Buy Your Own Computer

[somabc]

When someone joins a new company they will still have the old computer, do they get a subsidy as well from the new company?

[TechMonkey]

So if they are getting a set budget to put towards their computer (say £300) it would be easier from a management point of view to go out and buy 30 x £300 laptops. If the two options are a) give £300 for someone to buy a computer or b) spend the £300 on a computer for them then I'd pick B all day, every day.

 

But what needs managing if they are remoting in? The systems I have seen are minimal setup or auto config from the installer. Anything that needs configuring is on your servers back at the ranch. I guess they set a minimum spec and/or show some example machines that the staff could get. Just think, that arty farty teacher is desperate for a Mac, that is fine, they pay the mac premium and you don't care as long as it is compatible with the remoting software. They also have to sort out the gap in their knowledge. All those printers and horrible bits of software people want to try or have available to them that demand admin rights or a specific install path, fine, they sort it out as they are the admin. The tech people don't have to care what the setup is, they just have to keep their little walled garden happy and running and the staff come in carry out their task and leave. Sounds perfect to me!

[LosOjos]

£300 per hire should, hopefully, be considered a modest amount by most organisations, certainly for employees like teachers who you'd think should be around for at least a year.

 

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David Hicks

 

True, but there is still quite a large turn around in schools, if you have 5 new teachers every year, that's £1,500 a year that's being given away. Not an enormous sum of money, but it's not pitence either. If the school owned the laptops/computers, then new staff could be given the old staff's machines...

 

When someone joins a new company they will still have the old computer, do they get a subsidy as well from the new company?

 

Another good point, it wouldn't be fair to give some staff a £300 hand out to buy a computer but then tell others they're not getting anything because they already have a machine, would it?

 

I think there are a lot of questions and complexities in the detail of how you would get this kind of system going.

 

My own opinion is that private companies in particular are ridiculous to have so many offices all over the place. Think of the money some of these places could save if they closed down all but their head office and hosted TS for their employee's to work from home! The only time they'd be needed in the office would be for meetings. The cost of paying for employee's broadband and telephone charges (for work related calls) would be a fraction of the cost of renting office space, paying the business rates, energy bills, liability insurance etc. etc.

[Stuart_C]

Could be a laugh. A fair few teachers here think school should provide them a PC at school AND buy them one for home as "they only use it for school work".

[Hightower]

Could be a laugh. A fair few teachers here think school should provide them a PC at school AND buy them one for home as "they only use it for school work".

 

I suppose I should look at the bright side. If school want to give me £300 for a machine so I can play football manager all day then I shouldn't really complain should I?

[LosOjos]

Could be a laugh. A fair few teachers here think school should provide them a PC at school AND buy them one for home as "they only use it for school work".

 

That raises another good point, if their paying for their own machine, I suppose an AUP is out of the question? On the plus side, so is any requirement to remove the shed load of viruses they get themselves infected with (unless they're willing to pay a fee of course )

[TechMonkey]

On the issue of cost, you could just say it is a pound a day bonus for a year, so they may well write it off. Or have a year long contract minimum so they can't scuttle off. I guess in the end is it cost effective taking into account the freedom it creates for users and the time it frees techs up for.

[dhicks]

I suppose an AUP is out of the question?

 

Yes - and they're not expected to bring it in to work or anything, their computer is theirs. The school has no legal liability involved in anything to do with that PC, they just need to provide web / remote access of some sort. Everyone gets £300 every 5 years to buy computer equipment - if they already have a PC that's fine. You could make this a nationally-tracked scheme of some kind if you wanted to be sure people moving jobs only got the money every 5 years.

 

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David Hicks