BYOD & Company Software

benspain · 2013-04-24T11:26:47.000Z

What is everyone’s policy on BYOD and company software. For example we supplied a new employee with a laptop with everything he needs to do his job. But he also has a Windows 8 Tablet that is his personal tablet. He is asking for software like Office, Adobe Acrobat Pro and antivirus. Antivirus I don’t have a problem with. The others are a little iffy.

I sent an email to the CFO (my boss) and I am awaiting response. In the meantime I just want to see how anyone else would handle this.

molan · 2013-04-24T11:28:53.000Z

No Company software on a personal device. Period. (you would lose control of that license in essense) make them use the work supplied devices to do work. they shouldn’t be using a personal device. If he truely needs a tablet, the company should supply it.

eric-holland · 2013-04-24T11:36:18.000Z

If they buy the device they buy the software, simple as that. We supply laptops/desktops with our software, if they need it on another device they are more than welcome to purchase it on their own.

davidrossi · 2013-04-24T11:41:56.000Z

NO, NO, NO…
Do not allow it in the case of Purchased Software, if you do allow it, or your CFO does allow it, be sure to purchase Retail licenses. Explain to the CFO that you are doing this since any Corporate licensing agreements are for corporate assets. I do think the one exception I would make is Anti-Virus.

molan · 2013-04-24T11:44:01.000Z

For the AV I’m not sure if you are aware but Windows 8 has AV built into it out of the box, so he has protection without your corperate AV installed.

if it is as good or not, thats a different thread

andynotts · 2013-04-24T11:48:59.000Z

Definitely no company software on non-company machines. You are essentially giving them the license permanently. How will you get the software back when they leave? Since it’s personal property they don’t have to allow you access to it.

cpunty · 2013-04-24T12:49:33.000Z

Not your device, not your problem. Putting company software on a user’s personal computer = stupid.

benspain · 2013-04-24T12:54:18.000Z

Thanks for the validation guys. That’s the way I see it too. We don’t necessarily run a tight ship around here as far as IT policies go, but I think it’s about time we really start looking into BYOD at the least. I plan on separating all BYOD devices onto a guest network and writing up a policy for them explaining that BYODs are not company property therefore we share no responsibility in maintaining them unless otherwise approved by upper management. But of course I need approval for that from upper management… We will see.

Thanks again!

benspain · 2013-04-24T12:57:16.000Z

Also for good measure I marked the first responses as Best and Helpful posts. No offense to anyone else. This is just a purely opinion driven thread.

alex3031 · 2013-04-24T14:12:54.000Z

I don’t know about the others but I believe that if you have VL with SA on the MS Office it gives users home rights to use the software, so they should be able to install it on the device. The others, I’m not so sure about. This does indeed get hairy, particularly because it is a personally owned device.

Robert762 · 2013-04-25T10:07:03.000Z

I don’t think that’s been valid for some time now. We are no longer allowed to allow install Office on home PC’s even if they “work” from home. This question would be better put to one of the MS GG’s here.