Providing computers for your staff can be expensive, especially for startups where you need to save every penny you can, but with everyone now already owning a reasonable laptop and smartphone – is it even necessary any more?
More and more firms are starting to implement ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) policies, which give employees the freedom to work on the devices they are most comfortable, while also making sure that the company information is secure and virus-free.
When using their own devices, employees access office servers through a ‘virtual desktop infrastructure’ (VDI), which means that even if the employee’s computer is infected with malware, it is not transferred to the server.
As with any device capable of logging into the office servers, sensible IT security policies are needed with a BYOD policy, but as long as everyone follows the guideliness then there is no reason that company data can not be just as secure as if everyone came into the office and used the company desktops of yesteryear.