According to a new study, the first quarter of 2012 has seen a dramatic shift of consumerization trends in the enterprise sector. Mobile devices running Apple's iOS showed more activity in the workplace than their Google Android counterparts, and end users migrated from Facebook toward Twitter.

Zscaler TreatlabZ, the research arm of SaaS security provider Zscaler, has recently released a report with data based on more than 200 billion first-quarter transactions in its cloud, which serves the enterprise sector. According to Zscaler TreatlabZ senior security researcher Mike Geide, a transaction occurs each time a file is accessed from a Web server.

The data recently released by Zscaler shows transactions originating from Apple's iOS devices increased considerably over the quarter, with more than 50 percent of mobile activity. Meanwhile, transactions from Google's Android devices dropped to 37 percent by the end of March. Android held the lead for most of 2011, then in December Android and iOS devices stood in line, nearly equal at 47 percent of transactions among Zscaler's enterprise customers, said Geide. BlackBerry devices dropped from roughly 18 percent of January transactions to about 15 percent by the end of March.

This growth in transactions may be partly attributed to increasing consumer use of Apple devices such as iPhones and iPads. According to Geide, many Zscaler customers set up guest wireless networks, as increasingly more companies seek to prevent personal devices from draining their networks or presenting security risks. Geide further added that employees are more likely to connect to such guests networks for personal transactions. "You don't want to be using your 3G connection to stream Pandora on your iPhone because you're going to be eating a lot of bandwidth and paying Verizon a ton of money," said Geide, as cited by TechWorld.

Other research has shown that iPhone users are generally more active on their smartphones than those using Android devices. According to data from online analytics firm Chitika, which monitors smartphone-specific activity on its advertising network, iPhone users generated 67 percent of mobile traffic, while Android users accounted for just 28.7 percent.

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Dave Clark)