BYOC - Bring Your Own Computer to Work
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For most people, there is one computer at work and another at the office. Now, some companies are integrating the two and offering a cash incentive to buy a laptop:
“…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.”
link: BYOC: Company Gives Workers Unusual Laptop Leeway
At first glance, it seems to be a wonderful way to have all one’s computing on a single machine. However, the plan has its dangers. It blurs the definition of what is private. Can the employer now have greater access to private, personal information? Furthermore, it could be a security nightmare. How would a company prevent confidential sensitive information from being downloaded onto a ‘personal’ machine?
The consequences of a stolen or misplaced ‘personal’ laptop now could have potential serious repercussions for corporate security. It may be BYOC (bring your own computer) and OCS (obliterate corporate security).
Catherine Forsythe
One Comment
Jason
September 27th, 2008
at 7:59am
There is also the issue around the compatibility of corporate development and business systems innovations from one non-standard operating system to another.
Honestly, if I had this option, I would have a 17″ lappy with Ubuntu x86_64 and all of the fixings. How does the person sitting next to me running such-and-such of a PC with Vista Ultimate provide feedback on a web app that I am coding (for internal, corporate use) when the operating systems and application road maps are disparate.
This may be beneficial for external facing missions and endeavors as more diversity in the testing and validation of an application isn’t a bad thing. But in those cases when an application does not work with IE7 but works great on FF3, or an app is Java based, or is exclusively a .Net/ActiveX appl, the non-standard desktop option makes for difficulties in getting things done.