On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 1:17 PM, Tracy Reed <[email protected]> wrote:
> Assuming that is correct we face another issue. Over half of the employees are
> permanently remote telecommuters (which makes support much more difficult) for
> whom the company has traditionally bought PC hardware and shipped it to them.
>
> I lean towards the idea of specifying what sorts of tasks the remote users be
> capable of doing (connecting to our VPN, browing the web, doing email, scp
> files, etc.), giving them a PC/support stipend, and letting them deal with
> their own hardware and support as a consequence of being remote. This should
> give them an incentive to be careful with their tools and spend resources
> wisely.

I side with shipping machines from headquarters. This issue recently
came up at work, and I think my side lost. Some of my concerns are
ease of management with consistent systems. My more serious concerns
are with security requirements, such as encrypted hard drives or home
directories, no auto-login, screen lock, anti-virus, etc. If the
machine is to be owned by the employee, I would have concerns about
information ownership. Most employment contracts have a clause about
content created on a work machine is owned by the company. I would be
concerned if a non-hourly employee was creating things (even sales
leads) on a personal computer at home. I'm not a lawyer, so my
concerns might be completely invalid, but these are the things that
come to mind when I have to advise on such decisions.

-Anton
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