Heard on the street last week in Capitalist land:
Employee - Hey KD, I saw an article that says the new trend in corporate America is for companies to give their employees around 2K every three years, then the employee goes out and buys whatever laptop they want.
KD - I saw the same article. You expect the IT group to support 50 different laptops?
Employee - I think the positives outweigh the negatives. Think of the employee engagement that would result!
KD - You're a Mac user at home, aren't you?
Employee - That's not really the issue, the issue is if giving lots of employees flexibility and...
KD - Mac or PC? Answer the question.
Employee - Mac.
KD - I'm a PC, and reporting to me is IT.
Employee - Very funny..(remember, we're a software company that supports primary Windows biz environments).
KD - I'll tell you what, if you can get Charlie (my IT Manager, name changed so I don't get sued) to approve your system, it's in...
Employee - Maybe I'll go talk to him.
Of course, the employee is thinking maybe there's a way. But the ugly truth is that as democratic as everyone picking their own laptop sounds, it just doesn't work once you have a company with over 100 employees. IT needs standards, or they'll give you an alternative - they need 30% more FTE's to handle the diversity of issues. Put it all on one platform from one vendor, and the chaos in the IT department almost seems manageable. The only way around that is if vitalization environments make the software install obsolete in the future, which might happen. But I'll save that topic for those with tech chops much stronger than mine.
I say all this with the realization that somewhere, someday, somehow, I'm going to get a non-iPod Apple product, love it, then try to erase all the PC love I've had on this blog for the last 18 months. Except you can't hit delete on the Internet data that floats around out there.
As for the employee going to talk to Charlie, my IT guy? I'm thinking it went a little something like this (email subscribers click through for video):
Coming from someone working for a company with well over 100 employees ... this idea would be dead in the water the minute you mentioned it. Just thinking about security issues, like employees accessing networks remotely, would have IT up in arms.
In a perfect world maybe it could happen, but in the world where my company works ... never. Definitely no soup for you!
Posted by: Marie | October 10, 2008 at 02:29 PM
Kris –
I get the whole “TCO” (Total cost of ownership) thing and support it.
However, having my daughter’s college require all students to have a $2,000 Mac Powerbook Pro was hard to swallow.
Posted by: Dan McCarthy | October 12, 2008 at 07:35 AM
"Put it all on one platform from one vendor, and the chaos in the IT department almost seems manageable. " Exactly my experience.
This reminds me of the employee who asked if she could get the perfect-attendance award that we'd apparently overlooked for her...FIVE YEARS AGO. She got the same reaction...
Posted by: Joel Kimball | October 14, 2008 at 03:55 PM
Marie - thanks for checking in. Standards in IT are pretty preditable, aren't they...
Dan - A forced 2K for the Mac when you could have spotted up 1K for an HP? Have they no shame?
Joel - did you actually say, "no soup for you" about the attendance award? Were the friends of the employee trying to get her to move along and comply?
KD
Posted by: KD | October 14, 2008 at 09:26 PM