The non-personal computer

One of the concepts I stressed during my speeches at the recent ITEC conferences surprised many people: stop calling computers "personal" computers. Changing that attitude will lower your hassle factor, improve your security and save time and money. I consider any one of those three reasons enough of an advantage to rethink how you approach computers in your business.

Some users, horrified, pointed out the very name, "personal computer", meant the machine fell under their control. Their desk, their desktop. Gently, I explained their desk at work was not their personal desk, their chair was not their personal chair, and the "personal" part of computer came from early vendor marketing departments separating the new PC from older minicomputers.

Employees driving company vehicles don't demand the company personalize their ride with 20 inch gold wheels with spinners, 15 inch subwoofers and satellite radio. Yet they demand this level of customization and more on their computers. You don't customize vehicles, and you shouldn't customize computers.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

One of the concepts I stressed during my speeches at the recent ITEC conferences surprised many people: stop calling computers "personal" computers. Changing that attitude will lower your hassle factor, improve your security and save time and money. I consider any one of those three reasons enough of an advantage to rethink how you approach computers in your business.

Some users, horrified, pointed out the very name, "personal computer", meant the machine fell under their control. Their desk, their desktop. Gently, I explained their desk at work was not their personal desk, their chair was not their personal chair, and the "personal" part of computer came from early vendor marketing departments separating the new PC from older minicomputers.

Employees driving company vehicles don't demand the company personalize their ride with 20 inch gold wheels with spinners, 15 inch subwoofers and satellite radio. Yet they demand this level of customization and more on their computers. You don't customize vehicles, and you shouldn't customize computers.

Let's take a look at the three reasons listed above for changing "personal computer" to "company owned computing device."

First, the hassle factor of managing computers configured differently and running different software grows with each new variable. If one user likes Outlook Express as their e-mail client, and the next user likes Outlook, and the next user prefers Thunderbird, how can you quickly troubleshoot client e-mail problems? Any e-mail issues multiply by three, and that's just one application.

Security improves when users don't download their own programs. Screensavers, music players, and entertaining desktop pictures help personalize the computer but also deliver spyware and viruses and cut holes in security. Most spyware still comes hidden in requested downloads, usually after a user ignores the warnings and End User License Agreement to get a butterfly or bass boat screensaver. Users will hesitate to load bizarre software if they know someone will notice, make a fuss, and delete the software while berating them.

To slow popups, I run Firefox from Mozilla.org. The free browser includes other security advantages, such as strong resistance to viruses. Run Firefox as your main browser and keep Internet Explorer only for those few Web sites so poorly written they must run on IE.

If you don't use USB drives in your business, you may want to disable USB ports on all your computers (go to your BIOS setup screen). That will stop employees from copying files to thumb drives to take out of the building, and stop them from bringing files -- and maybe viruses and spyware -- from home via thumb drives.

Third, consistency reduces chaos. If you use the same antivirus and antispyware software on all your computers, you can buy in bulk and save. You may even be able to download file updates to a server and let each computer update from there rather than all downloading the same files, over and over, across the Internet. Having the same applications across computers doing similar jobs makes for easier user training and computer upgrading.