 Tech Trends Report. And in mobile and cloud, security is the No. 1 hurdle by far.

The report is based on a survey of around 1,200 IT decision-makers worldwide, including IT managers, IT professionals, as well as business professionals.

"It's really not surprising that security is a barrier to the adoption of these four technologies," says Caleb Barlow, director of application, data and mobile security for IBM Security Systems. "If we think about all the new data we're producing every day, historically we've been able to keep that data behind our firewalls. We've been able to protect it because we had control over the perimeter. But with these new technologies, that perimeter and where that perimeter resides is blurring very rapidly."

In the case of mobile, security is the top barrier to adopting the technology, with 61 percent of organizations ranking it as the top hurdle. Some 56 percent say security is the top barrier to going to the cloud, and 47 percent say it's the top barrier to adopting social network business technologies. But the adoption of business analytics technology is a top barrier for adoption by just around 30 percent of the respondents. Overall, security is one of the top three biggest challenges faced by 62 percent of the respondents in the next two years, the report says.

IT security policies are weak: Half of the organizations say those policies aren't sufficient for cloud computing, and 54 percent say those policies are not enough for social business applications. Security policies are a bit better for mobile computing and business analytics policies appear, however, with just 43 percent of the respondents saying those policies are not enough for mobile, and 38 percent saying the same for business analytics applications.

Organizations are working on it, though: Sixty percent say they plan to create or obtain security policies and strategies for social business applications in the next two years, and half are already working on beefing up mobile security. The full IBM report, which includes IT security skills gap data, is available here for download.

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