You say that only one person is affected, instead of three. But during the 80% of the time when the C?O is just fine, EVERY user is still walking down the hall to pick up their documents…further, probably waiting there for a while as the previous person’s documents finish. Fires aside, this productivity loss occurs day in, day out, as long as workgroup printers are the paradigm.

Just my 2 cents.

Thx,..J.~

Keep in mind that when an IT person is tied up dealing with a driver issue for someone’s workstation, that IT person is not putting out whatever other fires are going on… fires that also may be keeping a 100k a year employee from working. For instance, while I’m working on your deskjet printer that refuses to work, the CFO’s Blackberry suddenly goes on the fritz. While I can and will most likely be re-assigned to deal with the Blackberry issue, I’m now having to leave the deskjet in an unworking state, you’re disgruntled because you still can’t print, the CFO is disgruntled because it takes so long for an IT person to respond to the Blackberry issue… you get the idea. This type of situation happens in many IT shops and therefore it makes sense for the IT shop to try and streamline support. Yes, your individual productivity is hurt because you’ve got to walk down to pick up your printed document, but because you don’t have a deskjet printer on your desk, I was available to go assist the CFO immediately. It’s all about resource allocation and making the appropriate trade-offs. And let’s look at the end result. In the mini-scenario I gave, the deskjet printer caused 3 people to be less productive. With the workgroup printer, only 1 is less productive (the Blackberry problem is going to happen regardless, so it’s a wash as far as the CFO’s lack of productivity because of the Blackberry issue).

As far as getting the Blackberry is concerned, remember the security issue. Security risk management is a business decision, not an IT decision. Yes, IT makes the business side aware of the risk, but IT shouldn’t be the one making the decision here. Business personnel should be. And if it is deemed too much risk to give you a Blackberry versus the trade-off on your enhanced performance, it doesn’t matter if the company or the individual owns the Blackberry, the risk is still there. You don’t get rid of it by simply switching who owns the device.

COMPLAINT: IT has removed my desktop printer, and I have to walk down the hall to the printer.

When you look at toner/ink costs for individual desktop printers versus workgroup printers, this is a no-brainer from a company’s perspective. Also, many folks print things when it’s convenient that they wouldn’t print if they have to walk down the row. That’s a lot of cost savings for a company in those areas. Also, keep in mind that often the workgroup printers are needed for times when a lot of pages have to be printed. So you’re also looking at additional equipment assets that must be acquired and managed by a corporation.

And like software applications, printers require management at an individual level. There is an increased IT cost to support desktop printers from handling the print drivers (especially in environments that use Citrix) to just basic support like swapping out print cartridges and clearing paper jams. While a lot of users can handle these things, you’d be surprised at how many don’t.

COMPLAINT: My company won’t purchase a Blackberry/Treo/Smartphone for me to use.

There are security concerns with each of these devices. If you lose one of these devices, all of the information that you had stored on it is potentially in the hands of someone malicious. While many of them have the ability to send a “poison pill” which clears the device once the loss is discovered, the problem is getting employees to report the loss right away (after all, they just lost company equipment). Also, some of the devices allow for the transmitter/receiver to be turned off, thereby preventing that poison pill from being received.

Ultimately business has to do a risk assessment. If your increased productivity due to having access to such devices outweighs the security risk if you should lose the device, then it makes sense to issue the device. But what if it isn’t? Not everyone needs such a device. And as far as allowing personal assets, which the company doesn’t own, to connect to company systems? That’s never a good idea. If you did something that was a fireable offense and your personal device has company confidential information on it, think about the difficulty a company would have to go through to try and seize it and clear that information.

COMPLAINT: I’m not allowed to load personal information on my Outlook.

If you were to watch the non-business related email that comes through company mail systems, you would see that it can be extremely servere. For instance, 20 MB attachments of a child’s wrestling team competition, media files > 25 MB a day, etc. all of which have to be handled by the mail system, stored in the mail system, backed up, etc. Processing those large attachments slows up processing of business critical emails because most folks don’t know how to set the priority flag on emails and there’s no guarantee that a given email system is going to honor it. From a business perspective do you want an email you need for a multi-million dollar deal being delayed with an attachment sealing the deal as hundreds of personal emails with large file attachments are undergoing virus scans in a queue, preventing you from getting that email in a timely manner?

COMPLAINT: My company makes me carry a Blackberry to check my email, but they said the phone service is too expensive, so I have to use a different cell phone, and I’m still required to wear my pager for emergencies?

Many cell phone carriers do free calling between users of that carrier, something companies try to take advantage of. Companies can reduce cost by only getting a limited number of minutes and taking advantage of these deals. Also, companies will tend to issue more cell phones than Blackberries. The company may have secured better pricing on phones and calling plans because it has greater leverage due to the # of personnel. If the company gets a $5 break per phone per month, that may not seem like a lot. But take it to a 1,000 employees, even, and that’s $60,000 a year. Over five years you’re at $300,000. And that’s not even including any price breaks on phones.