Ingenious idea from the Citrix CIO as reported by Charles Babcock:
After 18 months, 1,400 employees have taken him up on the offer. In many cases, he says, they buy a computer that costs $3,000 or more, using the company’s reimbursement to upgrade themselves to a higher level multimedia and game-playing machine than they would normally purchase. Each subsidized purchase must include a three-year warranty on the computer.
and
Why implement a bring-your-own-computer to work policy at a company? Martine says employees are already bringing their favorite devices to work, their Blackberries and iPhones or other smart phones, their tablets and their netbooks. IT can assign one type of computer to everyone, but he found end users really want to pick out their own. When they do, they also tend to develop the ability to self-maintain them.
So now they are reducing their IT costs, increasing employee satisfaction and ensuring these computers last longer than normal. All that and this:
In addition, if he loses the laptop at the airport, all the data he’s created with virtualized applications, whether connected or disconnected, has been stored in an encrypted “safe zone” folder. Without the encryption key, the folder is useless to the possessor of the laptop — no corporate data has been lost, Martine said.
Citrix engineering now has “1,500 people testing its products, 1,500 people they’d never find in a lab. It will put out a higher quality product that will last for years because of that,” he added.
Why every company is not doing this is beyond me, makes great financial, HR, and R&D sense.