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Posted on 01-10-2008

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Workers Made To Bring Own Computers

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Miami-based Software Company, Citix Systems Inc

is rolling out a new programme that will allow employees to get their own computers to work. The initiative is called BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer). The company plans to give their employees a stipend of $2,100 to get a laptop of their own choice, with whatever specs they think will be beneficial for their kind of work, and with a three year service plan.

The company is happy with the idea of having personal laptops, but has given clear instructions that the computer systems should be MAC or Windows-based only with licensed anti-virus software running on them.

The company’s idea behind the whole thing is to move all the technology purchasing and maintenance responsibilities to the employees itself; moreover, people love this idea of having a single device for both personal and official work.

Not everything is good about the implementation of this programme though, as the company is still unsure about the safety of their confidential data on employees personal computers. Certain measures suggest that the company is opting for virtualisation of most of the programmes such as SAP and Microsoft Exchange for which the employees have to login remotely to work. This means that the data will remain safe, and will reside on company monitored and protected servers.

We’ll have to wait and watch to learn how much the company is going to save with this initiative. Citrix officials say, “We spend $2,500 to 2,600 to buy and maintain a PC for each employee”.

Cost benefits apart, this seems like a good HR ploy to adopt as well, because it encourages individuality, and reduces the chances of employees complaining about hardware to almost nothing.