Bringing Techie Toys to Work

Consumer Technology in Professional Settings. Ever wondered why companies still allow personal gadgets and software to synchronize with their IT system? If these connections create gaps in the companies' IT security, why not totally ban it? I used to think it was easy to do that, just hand over whatever gadget you bring to the office so you cannot download, upload or access unauthorized data. Well, it looks as if, the benefits that the companies gain in allowing the use of these technology at work outweighs the gaps on the security that these might create. The companies just also risk having the employees hide their use of softwares and gadgets if they ban it. IT will be harder to detect and stopped.

But sometimes these companies might think otherwise, such as drugmaker Pfizer. Its 17,000 current and former employees' social security numbers were compromised when an employee's spouse loaded a file-sharing software into her company issued laptop. The investigation showed that 15,700 of those employees actually had their data accessed and copied.

Truth be told, companies can only limit the gadgets or softwares that are prohibited from being synchronized to their system. They will lose more if they completely ban these connections.

Not only will the employees lose more efficiency in failing to use all available technology to make their work faster and more competent, the companies will also have to spend more money to develop their own independent software or system to assuage the non-use of technologies already available and at a cheaper price at that.

"The fact is, much technology aimed at consumers is more innovative and cheaper than products made for companies and just makes good business sense", according to Douglas Neal, a research fellow at Computer Sciences' (CSC) Leading Edge Forum Executive Program.

Employees cannot compare the ease of using a 2.5-5 gigabyte space allowance in free email providers to a 100 megabyte limited corporate email account. These employees do not set out to open the companies data to compromise, they just find the consumer technology easier to use.

Furthermore, according to a study by "the Financial Times newspaper and researchers at the Leading Edge Forum, which brings together researchers and executives to explore IT-related subjects, two-thirds of surveyed U.S. and British FT subscribers said they had equipment at home that was as good as or better than the equipment they had at work. "

Moreover, to develop your own independent software fit for your system will be more costly, and sometimes might even fail to succeed. When you are talking of company funds, the bottomline is to save money and not to sponsor innovation. The KLM airlines experienced it firsthand when they wanted to put a search function on its corporate intranet, it spent much time and money testing a costly conventional corporate tool that simply didn't work well. The answer finally came in the form of the Google Mini search appliance that cost all of €2,995 ($4,128).


What the companies can do are only creative risk avoidance shemes like giving more freedom to their employees in the choice of the technology they use. Some give an allowance to buy personal computers instead of giving standard issues. Others allow access to their firewalls from the internet only from the 18,000 laptops it issued with beefed up security. Creative linkups to consumer technology providers can also help to maintain privacy. Like it or not, companies must innovate to keep up with the times.


Additional sources:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2007/tc20070715_157962.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ceo_tipsheet/2007_6.htm