I totally agree with Richard Resnick's approach: employees should own their own computer. (And the company should pay employees some monthly fee to help with the upkeep).

I'm in front of my computer 18 hours a day... it is the portal to my entire life... personal and work. Having two computers would be insane... switch from one to another to read personal or work emails and IMs? Switch from one to the other when I want to do work or personal Web browsing? I'd be switching back and forth all the time to see if something had come in.

But I don't want the company to see my personal stuff....emails about my investments, personal financial details, lists of tennis partners, etc. If it were a company computer, anyone in IT could peruse my online backups.

Two years ago, I bought my laptop from my company for book value. It's my computer now. I pay the monthly costs of my online backup account and I own all the software I use for personal work: antivirus, Office, etc. I repair it when it breaks. The company has no claim on any of the emails, or files, or etc.

I suppose the company's lawyer would have a real problem with this... where is the company's right to access all the work product they paid me to develop? They can ask for it any time they want.... but what prevents me from holding it hostage or wiping the drive if I'm angry?

PS: I'd make the same argument about cell phones.

“Correspondent Richard Resnick provided the most extreme suggestion: No corporate-owned PCs at all. Let employees buy their own -- whatever they think they need to do their jobs ... It's an intriguing alternative, and one not easily envisioned.”

Welcome to my very real world. I work in higher education where my clientele consists of students and faculty using their home equipment to access resources they need to do their jobs – our portal, MIS, library and course management systems. And we don’t even have the luxury of mandating equipment, they come to us with the widest variety of equipment (hardware and software) that you can imagine. We also don’t have the luxury of screening in the hiring process for any minimal technical competence – that’s what we’re supposed to be teaching students. Faculty aren’t hired for their technical expertise, we hire them to be content area experts and then, oh by the way, they’re expected to instruct students using technology and we don’t provide them with equipment for their homes (yes, we do have semi-locked-down PCs in the office but faculty like to work from home at 2 am like students do).

So this vision is happening in the academic world and we’re making it work. Sometimes it’s painful but flexibility and patience is critical to what we do. And, heck, it keeps me employed… ;-)

Somehow, letting users buy their own PCs looks to more like either abdicating the role of IT as technical management and advisor, or givign up.

Next we would let users acquire their own software, I would expect. they know what they need.

Now we've pretty much removed IT from any useful role to manage, supply, or support users.

That won't last.

Now, if users are allowed to purchase their own hardware, what keeps them from buying inadequate equipment? At least with IT, you have a reasonable expectation of competence, and can always bring in new staff to do it right... ???

Rick,

In response to your well reasoned statement, I have a question.

What are three things PC users complain about with regards to the IT department? Wouldn't that be the support, management and supply of their IT resources.

The reason I hate this "one size fits all" concept in IT so much is because it uses the lowest common denominator of user to lock down all the users.

Not all users are 5 year olds that need totally locked down computers. Some of them, like me, have entire secure networks of computers set up at home. Treating skilled workers (epically in development) like children is stupid.

I say let the users make adult decisions about their PC equipment and treat them like adults.

I'm ok with the option to buy my own computer, but the company should provide the minimum required system if I don't. It should provide me the equivalent amount they would spend in the case of me buying my own. I pay the difference between the minimum system and the one I buy.

I mean what's next you're a forklift driver and you have to provide your own forklift?

Howard,

Whats interesting is that in some fields it IS expected that the worker have their own tools.

Its very common form mechanics and technicians to be expected to supply their own tools. I don't see how developers providing their own computer would be much different from this.

One thing that seems to be getting lost in this discussion is how does IT keep spares for a break-fix scenario? One of the main reasons my company imposed some standards for our road warriors is the ability to keep a couple of spares in the closet; when one of our engineers' laptop fried its logic board I was able to yank the hard drive, slap it into a spare and hand him a working computer 15 minutes later. Try that when you're supporting 20 different models of "whatever Best Buy had on sale."

Also, different price points (often) reflect different levels of reliability. When a cheapskate user's $399 special dies after three months, whose problem is it? Do I have to come up with a loaner for him while it gets sent off to the depot? Does he have to rent a replacement? If so, who's responsible for loading software onto it? Does he spend the next 2 weeks asking to borrow a co-worker's machine for 10 minutes to check his email?

The solution to slow or unresponsive IT departments isn't to abandon the idea of central IT, it's better IT departments.

Another issue this thread hasn't raised so far, is lawsuits. Companies have many policies in place to archive company-relevant information - be it email correspondence, documents, etc.

While it would be nice to have just 1 system that can be used for personal needs and work requirements, there's no clear boundary between your information and no clear/auditable policy management for retention. If your company was involved in a lawsuit and the policy at your company was that all employees owned their own machines, theoretically machines from individual employees could be subpoenaed - everything on that system would then be available for view by lawyers.

Hi

If you travel, you risk theft or damage of your machine. Shifting the insurance burden to the employee is not a trivial thing.

Bob

I'm in an academic setting where things are as MJ indicates since academics are still pretty much freelancers, but I teach digital records archiving where my students have to consider the kind of digital document creation setup that must be compliant with regulatory requirements in many corporate settings and with control of intellectual property, ethical protection of privacy, etc. etc. in other settings. Records managers have been moaning about IM for a couple of years now, and this user-supplied computing environment approach would break open disciplined recordkeeping bigtime, so there are clearly many environments where it just wouldn't be acceptable because of corporate liability, trade secrets protection, etc. Also, it shouldn't be forgotten that in many of the environments where workers bring their own tools, those tools are themselves already constrained by explicit conventional form factors that guarantee the interoperability of the objects they manipulate.

As an employee of a large multinational company with clear policies for "users" who happens to be a software developer, this certainly sounds attractive. In fact, I have my own laptop but am not allowed to ever connect it to the corporate network. So some part of my work I do from home.

However if this approach is ever tried formally, be aware that there will be one person in each group who is successful first, and he/she will then be constantly drawn in to helping others who are not. IT support will still be consuming resources but will be carried out by whomever is willing to do it. For that reason, this idea sounds naive and utopian to me. Complex multifaceted problems are seldom fully addressed by simple solutions.

I've felt this was the answer for a long time. As Jason said above, mechanics have been doing this for years. And they spend thousands of dollars on their tools.

But this doesn't go far enough. What the business needs to do is to specify in what format it will receive information and how it will be stored on company storage devices. I really don't care what an employee uses for an office suite or to build charts, graphs or whatever just so long as I get the data in a format I can view it in.

It is acceptable for the employee to have all his/her work on their personal PC but they should be required to regularly upload work to "company storage" for archival purposes.

The company should also set up key data systems so the employee can easily access them. In this day of web apps, that's easy to do.

As for support if the laptop fails, hey, I do that with my car now. If more businesses did this, there would be plenty of technicians out there who could get the job done. And as for fixing a $400 machine, at those rates you can afford to have two and do the swaps from there.

There are so many problems with this theory, where do you begin?

1. Temptation - temptation to spend company time doing personal stuff.
2. Data Security - it would be too easy for a user to store confidential data in an unsecure location
3. Ignorance - Most often people don't know what precautions to take with setting up security on their own box
4. Connectivity - IT's time that had been freed up, would now be spent chasing connectivity issues (and security issues)
5. Spyware and Viruses would most likely run rampant

That's just to name a few. I could keep going, but I'll stop there.

I think we all pretty much agree, this was an attempt to get people to think outside the box, and maybe spark some innovative ideas to lessen the burden that is on IT.

Why not have employees purchase their own desks, chairs, pencils, and desktop telecom equipment as well?

Resnick's vision is intriguing, and clearly inspires discussion, but runs contrary to basic corporate needs to foster consistent and high employee productivity, to ensure information-sharing across staff, and to control and access all corporate data. Just imagine performing discovery in a litigation context where every PC is employee owned!

The examples cited to the contrary either reflect woeful underinvestment in employees (the case for public education, where teachers also purchase basic teaching materials for their classes), or situations where employee-owned tools powerfully align incentives (mechanics and technicians supply their own tools because company-owned tools quickly disappear or are broken; employee owned tools stick around and work for a long time).

As long as PCs are PCs, corporations will continue to purchase and maintain the vast majority of these for their employees, and for good reasons.

Interesting thought experiment, but probably very impractical in most all cases. In the long run, I suspect it would cost more and cause more problems than it solves. Noteably, interoperabilty problems with network, printers, software, documents. Viruses, corporate intellectual property remaining on personal computers.
It wouldn't take long to do the ROI and risk analysis to make decision on an individual company basis.
Ironically, I'm in a startup, using my own MacBookPro while the rest of management uses Windows. So, sometimes it works:-)

This is the most radical idea since Linux.

Imagine a world in which the average worker (a/k/a "drone") is free to choose not only equipment but software. It might actually require some intelligent thought by the worker -- totally anti-Microsoft. No longer chained to a corporate mandated "style", there might be some thought process in a Word document. This would only lead to chaos and the destruction of the corporate way of life.

Vista and MS Office 2007 are signs of the future Brave new World. Heaven help us when Windows 7 arrives -- but by then, we won't know the difference or much less even care.

I agree - actually IBM (in the US) is actually trying this out in a pilot - IT provides the help in the getting the standard operating envoironment going the user manages the rest. I am sure that will work just fine

Combine this with a standardized virtual machine for corporate access and I think you may have a workable idea. *Everything* is outside the firewall; your corporate VM uses a VPN to connect to its services and back up all its data. In the case of a hardware failure, restore the VM to a new laptop and continue working.

A few comments regarding some of the posts and the lack of relevant information - please don't take it personally!

Regarding mechanics and tools: there is no comparison here. No company information, proprietary, sensitive, confidential, or client information is stored on a set of wrenches. Higher end electronic equipment that interfaces with storage devices such as computerized testing systems are still owned by the facility, not the mechanics.

Regarding academia: Students are customers of the institution, they are not employees. As such, they are paying for education and certification in the form of a degree or certificate from an accredited institution. They are not being paid to generate, manipulate, and apply information necessary to the continuing operation of the academic institution. In fact students usually retain full ownership and rights to all intellectual property generated during their studies. Academia is a research, teaching, and learning institution where the exchange of ideas and inter-cultural exchanges are encouraged - a concept foreign to most businesses at best and illegal in many cases due to international, federal, and local legislation and regulation.

Archiving, access, and control: while many companies have policies in place regarding the use and ownership of information, this is not a right that can be easily waived. As previously mentioned legislation and regulation have sustantial civil, criminal, and fiduciary risks to corporations, partnerships, and even sole proprietorships. Let's name a few and all remember the problems we've had in addressing these: Patriot Act, HIPAA, Sarbox, GLB... and those are just in the U.S. Many other nations have similar legislation, while local governments may have even more restrictive legislation regarding the protection of data, disclosure of incidents, etc...

Regarding reimbursement for a portion of the price of a computer purchased by an employee: This creates a taxable event for U.S. taxpayers, a matter just discussed and addressed in our organization regarding Cell Phones. In many cases, this is considered income to the employee on which they may be taxed as it represents a deduction for the organization - Uncle Sam always gets a slice of the pie! Worse yet is the fact that unreimbursed job expenses are subject to a 2% of one's Adjusted Gross Income, meaning that the majority, if not all of the expense will not be deductible for the employee. Yet by paying a lower amount for the use of the computer the organization also loses some of its tax benefit, reducing the amount of the cost savings to the organization. Uncle Sam double dips!

Unsecured home users: Absolutely - most as pointed out haven't a clue as to what is really required to secure their systems - some do, this is not an entirely sweeping statement. But the majority don't and will get compromised. 100K plus botnets exist - this is reality. Now you will let them into your company? Network Access Controls will only provide so much protection but that's perimeter - what happens offline from the corporate network is outside the control of the NAC.

Shifting costs?: Quick Question, is your company also going to shift some of their increased profits to the employees or simply penalize them for being so unfortunate as to work for you and thus have to pay for their own equipment and support, equating to lower wages while potentially increasing their tax liability? Without profit sharing I see employee exodus.

Lower income employees: Nuff said - they won't be able to afford to work for you. Supplement them with a computer at corporate expense and then tax them? They are barely making it now, they too will move on. Some will move to welfare and EIC (Earned Income credit for those who don't recognize it, one of the most misnomered tax credits ever).

High paid employees: Come on, these folks expect perks, they have been through the ladder to get where they are and don't expect to be pulled back down. They too will move on.

The only way I see this working is in an thin-client environment where the virtual office becomes a reality and the reductions in commuting costs and increased personal time compensate for the lower effective wages for employees and security and data control and separation is better managed.

I got frustrated at the insufficient laptop provided by the corporate IT department and bought one with enough processor speed, screen size, memory and disk space to do the work I was paid to do. I backed up my work to the company machine on a regular basis; but otherwise it remained in my desk drawer.

I created two user ID's on the machine, one for work and one for personal use and maintained the separation very strictly. Two email programs, two

I never asked permission to do this, and I didn't advertise the fact. After a year, my manager realized what I had done, and did exactly the same thing.

I had a significant increase in productivity because the computer was set up in a way that was natural to me.

Because I kept my office at home, the company paid for my internet service and telephone, so the only cost to me was for the computer itself. It was well worth the price to have a sufficient machine.

There is no reason that a competent user should be dragged down to the level of an entry level employee.

I have heard from a few lawyer friends that this approach is fairly common at law firms - lawyers get an annual 'tech budget' that they can spend any way they like.

Then again, you couldn't pay me enough money to work in IT in a law firm. :-)