Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, is an established trend at many U.S. enterprises, and it's likely to continue to grow. Mobile marketing is an established channel through which many U.S. companies reach customers and prospective customers -- and it also is expected to grow. Is 2014 the year the twain will meet? Will marketers begin targeting consumers at work?

Rumors that Samsung will include iris-recognition technology in its forthcoming Galaxy S5 smartphone, widely expected to be launched in April, were given a boost on Thursday through an interview with Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung Mobile. People are "fanatical" about iris recognition technology and Samsung is "studying the possibility," Lee said.

The recent and rapid evolution of mobile and client management requirements has caused considerable complexity and confusion. Incomplete solutions and a lack of a clear pan-client strategy have hampered the move to broader mobile support at enterprises and mid-market companies alike. This state of muddled direction has put IT in a bind while frustrating users.

Smartphones hacked to run unauthorized programs or unlock features are being targeted by hackers and can pose a threat to enterprise networks, warned Marble Security. Modifying a smartphone to enable unauthorized behavior -- called "rooting" in the Android world and "jailbreaking" in the iOS realm -- makes the mobile vulnerable to infected jammer software, the firm said.

AT&T on Thursday announced new, lower-cost no-contract plans for customers who pay for their own devices. The new Mobile Share Value plans, which will be available beginning Dec. 8, will be open to new and existing wireless customers and will include a no-contract option that allows smartphone customers to save $15 per month by supplying their own device, AT&T said.

Dropbox began courting enterprise users with Wednesday's unveiling of Dropbox for Business. It's a paid cloud storage service that offers enterprise users the same features that have made Dropbox a popular file-hosting company among consumers, along with several security and efficiency-focused features tailored for businesses, such as sharing audit logs and efficiently transferring files.

The growing adoption of Bring Your Own Device policies by organizations of all sizes, across nearly every industry, has enabled corporate end-users and business units to more easily acquire apps tailored to their specific work requirements. This Bring Your Own Apps phenomenon, often referred to as the "consumerization of IT," has sparked a new round of debate among CIOs and other corporate executives.

Apple will likely debut a new iPad and possibly a new iPad mini at its Tuesday event in San Francisco. There is speculation about a new CPU, a keyboard case, better cameras, a splash of color, and the likelihood the new iPad will come preloaded with the buggy iOS 7. If the enterprise is looking for a little more business-friendliness from Apple, it may not find much gratification this time around.

The acquisition process for the latest innovation must keep pace with the ever changing IT landscape. In the public sector, that process has surfaced in acquisition vehicles related to cloud technology, data management and IT security. For the U.S. government, the GSA has become a focal point for developing contract vehicles and programs to facilitate the acquisition of innovative IT.

Google on Tuesday rolled out a feature for its recently launched Android Device Manager that lets users lock down a stolen Android device from anywhere, via the Web. "This is something that should be built into the OS and the platform because it's an inherent security feature," said tech analyst Rob Enderle. Google is late to the game in rolling out its remote lock capability.

Allowing workers to use personal phones and tablets to do their jobs has created security risks in the workplace, but those risks can be minimized if they're managed. What should such a risk management program do? "The first step is you have to protect the device," said IBM Application, Data and Mobile Security Director Caleb Barlow. That includes everything from provisioning to data wiping.

While so-called BYOD isn't necessarily new -- IT departments, after all, have been supporting mobile road warriors since the 1980s -- the rising tide of end users seeking the use and support of their own consumer devices is different. It's so different that IT departments are grasping for any standard or proven approaches that make BYOD access of enterprise resources both secure and reliable.

Samsung will bundle a forthcoming business suite from Lookout into its flailing Knox enterprise security solution for the Android platform. Knox, an end-to-end solution that provides security from the hardware all the way through to the application level, is Samsung's approach to the security threats posed by BYOD. The announcement is drawing mixed responses from security professionals.

If there's one attack surface that's attracting growing attention from digital marauders, it's a system's endpoints. With the proliferation of BYOD, securing connections can be a defender's nightmare. Endpoints have an allure for attackers because they offer multiple attack vectors, such as social engineering attacks, spearphishing, USB infection, and compromise of WiFi networks and routers.

At VMworld 2013, being held in San Francisco this week, VMware has been announcing a slew of incremental improvements and enhancements to its platform instead of unveiling striking new technologies or features -- perhaps an indication that the virtualization market is maturing. "Despite the conference's theme of 'Defy Convention,' virtualization is in fact the convention," said IDC's Al Gillen.

Business is increasingly taking place outside the boundaries of corporate data centers with data being moved to public clouds at an accelerating rate. Collaboration with outside partners, consultants and clients is becoming the norm. It even has a name: "open collaboration." Employees who have embraced the cloud are turning to low-end "consumer grade" file-sharing services for business activities.

Debunking myths around Big Data should be a first step to making better business decisions for improving data analysis and data management capabilities in a company. As the volume and purpose of data and business intelligence has dramatically shifted, older notions and misconceptions -- what amount to myths about data infrastructure -- need to updated and corrected, too.

BlackBerry 10 may have been the primary focus of its embattled maker in recent months, but on Tuesday the company revealed that its hopes for a turnaround don't rest solely on that new technology. Rather, BlackBerry announced the 9720, a handset that not only has the look and feel of its longstanding Curve line of devices but also runs its venerable BlackBerry 7 OS.

Content management systems like WordPress and Joombla have become popular targets for hackers in recent times because flaws in those systems can be leveraged for mischief across literally millions of websites. WordPress is running on some 73 million websites and Joomla some 35 million, so if you're a cybercriminal with a fresh vulnerability in your satchel, you can do some serious damage.

I've been charting the evolution of the corporate app store idea in this column for more than three years. Until recently, most of the focus has been on how various service providers and other institutions can establish app stores to resell apps to their customers. Now, enlightened CIOs are discovering the advantages of implementing internal app stores.

It's hardly surprising that Samsung is working on a brand-new smartphone -- it is a device manufacturer, after all. What is surprising is the form factor of this new device: It will reportedly be styled as a dual-display flip phone -- similar, in other words, to the many other clamshell devices that saturated the market before smartphones took over.

Motorola on Thursday unveiled its Moto X sensor-laden smartphone at meetings with the media and analysts in New York. As expected, the device is chock-full of sensors and is controlled directly by voice. "You can stand on the other side of the room and say, 'OK Google Now' and it responds," said Ramon Llamas, a research manager at IDC. "This is Siri on steroids."

Not much has been seen of Dell's "Project Ophelia" thumb PC since its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but recently reports have emerged suggesting that the Android-powered device is now making its way to beta testers, with an official release anticipated in the next few months. Expected to be priced at about $100, the device is just slightly larger than a USB stick.

Despite yeoman efforts by Google to close a critical hole in its Android mobile operating system that allows any app to be turned into a malicious Trojan, programs are still appearing in the company's Google Play store with the flaw. A number of apps containing the so-called MasterKey vulnerability were discovered by cybersecurity firm Bitdefender last week.

Canonical on Monday announced a $32 million campaign to crowdfund the creation of Ubuntu Edge, a brand-new smartphone that dual-boots Ubuntu phone OS and Android. Launched on Indiegogo, the month-long campaign focuses on funding a limited production run of 40,000 devices. Backers committing $600 by Tuesday morning or $830 thereafter will receive one an Ubuntu Edge device in May 2014.

BoxTone's enterprise mobility management platform is designed to bring Android security up to levels better-suited to the rigors of the business workforce, but in making Android enterprise-hardened, the company left Android's open source trappings intact. As part of that EMM platform, BoxTone delivers its service in three categories of functionality.

Tomfoolery on Thursday launched Anchor, an app that brings team-based social networking to the enterprise on mobile devices as well as on the Web. Anchor basically lets teams and team members interact socially at a time when the growing tendency for workers is to bring their own devices and, in some cases, isolate themselves from a group workplace culture.

VMware and Verizon on Wednesday jointly announced the availability of VMware Horizon Mobile, a dual persona solution designed to segregate corporate and personal information, on the LG Intuition and Motorola Razr M smartphones used by Verizon Enterprise customers. The dual persona system establishes a separate workspace for corporate data, while personal information remains separate and secure.

U.S. government employees led a big jump in the use of technology to work from home or other locations, instead of their normal offices, during an annual telecommuting exercise in March. For employers and vendors, the message seems clear that the market for telework and mobile workplace equipment and software has only one way to go -- up.

It's no secret that security experts don't have a lot of love for social media. Information freely available at social media sites makes it easier for net marauders to fashion targeted attacks on organizations. However, social media may be undermining data security in a more profound way. Much has been made of the growing willingness of people to cough up personal information about themselves.