CIOs are under pressure to allow personal devices into their enterprise IT departments. Companies that treat this change as an opportunity rather than a threat are more likely to win.

By Gary Kovacs, senior vice president at Sybase

When Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, the speed limit in most places -- provided you were outside city limits -- was just 20 miles per hour (in town, it was usually just 10 mph).

That restriction seems hopelessly quaint today. You know what else will soon seem equally quaint? Your company's repressive approach towards employees' devices.

Most companies provide a limited selection of laptops and smartphones that range from bland to blander. Meanwhile, employees are champing at the bit to bring in their own stylish smartphones (the iPhone 4 and HTC Evo come to mind), cute netbooks from Asus and Acer, and, increasingly, useful tablets like Apple's (AAPL) iPad.

But most IT departments still either block these devices outright, or grudgingly grant them only limited entry. While citing security and management risks, a fear of change seems to underlie their objections. More