BYOC may end Hobson's choice of corporate PCs

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 12 November 2009 00:31

IT Industry - Strategy

Instead of being allocated a corporate computer that's identical to those given at the same time to just about everyone else at your workplace, how do you like the idea of receiving a sum of money that you can spend on whatever system you like? That's the model that Citrix is promoting after successfully introducing it internally.

For example, if your job involves frequent overnight trips, you might select a notebook with a full HD screen so you can keep up with recordings of your favourite TV shows while you're away. Perhaps a gamer configuration is more your cup of tea?

About the only proviso is that employees must buy a hardware support package that meets certain criteria for replacement or fix times. Apart from that, it's open slather. So if you really want a Mac, for example, that's fine even if all the corporate applications are Windows based.

This is made possible through desktop virtualisation. Citrix's Receiver application is installed on top of the computer's native operating system, allowing the use of the corporate desktop and associated applications..

Employees and IT support staff benefit from different sides of the same coin. Apart from being free to select whatever hardware suits them, employees can install and use whatever software they wish. The isolation between the receiver and the rest of the environment means there can be no compatibility issues between corporate and user-installed software, and there's no risk of malware spreading to or accessing data on the corporate side, even if it uses techniques such as keylogging.

Raj Dhingra, Citrix's corporate vice president and general manager, desktop virtualisation, explained that the BYOC (bring your own computer) programme started at Citrix in the third quarter of 2008, and is expected to cover 20% of Citrix employees by the end of this year.

A number of the company's customers have expressed interest in similar programmes, he said.

Receiver is already available for Windows and iPhone, with Mac, BlackBerry and Android versions expected in mid December.

Stephen Withers travelled to Budapest as the guest of Citrix.