Following a recent Windows update that “went bad”, I needed to have my work PC rebuilt.  That left me with a period when I had work to do, but only a smartphone to work on or my personal devices. To me, this was also a perfect opportunity to put cloud services to work.

So, armed only with a web browser on another PC, I was perfectly able to access email and send/receive IMs (it’s all in Office 365), pester people on Yammer, catch up on some technical videos, etc. There was absolutely nothing (technically) preventing me from doing my job on another device. That’s how End User Computing should work – providing a flexible computing workstyle that’s accessible regardless of the device and the location.

The real issues are not around technology, but process: questions were asked about why I wasn’t following policy and using my company-supplied device; and I was able to answer with clear reasons and details of what I was doing to ensure no customer information was being processed on a non-corporate device. There are technical approaches to ensuring that only approved devices can be used too – but what’s really needed is a change of mindset…