A quote from an ITBusiness article:

“You gotta be mobile, regardless. While it may pose great [security] risks, its a greater risk to fall behind,” Levy said.”

It goes without saying that you can’t let your networks and systems linger and gather dust so much that we get another, “it’s 2004, why are you still running Windows 98 systems?” situation. As support drops off, so to should use. Just look at SCADA systems on what not to do…
However, there is still something to be said about being on the forefront of technology and to not be sitting around playing catch-up five years behind or more. I think it could help IT perception if IT were closer to the forefront of technology and enabling and assisting employees more. This might be a bit dangerous in some cases, but I think in most cases the only real danger is just overspending on new things that may or may not work out in the long run. Thankfully, technology these days does not necessarily have to be a bad decision made that will last 20 years…or even 5 years. Everyone in business makes mistakes. IT should be held in no different regard. If we move forward with mobile devices before they become fully mainstream and it doesn’t work out, so what?
I could go into a lot of the benefits and risks and goods and bads, but I think it is interesting to imagine the change in approach when it comes to just doing some things, and figuring out the security later. Perhaps this is a bad idea for most, but it is still something to always think about. Why wait 3 more years before encouraging mobility in the organization? Why not just do it now and deal with the risks, issues, and technology? Why wait for users to clamor louder for IM, and instead move forward with dealing with IM in the organization now?
Now, this is weird for me to be saying. I typically am not an early-adopter. But I do have an excuse. In college and beyond I have not had a very large amount of leisure money at my disposal in order to delve into new things. My attitude is certainly ready to change now that I am crawling out of debt such that I can see the edge clearly now.
Another quote from the same article:

“Levy suggested that access-based protections (like dual-function authentication) are imperative, and end-to-end encryption is necessary. These technical failsafes should form the foundation for rigorous employee training from the IT department, said Levy… The employees need to become experts in mobile security, he says.”

I don’t like this statement. I think the average user needs to get used to doing things with security in mind, but it is ridiculous to request that employees become experts in mobile security. Mobile security is tough enough for professionals working with it every day, let alone everyone else trying to do their own jobs. While training is necessary and employees do need to be at least a little bit security-conscious and accepting, it is up to technology and technology professionals to be the experts in security. We do not expect everyone to be an expert about the internal workings on their car or the proper use of complicated and ephemeral security measures. Instead, they just work, they just do their thing, and we take our cars to the professionals for anything beyond our control or understanding.