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Nov

2009

Why You Can't Use Personal Technology at the Office

"At the office, you've got a sluggish computer running aging software, and the email system routinely badgers you to delete messages after you blow through the storage limits set by your IT department. Searching your company's internal Web site feels like being teleported back to the pre-Google era of irrelevant search results.

At home, though, you zip into the 21st century. You've got a slick, late-model computer and an email account with seemingly inexhaustible storage space. And while Web search engines don't always figure out exactly what you're looking for, they're practically clairvoyant compared with your company intranet.

This is the double life many people lead: yesterday's technology for work, today's technology for everything else. The past decade has brought awesome innovations to the marketplace—Internet search, the iPhone, Twitter and so on—but consumers, not companies, embrace them first and with the most gusto."

online.wsj.com/...3567204574499032945309844.html

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technology productivity IT ITpolicies personaltechnology corporatetechnology google outlook virtualmachines search spotlight apple macintosh

Companies now have an array of technologies at their disposal to give employees greater freedom without breaking the bank or laying out a welcome mat for hackers
Some forward-thinking companies are already giving employees more freedom to pick mobile phones, computers and applications for work—in some cases, they're even giving workers allowances to spend on outfitting themselves. The result, they've found, is more-productive
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- When they get fed up with work technologies, employees often become digital rogues, finding sneaky ways to use better tools that aren't sanctioned by the IT department.
- Now consumers buy more PCs than businesses do—and the consumer market spurs the most interesting innovations
- Some companies have decided the best solution is to start giving workers what they want. Until a couple of years ago, Kraft Foods Inc., the consumer-goods giant, had a rigid approach to workplace technology
- o, the IT department stopped blocking access to consumer Web sites, and the company started a stipend program for smart phones: Workers get an allowance every 18 months to buy a phone of their choosing. (Over 60% picked iPhones.) Kraft has also started a pilot program to let some of its employees pick their own computer. One catch: Employees who choose Macs are expected to solve technical problems by consulting an online discussion group at Kraft, rather than going through the help desk, which deals mainly with Windows users.
- "The win for Kraft is employees are more productive if they use devices they're familiar with," says David Diedrich, vice president of information-systems technology, security and workplace services at Kraft.