Will iPads Trigger Christmas Hangover for CIOs & VARs?

Halloween hasn’t even arrived. In the U.S., the Thanksgiving holiday remains more than a month away. But here’s a potential nightmare before, er, after Christmas that VARs need to consider now: At McAfee Global Partner Day, executives openly wondered if CIOs and solutions providers will be ready to support millions of new iPads, iPhones and Google Android devices that consumers bring to work after the holidays.

Throughout the McAfee conference, held in Las Vegas, the security company focused on the consumerization of IT. No doubt, it’s a familiar theme: From social media (FaceBook and Twitter) to consumer devices (notebooks, netbooks, tablets, smart phones), CIOs are discovering that blocking consumer services and employee devices from the corporate network no longer is an option.

In fact, one McAfee executive mentioned a growing BYOPC trend — that is, Bring Your Own PC to work. McAfee claims a growing number of companies no longer buy PCs for their employees; instead, the companies give each employee a set budget to purchase their own systems. That sounds like a nightmare approach to The VAR Guy.

Ho, Ho, Horror

But there could be an even bigger nightmare awaiting CIOs once employees return from the 2010 Christmas holiday break. Specifically, McAfee expects CIOs and their channel partners to face a tidal wave of iPad support requests in early 2011 as consumers bring their shiny new iPads to work for the first time.

Instead of trying to block iPads and other mobile devices from corporate networks, McAfee is calling on partners to pitch mobile synchronization and mobile security services to iPad-toting customers.

The VAR Guy wonders: How many VARs and CIOs will heed McAfee’s advice before the post-holiday blues set in…

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