Are your staffers itching to use their iPhones and iPads in the workplace? Before you flat-out say “no,” consider that personal devices will not be disappearing from the workplace anytime soon. (Recently, a Gartner VP promised that the iPad would be a “market-disrupting device” and warned that the cost of inaction to IT departments would be high.)

Is the iPad a revolution in productivity or just a thorn in IT's side?

In a recent blog post for Forbes.com, CITO Research’s Dan Woods explains how to say “’yes’ without creating a mess.” Woods taps PC Helps’ very own CEO, Brian Madocks, for advice.

In his post, Woods takes a look at what the consumerization of IT means in practice, and offers up a “playbook” for IT:

1. Don’t just say no to “bring your own technology” or employee-preferred devices:
   Writes Woods: “Show some leadership and help figure out how to get it right so that the company is protected and the users are happy.”
2. Listen to the end users:
   Ask your employees how they want to use the devices and formulate a set of guidelines that meet both IT’s and the workers’ needs.
3. Research and test your approach:
   Don’t just roll out BYOT to the entire company; start small, with a pilot that includes a mix of user types. Use the knowledge gained for a broader roll out.
4. Document and communicate a clear set of policies and guidelines for end users:
   We all need rules. Come up with a set both IT and end-users can live with and abide by.
5. Plan for a more complex support burden:
   Questions such as synching corporate mail and calendars will come up, and often. Be sure you have a support plan and trained staff ready to handle every type of query.
6. Don’t rely on device manufacturers for support of your end users:
   AppleCare will not help you synch your mail, and they really don’t care if you are on a deadline.
7. Prepare your help desk for the task:
   According to Woods: “Mixed device environments require specialization and expertise, as well as ongoing training and skill-building. Your existing help desk staff may need to be retrained, expanded, or supplemented.”

Read the full article here.

Jenny Sweeney iPad, Mobile Devices, tablets, What We're Reading Brian Madocks, BYOT, Consumerization of IT, Forbes.com, Gartner, PC Helps

This week’s crop of articles restates the obvious: That smart phones and tablets are nudging out the PC in the enterprise. This is good news for the world’s workers (Increased productivity! Style! Portability! All access, all the time!), but it poses a challenge for IT departments. With new devices come increased support needs. (But that’s a topic for another post.)

Gartner predicts that by 2013, more people in the world will access the Internet on a mobile device than on a PC.

“Smartphones have conquered PCs” — CNN

According to research firm IDC, over the past two years, smartphone shipments have tripled, while PC shipments grew by only 45 percent. The trend, reports CNN, is indicative of a marked change in the kinds of devices people are using for everyday computing needs. The article also points to research from Gartner that predicts that by 2013, more people in the world will access the Internet on a mobile device than on a PC. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Mobile Devices, tablets CIO.com, CNN, Forbes, Gartner, Help Desk, IDC, PCs, smartphones

Remember when the recession began, when business suddenly fixated on “doing more with less” and placed maximized productivity up there next to godliness?

This is where it got us: 3G service on Mt. Everest.

“Mobility is one line item in the IT budget that’s held steady or grown over the last three years…”

In today’s PC World magazine, Brennon Slattery reports that Nepalese telecom firm Ncell has installed 3G service at 17,000 feet on Mt. Everest. Cynics complain that the iconic peak will now be ruined (a quote from Slattery’s article, “Great — people yakking on their cell phone on the roof of the world”). But optimists point to its benefits to climbers (they can keep in touch with tour guides, call for help, and access weather reports and safety information).

Whether 3G service is necessary on Everest is open for debate, but mobility in the workplace is not. Here’s what the industry pubs are saying: Read more…

Jenny Sweeney iPad, Mobile Devices, What We're Reading, Worker Productivity 3G, Apple, Gartner, iPad, Mt. Everest, Nepal, Orlando, Salesforce.com

If there’s one thing to be said about Microsoft Office 2010, it’s that it’s poised to be a success. The year 2010 isn’t even over and corporations already are upgrading to the new version. (History has shown that a new version usually takes a few years to catch on, especially in business.)

In reality, business cannot be put on hold while users adjust to a new software version.

At PC Helps, the Office 2010 calls have quickly increased from a trickle to a stream. Most are coming from customers whose IT departments skipped an Office 2007 migration and were holding out for 2010. As with 2003-to-2007 migrations, 2003-to-2010 promises to throw a few challenges the way of end users and IT departments. Adjusting to the new ribbon interface is often the first obstacle. Once users adjust, plenty more follow.

Below we present the top five end user challenges so your IT department knows what to expect during the migration crunch. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney migration, Mobile Devices, Office 2010 Access, computerworld, Excel, Gartner, IT department, NetworkWorld, Outlook, pitfalls, PowerPoint, the Ribbon, user interface, Word

If you read only one article this week (not counting this blog post), make sure it’s this one by CIO.com’s Thomas Wailgum – “Enterprise IT’s Top Enemy: Its Own Arrogance.”

An IT department that points and laughs is hardly encouraging learning and business alignment.

The piece highlights the fact that the help desk, despite the growing importance of IT/business alignment in the enterprise, remains in the “condescending gatekeeper role.”

As evidence, Wailgum includes a video that features Andy Bitterer, co-chair of Gartner Group’s BI Summit, doing Jay Leno-style “man-on-the-street” interviews in London. Among Bitterer’s questions to the masses: “Do you use a database?” “Do you know what Business Intelligence tools are?” “Do you know what OLAP is?”

Honestly, does this Gartner bloke really expect everyday people to know what these things are? As Wailgum asserts, Gartner conference attendees may find it amusing (ha, look at the stupid users!), but it really demonstrates how out of touch IT is with its customers. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney FAIL, Help Desk Andy Bitterer, BI, business intelligence, CIO.com, Gartner, Jay Leno, London, OLAP, Thomas Wailgum

Gartner, Forrester and other industry heavies say the most important thing to CIOs right now is efficiency. Doing more with less, doing more with the same — just doing more. They’re not thinking too deeply about the cloud or any non-critical projects. Just efficiency, plain and simple.

When scaled across an entire company, misprinted print jobs cost a corporation dearly.

Sure, big picture savings are great. But the best way to approach recession survival is by starting small. Although an extra printout or two may seem minuscule, when scaled across an entire company, misprinted print jobs cost a corporation dearly.

In the spirit of frugality, here are two PC Helps tips published by IT World that promise printing efficiency.

1. How to Master Excel Spreadsheet Printing
2. How to Create a New Print Style in Outlook

Enjoy, and print responsibly. Got any efficiency tips? Send them our way.

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Jenny Sweeney How To, Worker Productivity CIO, doing more with less, efficiency, Forrester, Gartner, IT World

1. What Yo-Yo Dieting and the Recession Have in Common

The papers are saying that productivity is on the rise, that the fat officially has been cut from corporate America. Good news, right?

Depends on what you do next, says Gartner Blog Network’s Mark McDonald in a recent post. Productivity gains are “… a mathematical phantom, particularly if people remain on their current course and speed,” he writes.

“It is the equivalent of losing water weight at the start of a diet.”

That current course he’s talking about is the way many companies made it through the recession – by removing the costs (employees) without changing the underlying process or operation.

Says McDonald: “It is the equivalent of losing water weight at the start of a diet.” And, as any yo-yo dieter knows, you will gain that weight back quickly if you don’t change the habits that got you fat in the first place.

Read his post here.

2. What Recession?

Then there’s that whole other realm, the business of haute couture, which seems to be a barometer of nothing really, Read more…

Jenny Sweeney This Week in Tech News, Worker Productivity Christian Dior, Gartner, Mark McDonald, Paris, productivity, recession, Tag Heuer, Versace

What a difference a little style makes. If you compare the hype surrounding the release of Microsoft’s Windows 7 with that of Apple’s most recent gadget line, you’d think someone had died.

Gartner group is calling the new operating system “all but inevitable.” Sounds kind of like the flu.

Here is a sampling of the words that have been used to describe Windows 7: “much better”; “less prone to unexpected delays”; its impact on PC sales “won’t be huge”; and there are “good things to be had” with the new OS.

Sheesh.

In an opinion piece in Tuesday’s New York Times, Robert Cyran and Una Galani write that “if the key to happiness is low expectations, then Microsoft’s customers and investors have it in spades.” Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Office 2007, Windows 7 Apple, Gartner, key to happiness, New York Times, XP, ZDNet

The economy may be showing some signs of rebound, but that doesn’t mean CIOs are back to their old spending habits. In fact, according to a report released this month by Gartner, four in 10 CIOs significantly cut budgets in the first six months of 2009.

What, or whom, to cut is never easy, especially when the software for the upcoming migration has already been purchased. It’s easier to drop services than it is to lay off employees; services don’t have a face or a family. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Office 2007, Outsourcing, ROI 24-7 support, best-of-breed, CIO, Gartner, Microsoft certifed