My computer, your rules

Technology Companies such as Microsoft and Intel have launched'bring your own laptop to work' schemes. Is this the future of workor another step towards cubicle anarchy? Rhodri Marsden finds out

You can't always blame the folk in the IT department for thewheezing, malfunctioning computers that you may have to contend withon a daily basis in the course of doing your job. These battle-hardened men and women, toting their admin passwords and USB sticks,are frequently hamstrung by a lack of resources and meagre budgets;they often have to keep a business running using technology that'sridiculously out of date. Computers are superseded by better modelsevery month, but regularly upgrading a building's worth oftechnology is unrealistic. The irony of this situation is thateveryone in the IT department - and probably the frustrated staffthey're attempting to help - will often have far more powerfulcomputers sitting at home doing nothing. Often, the tablet computeror phone in their bag under the desk are more powerful than themachine sitting on it.

Until recently, work machines and home machines were two veryseparate entities. Taking a company laptop home might requireumpteen forms to be signed, in which you promise faithfully that youwon't accidentally destroy it. Attaching your own machine to thecompany's network, meanwhile, is deemed a security risk that wouldhave the aforementioned IT department crossing themselves andmuttering a prayer. But the rise of remote working, teleworking, e-lancing - whatever you want to call it - has inevitably blurredthose lines. More and more of our work is being done at home on ourown machines. So why can't we simply bring our own computers towork, and get rid of the clunking behemoth on the desk that's longpast its prime?

There are such schemes, known as Bring Your Own Computer, orBYOC. They've been adopted by a number of companies, including namesyou immediately associate with technology (Microsoft, Intel) andsome you certainly don't (Kraft). At first glance, it's a no-brainer: the company simply offers a subsidy to its staff of a fewhundred pounds and sends them shopping for a computer. We appreciatehaving a say in the machine we'll be using for 40 hours a week, andobviously we get to take it home and use it however we wish outsideworking hours. The business, meanwhile, saves on upgrading a stackof hardware; in the long term it'll save on software, too, becauseswitching to BYOC means that all the work will happen "in thecloud".

Instead of launching word processors, spreadsheets or databaseprograms from your computer's hard disk, we'd securely connectthrough an internet browser to virtual versions of those programsthat are sitting in the ether - or, more accurately, on yourcompany's server. All your correspondence, calendars, reports andpresentations would be worked on and stored remotely, so your flashynew laptop or tablet essentially becomes a dumb terminal duringworking hours - a viewer, an access point. Then, as soon as youclose that browser connection, your laptop is your own to do withwhat you will - full of music, games and photos of your canoeingholiday in Sweden. During the time you spend in the office, thedifference to your way of working would be barely perceptible. Butyou might well start to think: "I don't actually need to be sathere. I could be anywhere." If you don't need a work machine towork, why come into the office at all? Long term, BYOC can certainlyfacilitate remote working and help to achieve a "work-life balance"that doesn't include an hour or more of commuting each day.

"Companies that are used to employing home-workers are the onesmost likely to adopt BYOC," says Chris Knowles from Dimension Data,who helps to provide such schemes in the UK. "The company alreadyhas a certain level of IT infrastructure, and they know that it's anapproach that can work. Also, those employees used to workingoutside the office tend to be a bit more self-sufficient - i.e. theydon't need handholding if something goes wrong." With one computernow doing the job of two, the potential for saving money seemsobvious, although Knowles stresses that it's early days. "We don'thave enough evidence to prove this point - not least becauseorganisations need to spend money upfront on a new cloud-basedsystem to make this a reality. But there are signs that these kindsof schemes are valuable in that they attract the right kind ofpeople to come and work for your organisation."

As you start to ponder BYOC, a whole list of "hang on, but whatif?" scenarios spring to mind. Few of those concerns are borne byus, the proud employee carrying our shiny new device; our only realworry is the question of whether we can get online to get work donewhen we're away from the office. Intermittent internet access meansintermittent access to the documents and applications that we use,but as time goes by this is going to be less and less of an issue,Knowles says. "There are new standards for wireless networking thatwill give us gigabit speeds," he says. "And that's when virtualcomputing will really take off."

The company, however, may well be fretting about a whole heap ofthings. Perhaps a scenario where, having promised a 400-per-headsubsidy for a computer, your staff heads to eBay, skimps on a low-spec machine, pockets the difference and heads out for a posh mealwith their partners. To regain control over the technology that'snow powering the organisation, companies will inevitably have to laydown standards, give specification guidelines or even offer aselection of computers to choose from. It's not quite the free andeasy choice that BYOC originally promised, but hey, the machine hasto do the job.

Other issues come into play when you start providing computers asemployee benefits - such as ensuring that you're not giving thatbenefit in a discriminatory way, for example - but by far thebiggest flashing question mark over BYOC is one of security. There'ssomething reassuring about a company's data all sitting in onebuilding and only being accessed from that building. But not only isthis increasingly unrealistic, it was never particularly secure inthe first place. Data can always be copied to thumb drives and lost,intercepted online or sent to the wrong people by email.

And while businesses might fear the BYOC model of hundreds ofcomputers with a direct internet connection to company datameandering around the world, the cloud model means that the almost-clichd scenario of a civil servant leaving a laptop full ofsensitive material on a train is banished for ever. "One of the keydrivers for adopting BYOC is to enhance security," Graham Hann, alawyer at Taylor Wessing, says. "Yes, it can be a problem if it's ifdone badly and without a properly secure model, but in theory itshould contain the spread of sensitive data."

But while your employees' new machines are supposedly dumbterminals for work purposes, they're sophisticated pieces oftechnology. And while work documents shouldn't need to sit on thesecomputers, policing a ban on saving documents to hard drives isimpossible.

Also, because these computers are now personal possessions,people are less likely to be robust about looking after them."You're more likely to let other people use your machine," Hannsays, "you're more likely to have it with you when you go away,there's a greater chance of it going astray.

"In essence, you're giving people the opportunity to put client-sensitive information, and indeed information about colleagues, ontheir own IT equipment. In some areas that's low risk, but not all."And when you come to leave that organisation, your access to theserver may be cut off, but it'll be impossible to stop youdownloading and storing company data beforehand.

Despite these issues with BYOC as a concept, Hann doesn't believethe legal implications are sufficiently serious to preventbusinesses from taking it up. The only remaining niggle, perhaps, isthe idea of a building full of employees working on machines thatdouble as boundless sources of amusement and entertainment. Ifsomething as dull as a game of solitaire is able to distract peoplefrom their mundane everyday tasks, imagine the temptation of folderscrammed with games, videos and music; those acceptable-use policiesthat currently stop us from misusing the internet at work willinevitably have to be extended - although whether it'll stop peopletimewasting is debatable.

"The more you allow people to use their own equipment the harderit is, culturally, to enforce them to use it in the way you want,"Hann says. "And if you're outside the building during work hours,you can't legislate at all."

It'll be interesting to see if companies try saying, "Well, we'vepart-funded this computer, we get to say what you do with it". Butunder BYOC, it's ours. Surely they can trust our consciences?

Rhodri Marsden