BYOC: Company Gives Workers Unusual Laptop Leeway

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What do you think? Is it a good idea to let your staff buy their own PC and use it for work and home use? Or are you just begging for something bad to happen?

Employees get a $2,100 stipend to buy a laptop and three-year service plan. In exchange for getting a computer with the specs they want — whether it's a wide screen, a light weight or ultra-fast processing — the workers essentially take on the company's technology purchasing and maintenance responsibilities. The 200 staffers who have signed up since the pilot program began this month say it's a deal they're happy to take.
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I think this is great. They should make it so that after two years of service or something, you get to keep the laptop.

This will keep end users from bitching why they have a shitty company lappy and it will keep the savy guys like us happy because we get to buy a good deal and something we like.
 
I wish that was available here. I bought my own just so I could have what I needed.
 
This sounds like a mess for the IT department. How do you handle employee misuse? How do you prevent the system from introducing malware from inside the system? Even enterprise level protection is going to have a hard time fighting such. While this may not be the greatest of issue for a software development company, I still imagine it's the case. How do handle maintenance? Standardization? Security patching?

A better program with the exact same benefits is just buying the same base system and letting the employee take it home and using some means of protecting a "company" partition where such features will be handled. Or make use of virtualization technology and allow two OSes to run together but separate.
 
As someone in the IT field, this would be a nightmare when everyone keep asking why their $200 laptop isn't working right or why it's running really slow. Plus, having varying hardware makes it very hard to determine if it's a problem with the software on this particular unit, if it's just the hardware causing an issue, or some other variable.

Plus, letting people carry their work files all around on an easily losable item is just asking for trouble. 3 years of billing...gone. Important company info... stolen and sold on ebay, etc.
 
My wife's school did this (she's a teacher). They gave her $600 to spend on a laptop/service plan. It has worked out very well, and the tech dept at the school fully supports any issues that involve school equipment.

For her school, which is small and private, doing this means much less headache/cost for the IT guys in terms of picking, buying and supporting hardware. The purchaser is responsible for the service plan and therefore any repairs.
 
Sounds like a network management nightmare to me; then again I don't work there so their corporate culture and user competence might be completely different from what I'm used to.
 
It'll probably work out for the people who are super savvy and know what they are doing. The users that would be most problematic would be the ones that fall into the "know enough to be dangerous" group.

Money wise though it doesn't make any sense. Why would you trade the ability to purchase as a business and lose all the benefits in that pricing tier, so that people can buy equipment one at a time and feel empowered to take care of their own system.
 
Sounds stupid to me.

Okay say said computer stops working, what temp computer will they have to use when it's sent in to be serviced?
 
wiseoracle said:
Sounds stupid to me.

Okay say said computer stops working, what temp computer will they have to use when it's sent in to be serviced?
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Advanced replacement, next day replacement, or the business will have a loaner. It's the exact same concept if you have a company laptop... in the past company I worked at, it took 2 weeks to get a working computer, even if you were a director... and this was the 24th largest company in the world.
 
My wife's business does this. It can be challenging to work out at times since it has resulted in a very mixed network (varies PC configurations, and Mac's). Needless to say they have had lots of compatibility (Mac's with certain software apps used in the business), networking (some really bad wireless cards), and stability issues (everyone).
 
This would indeed be a nightmare, especially for a large company. Image if you have 1,000 employees (200 is already too much) and they all buy different types of laptops. You would have have a 1000 OS images in case their OS completely corrupts. If you figure there are about 10 devices on each laptop that's over 10,000 drivers you would have to have stored on hand in case a 1 drivers gets corrupted. Lastly all these non-tech people are going to buying Dells, HPs, Acers, Alienwares, (lol),Macs, Toshibas, etc. All these "wonderful" laptops come with many bloatware programs. Ya I can see myself now spending over a year trying to uninstall all of them.

Standardization is key in IT. You buy 1 model of laptop for those 1000 employees. You create 1 OS image after cleaning it up and installing AV, and you only have to keep 10 drivers on hand for the occasional issues.

Time is money, and this Citrix Systems Inc must spend a lot on their IT budget every year lol. With this plan it would take a BB's whole army of geek squads to get those thing up and running with all the proper settings, AV, and applications.
 
Jutsu said:
Time is money, and this Citrix Systems Inc must spend a lot on their IT budget every year lol. With this plan it would take a BB's whole army of geek squads to get those thing up and running with all the proper settings, AV, and applications.
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Oddly enough Citrix (The company in the article.) would be a company that can actually pull something like this off.
 
Darkest Daze said:
Plus, letting people carry their work files all around on an easily losable item is just asking for trouble. 3 years of billing...gone.
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ummm... that would be the sort of thing you store on a network drive, not on your laptop. And most companies have some sort of disaster recovery plan in place so that important records have been archived in multiple places. Its actually what I do for a living =)
 
My workplace encourages this. Our techs use personal laptops that they take home with them and I am using a work PC but I purchased 2 monitors and a video card so that I can have a dual monitor setup to develop with.
 
I could see this working with Terminal Services and having happier employees with equipment tailored for them. But, does the laptop belong to the employee or the employer? And, you always have to ask the worst case, who is liable if child porn is found on it? To help ensure we cover our asses, our policy explicitly states wrongdoing by you will cause vaporization of your body, turning to the dark side, etc, etc. Is that any issue here?
 
burnin8r said:
ummm... that would be the sort of thing you store on a network drive, not on your laptop. And most companies have some sort of disaster recovery plan in place so that important records have been archived in multiple places. Its actually what I do for a living =)
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But why have a laptop if you always have to be connected to a company network? Yes I know a VPN can be used to the same affect, but if you're ever offline - what then? To me, a big part of having a work laptop is so the company can get you working off hours, out of the office. So a big part of that is being able to work on a company related project at any one point in time - regardless of internet connectivity.

Also, I think this is a horrible idea. In practice it probably works out well enough. But what if you don't want a laptop? What if you want a dual monitor permanent desktop? Also, I don't want to worry about my computer at work. I want it given to me, how my company wants me to work with it. Sure I'll tweak it the best I can to how I like it. But I don't want to be responsible for keeping it patched, software installation, or anything else like that.

If the company is giving such a large stipend for a laptop, why not just go make a bulk purchase from the likes of Dell, HP, or some other manufacture? Give the employee the option to buy / lease it, and call it done?

To me it almost seems like an attempt to give their IT department something to do :eek: Kind of like making your job overly complicated so that the company would not want to fire you in fear of having your projects go tits up.

My employer has over 2,500 desktops and laptops in circulation around the company. We just underwent a huge upgrade process and now EVERYONE, from the security guard, to the CEO, work on the same desktop and / or laptop.

It was an absolute joy coming in one morning to a brand new computer, and not having to worry at all about the upgrade.
 
Shotglass01 said:
I could see this working with Terminal Services and having happier employees with equipment tailored for them. But, does the laptop belong to the employee or the employer? And, you always have to ask the worst case, who is liable if child porn is found on it? To help ensure we cover our asses, our policy explicitly states wrongdoing by you will cause vaporization of your body, turning to the dark side, etc, etc. Is that any issue here?
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Whenever you want to block something or have it approved... just throw CP into the mix..... lol


Our company allows employees to bring in their own computers, monitors, consoles, or TV's... it's great and everyone is happy.
 
My company has a standard set of laptops that it issues its employees. Different models/specs depending on job role. Most of the employees are consultants, meaning having a laptop is an absolute requirement. While they do standardize on the issued laptops (patches, security, etc), they do allow us to bring in personal laptops as well to use. Many people here use their own personal laptop for work - IT doesn't have a problem with this as long as the user supports his/herself. I have brought my MBP in on occasion with no problems.
 
Ockie said:
Our company allows employees to bring in their own computers, monitors, consoles, or TV's... it's great and everyone is happy.
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So this means that horrible nasty stuff discovered on someone's personal laptop absolves the company of any liability? Or does it put the company at greater risk for allowing to be brought in on it's grounds?

I guess I'm just unsure how that works. What if someone e-mails an offensive (or even illegal) e-mail from their personal laptop? I suppose you could just include personal laptops under the policy without taking direct responsibility for them.

Maybe I should just go ask Jack, oh, wait no, guess I can't do that. :)
 
I hope they remind them that they'll likely be liable for federal income taxes on their purchase.

:D
 
Doesn't anybody know what Citrix actually does? They basically created Terminal Services and remote access with their software, servers, and products like GoToMyPC and such. If any company can do this and not make it a huge nightmare, they can.

I can imagine all that these folks end up doing is installing the Citrix Client/Program Neighborhood/whatever, and all IT has to support is that client software (which will run on dozens of platforms -- we have an older Citrix Metaframe server here at the office) and hold on to restore disks.
 
orty said:
Doesn't anybody know what Citrix actually does? They basically created Terminal Services and remote access with their software, servers, and products like GoToMyPC and such. If any company can do this and not make it a huge nightmare, they can.

I can imagine all that these folks end up doing is installing the Citrix Client/Program Neighborhood/whatever, and all IT has to support is that client software (which will run on dozens of platforms -- we have an older Citrix Metaframe server here at the office) and hold on to restore disks.
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Yep, that is exactly what we do... which is why you can use any platform or system as you desire.
 
I work for Citrix and am one of the 200 or so employees who has signed up. I think this program is great. When you opt-in you return your corporate laptop and get $2100 (yes, that is taxed at your income level.) Every 3 years you get that $2100 again.

What you do with that $2100 is totally up to you. Go buy a Mac, a ThinkPad, whatever. You are responsible for the OS and any apps you want. Corporate provides access to work-related apps (over XenApp of course.) The company you purchase the laptop from is responsible for hardware support (and the employee has to manage that process.) So basically the IT department is no longer responsible for this asset at all.
 
Its bad enough with most small businesses... if i had to manage 50+ random (and mostly crappy) laptops i would go insane... and ild bet some one would get a mac Oo
 
Sir Mean Mr. Mustard said:
Its bad enough with most small businesses... if i had to manage 50+ random (and mostly crappy) laptops i would go insane... and ild bet some one would get a mac Oo
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That is the point - you don't manage it anymore. The person who bought it (and the company they bought it from) manage it. If they can't handle that then they are not allowed to sign up.

If I call our help desk now they will not help me with my hardware. If the hardware fails I have to call Apple or Dell. If I have problems getting access to my software (which is hosted in the data center) then they will help me.
 
Jutsu said:
Standardization is key in IT.
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Best and truest statement I've heard yet.

schulzpm said:
That is the point - you don't manage it anymore. The person who bought it (and the company they bought it from) manage it. If they can't handle that then they are not allowed to sign up.

If I call our help desk now they will not help me with my hardware. If the hardware fails I have to call Apple or Dell. If I have problems getting access to my software (which is hosted in the data center) then they will help me.
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That is a total clusterfuck if you ask me. I've worked support for over a decade now and one of the things I pride myself on is how quickly I can have someone back up and running, no matter if they're having a hardware or software issue. I'd say 75% of the time I can swap a system out and have most people up and running within an hour. Maybe a little longer if they have programs the typical user doesn't. With non-standard systems and users relying on themselves or the manufacturer for hardware support, turnaround time would be horrid. I can't see that as working out well. I don't know about your company, but at all the companies I've worked for, people need their systems up and running. An hour of downtime or so can be absorbed, but more then that is difficult. Some users can't even take that much. If you don't have at least an immediate loaner to give out that gets a user back to being productive, that's just wasting company time and money. That's the only way I can see this working, if they had a few spare systems they could loan out to users who have issues.
 
Not so bad an idea. It puts the power in the hands of the people. And as far as IT maintenance is concerned, it wouldn't be all that different from the IT department at a college or university. At Algonquin College, I've seen many a time where somebody had an issue and taken their laptop to the nearest ITS guy/gal. There's almost every laptop/notebook/netbook under the sun in use there.
 
I wish my job would let me bring in my spare box, 10 times faster then the crap we have right now.
 
Standardization FTW...

At my work, we only allow standardized computers and laptops due to security concerns. Only a few people is allowed to bring their own laptop but they get zero support from us so they are forced to use our own stuff if they want support. However, most of the computers is C2D based so it's ok.

 
Standardization isn't always better because the last company I was at had to recall 20,000+ notebooks due to the battery issue and some several thousand because of a screen lcd issue. Not to mention, before that, they had to recall every system due to the power brick catching on fire.
 
orty said:
Doesn't anybody know what Citrix actually does?.
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Exactly. But I think the real reason for doing this is stated in the article. "For Citrix, the program is a way of promoting its "virtualization" technology" the key word being promoting

The ability of Citrix to scan a connecting computer and make sure they are adhering to company policy would make some of this nightmare easier but it's not something I would want to tackle.
 
dr.sandman said:
Exactly. But I think the real reason for doing this is stated in the article. "For Citrix, the program is a way of promoting its "virtualization" technology" the key word being promoting

The ability of Citrix to scan a connecting computer and make sure they are adhering to company policy would make some of this nightmare easier but it's not something I would want to tackle.
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If you have used citrix, it's not a nightmare to tackle... been done like that for a long time.
 
I love standards when it comes to the IT field. This would be an absolute nightmare for the IT department, there would be nothing standard, and while I would like to bring my own machine to work, I know why I can't and I have no problem with it. Besides, we are able to keep ourselves up to date pretty well- the current systems we are using actually have a better processor (c2d) than my own system, which is running a s939 Athlon64 x2.

It's got 2 gigs of ram, equal to my system at home, and I really don't need any more than that while I'm tracking tickets, fixing problems, and looking at big spreadsheets. It's got a low end Quadro for dual widescreens. It works. What more do I need? I don't need anything else to do my job completely effectively. I think your mouse and keyboard are probably one of the most important things, and there's nothing wrong with bringing those in from home. In fact, I recommend it. But BYOC? what a nightmare.
 
Sorry from the IT side its a horrible idea. To many issues, potential security issues, the list goes on and on. This is what IT gets paid to do.
 
I was thinking this too. Glad I don't work at THEIR help desk LOL.

HD: What kind of computer do you have?

USR: It's a home-built machine.

HD: What OS ?

USR: Puppy Linux.

HD: I can assist you with that (looks up and whispers "God help me"




Skrying said:
This sounds like a mess for the IT department. How do you handle employee misuse? How do you prevent the system from introducing malware from inside the system? Even enterprise level protection is going to have a hard time fighting such. While this may not be the greatest of issue for a software development company, I still imagine it's the case. How do handle maintenance? Standardization? Security patching?

A better program with the exact same benefits is just buying the same base system and letting the employee take it home and using some means of protecting a "company" partition where such features will be handled. Or make use of virtualization technology and allow two OSes to run together but separate.
Click to expand...
 
You guys are missing the point. You would like working in our help desk under this program, because you would get to say "sorry, you joined the BYOC program. I can't help you with your hardware." If the employee can't take that, then they can opt back out and get a standardized, corporate machine. This isn't for everyone - for us it is only for laptop users anyway. You can't choose to bring in your own desktop to work. This is mainly for the people who travel and/or work remotely.

Security concerns over non-standard hardware are ridiculous. If you have great application virtualization, network virtualization, and security policies then security is handled where it should be and not on the end user's device. That is what Citrix's line of products does.

[Disclaimer: I have worked for Citrix for 9 years as a senior software developer, technical marketing manager, and now product manager so I am obviously biased. One of the reasons we are doing this though is to start breaking these incorrect, long-held beliefs about how applications are delivered to users.]
 
schulzpm said:
That is the point - you don't manage it anymore. The person who bought it (and the company they bought it from) manage it. If they can't handle that then they are not allowed to sign up.

If I call our help desk now they will not help me with my hardware. If the hardware fails I have to call Apple or Dell. If I have problems getting access to my software (which is hosted in the data center) then they will help me.
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I would like to see how the IT department handles this. I agree for power users it might work out, but with the average person it seams like this great idea would turn into a nightmare when people need to do work and the machine breaks.

Many of us on the board can determine the difference between a problem on the client and a problem externally to that. However, I don't believe this is the majority of the population. Example if you had this same group tested on if they can reload an operating system, what type of percentage do you think would be successful and also install all the applicable drivers and 3rd party apps (Spyware/AV, Office, and etc)? The reasons I ask this is I can see quite a few people say, "X application is not working, it's not my machine because my AOL instant Message works and everything else I installed does." Trying to argue this statement between IT and other groups could get ugly.

Example, with our company we have a contract with Dell to provide replacement parts for 4 hours for engineering machines and 1-2 days on desktops. On the consumer contract side I think most people will skimp on the cost of warranty so they may have mail in service only, which could start at a 2 week downtime. What do these people do? Just take vacation or are they provided a loaner machine from the IT department (with all the work behind in) as this employee needs to work?

My guess is someone high up at Citrix is trying to cut the IT budget that IT is charging per IT Asset and by doing so this will actually result it more work and cost. Not like I haven't seen the same thing. I know another company when a Hard Drive fails the IT departmenet needs to ship the entire system from the west coast to the east coast as they save money on employee wages to have the machine reloaded. The topper is both locations have images, to load an image in 15 minutes, but what cost savings is there when your overnighting a 10-20+ pound package overnight for both ways not to mention it takes more effort to actually pack a machine to ship it versus just replacing a drive and installing the image? None, outside of a great thought by someone not being re-visited when they realize that it's a failure.
 
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