Companies shifting computing costs to staff

Mean corporate types are planning to shift their computer hardware bill to their staff, according to analyst outfit Gartner.

In a new report, Big G have been talking up the future of Bring-your-own-device, claiming that the trend is the single most radical change to the economics and culture of client computing in a decade.

Gartner predicts that by 2017, half of all employers will require workers to supply their own devices for work purposes. What is particularly unpleasant is the enterprises will more often than not refuse to give money to help employees buy their gear.

More than 38 percent of companies expect to stop providing devices to workers by 2016 and let them use their own, according to a global survey of CIOs.

Basically it means that employees will shift the cost of buying personal computers onto their staff.

Of course, the trend will happen in the US first where employers are allowed to treat their employees like slaves or they are not being patriotic.

Big G said that companies in the United States are twice as likely to allow BYOD as those in Europe.

Companies in countries such as India, China and Brazil are already forcing their staff to buy their own standard mobile phones at work.

By 2015, the number of employees using mobile applications in the workplace will double. Today, roughly half of BYOD programs provide partial reimbursement.

Mass-market adoption of BYOD and the steady decline in carrier fees, employers will gradually reduce subsidies until they are no longer there.

Gartner’s David Willis said that the enterprise should subsidise only the service plan on a smartphone. It is better for them to keep it simple because if they buy a device for an employee and they leave it is impossible for them to settle up.

Employees are generally thought of as being happy with the plan so employers do not have to see it as a cost cutting idea.