IT's Love-Hate Relationship With Laptops

Ian Lamont writes "Are laptops really as great as they're cracked up to be? We love their portability, and we've been charting the steady rise of laptop sales for years. Yet while many of us depend on them for work, our IT departments view them with mixed feelings. IT managers point to wi-fi configuration, complicated authentication procedures, and eight other issues as making their jobs a lot harder. What else is missing from the list of laptop limitations? What would you like to see in the next generation of laptop computers?"

Laptops

[proudfoot]

Part of the issue is that people demand laptops when they don't need them. They do have the attractiveness of not having cords or other extraneous things that confuse users, but at the same time, being mobile is oftentimes not the best practice. Security is a major issue - can you trust that your data won't be compromised if lost or stolen? Do you have a reasonable backup? (Most people don't) For most employees, a desktop is often enough. And if laptops are handed out, then users need to be very, very careful. (Encrypt data, daily backups...) I'm thinking a better solution would have a laptop that works as a dumb terminal.

Sys Admins complain! News at 11!

[sTalking_Goat]

So what? Network administration has only gotten more complicated since the beginning of the profession. Is this really news?

Poor IT Manager Then

[explosivejared]

Seriously, IT is tough sometimes get over it. Laptops are good for all the reasons listed above. An IT manager should, as per the technology part of his title make it easier to do work. The position this article takes is akin to "well jet flight is nice and all because of the speed, but all these little constraints and extra controls make it complicated and hard, waahhh!" An IT manager is a facilitator and nothing else. I suppose the author of the article would have it that an IT manager is nothing more than a guy who installs OS's and such. There is a lot more to it. That's just the job.

This is a terrible story!! Period!

As an IT Manager, only one signifcant problem...

[Kris_J]

As an IT Manager, there's only one bad thing that's particular to laptops that significant enough to be comment-worthy. They're a vector for virus infection. Everything else an IT department can just get on with, but the high virus risk associated with devices that regularly travel in and out of the firewalled company network merits pointing out.

One day, some place I work, I want to set up a DMZ for laptops.

Re:input device?

[MikeFM]

What's worse is accidental use of the stupid touch pad. You're typing along and zoom your cursor goes flying somewhere crazy and you've just deleted something important or done something equally as horrible. Touch pads are horrible devices.

Re:Laptops

[thatskinnyguy]

They do have the attractiveness of not having cords or other extraneous things that confuse users

...and 80% of the people who have laptops where I work demand a mouse within the first few days of having the laptop because they refuse to get used to the touchpad.

Boo Hoo

[cromar]

IT managers point to wi-fi configuration, complicated authentication procedures, and eight other issues as making their jobs a lot harder.

Cry me a river.

Re:their list

[kahanamoku]

Lets add:

Removing of RS232 from newer laptops. Remembering that laptops aren't just for the IT Department & Cubicle end users, but also for the engineers that program PLC's etc. Devices that don't get updated as quickly as the latest motherboard specification and that are quickly forgotten about when it comes to replacement/upgraded programming devices.

No chance you're going to get a technical engineer walking around a power plant with a trolley that carries a desktop PC simply because it has a "real" serial port.

And no, USB-To-RS232 adapters are just another bloody add-on that you have to carry with you and lose or break!

My problems with laptops

[FranTaylor]

My problems with laptops:

1. They are too fragile.
2. The internal guts are too hard to work with. Anything more than a RAM upgrade is a nightmare of tiny screws and shielding tape.
3. Operating systems are targeted for desktops and servers, they don't make it easy to set up a laptop the way you want, with encrypted partitions, network configuration, etc. Sure these features are there for the tinkering, but I don't want to mess around, I just want to get to work.
4. Laptop hard drives are so slow! You would think there could be a slightly larger drive form factor that would allow for a drive whose speed approaches that of a standard hard drive.
5. The batteries are all different. Hard drives, RAM, etc. are interchangeable to some extent, why not batteries?
6. Those tiny little laptop cooling fans drive me batty. I really hate the high-pitched whine.
7. While I appreciate the small size, I would gladly trade a pound or so and a quarter inch of thickness for less whiney fans and a faster hard drive. If it's too big to fit in my pocket, it should be a real computer.
8. Not much to be done about it, but it's not possible to use one in comfort; the ergonomics inherently suck.

Re:Shorter Lifespan

[another_twilight]

What makes/models?

I have had Thinkpads (mostly T series) last 5+ years, including drops and spills. Part of that is excellent design, part of it is the ease with which every part could be ordered and replaced. I am not so familiar with the post-Lenovo quality 'though.

Some early, high end Dell laptops were still useful at similar timeframes (I am thinkning mostly of the C840), but the later Inspirons, less so.

You will pay for them, but in each generation there are machines that will last 4-5 years of even moderately hard use. Consider the design - avoid 'consumer' grade equpiment that is competing on price, not durability. Look at the warranty and support offered by the company - can you order parts and repair in-house, are there local repair centers or does everything have to go off-shore? Oh, and avoid Acer. Period.

Re:their list and what's missing ...

[zzedd]

... they are an ergonomic disaster-in-waiting. with a screen right next to a keyboard, this arrangement encourages a hunching posture that with long-term use can cause nerve and muscle damage in the upper-arms and neck.

Not much here worth reading

[davmoo]

Any IT manager or sysadmin that is having the problems this article lists with either wifi or drivers is not very good at their job.

And anyone who *loses* a laptop is too fucking stupid to have a job.

Re:their list

[Solder Fumes]

Choose your rants better. USB-RS232 is the accepted solution in the field, and is not that much of a hardship. With a hardware RS232 port, you still need to carry a serial cable, right? The USB converter cables are no easier to lose or damage than the plain RS232 cables, and aren't any bulkier. The end result with both options is that you carry a 6 foot cable, you plug one end into a device, you plug the other end into the laptop. I've been in the field with hundreds of automation engineers, and not one of them ever had a serious complaint about not having a serial port on their laptop. It's a simple problem with an obvious solution, and everyone but you has dealt with it and moved on.

From the My Computer Is My Monitor Dept.

[Strange Ranger]

> What would you like to see in the next generation of laptop computers?"

One thing I'd love to see is a little modularity and separation between the computer and the screen.
I want a strong hinge that can be disconnected with a simple everyday tool.
And at least within the same manufacturer, make it standard, the only variables being the size and resolution of the screen.
What a great idea to be able to replace only the half of the laptop that is broken or upgrade only the half that needs to be upgraded.
Reduce waste, reduce downtime, save money.

Is there something intrinsically magical about the screen hinge and graphics connection of a laptop that keeps them forever joined lest ye ship them back to the vendor?

Re:As an IT Manager, only one signifcant problem..

[huckamania]

Because they are salesmen. They go out and hunt rabbits, bears and elephants. They bring in the sales that make the company grow. They need powerpoint and other salesmany cruft to make their sales. IT exists because of them, not the oher way around.

Linux as a complete desktop OS is still relatively new and even now not entirely complete. Advocacy aside, why would anyone willingly choose a solution that means deprivation? Why would anyone suggest it?

I'm not IT, but I have worked on the traveling salesman problem and it's not easy. Cisco, Symantec and Microsoft were all working on solutions at some point. Cisco and Symantec were going with some kind of security authentication server and Microsoft was trying to tie it into DNS. That was about 4 years ago, so they may actually have something usefull by now.

my list

[Burz]

1. Whole-disk encryption still not standard
2. Better efficiency hasn't been used to improve battery life
3. No standard enclosures or motherboard form factors
4. Attract clueless software salesmen, who will demonstrate demanding workstation apps on their 'spiffy little wonder'.
5. Have caught the bigger-is-better disease in the USA... The laptop as an SUV-like status symbol.
6. Most warranties are absurdly short for such a device

Overall though, laptops are the bees knees. Blogging would be an insignificant phenomenon without them, and they have taught the industry a lot about elegance and efficiency.

Re:Laptops

[YU5333021]

BOOOORING!!!

Users are confused (and dumb), so give'm dumb terminals, if that. Speaking as an employee of an 8 person (non IT) consulting company, it is a great freedom to be able to do remote work from anywhere. PC anywhere can be a bit of a pain, but complete off-line work has been bulletproof so far.

Perhaps this whole topic is only meant to deal with large corporations. If that's the case I only have one observation: in companies I worked for that required dedicated IT support staff, employees acted like completely computer illiterate babies. In companies small enough that couldn't afford support, everyone was encouraged to input suggestions to any given technological problem. Perhaps you should consider your professional existence as an excuse to end user idiocy. The way you speak of your clients is indicative. I can't blame you.

To make this post somewhat less useless, please consider the following: some of your 'clients' are extremely intelligent people. They may not know basic html commands, but that is inconsequential. If you explain to them the benefits, issues, and dangers of their newly issued toy, the whole matter may become a non issue.

Just like this story is.

Mods on crack again!

[rts008]

Why were you modded offtopic?

From the summary:
"What would you like to see in the next generation of laptop computers?"

Ask and ye shall receive!

Personally, my tastes (and needs for a laptop) are really different from yours, as I still am in love with my Sharp MMC20- think the size of a Playboy magazine, and quite light to boot.

But if I had the budget, Oh Yeah! Gaming laptop here I come!
So I see where you are coming from, and think your post was ONTOPIC, my own needs drive me the opposite direction....but so what?

Your needs/wants in a laptop are are valid as anyone else's, and you answered the submitter's question. WTF?

Moderators take note: At least RTFS or RTFA before blasting out offtopic mods!

Re:Laptops

[Stalus]

Your desktop can also be stolen, and the disk can crash. Ignoring those issues just makes you more vulnerable. I remember a class at UT-Austin where the prof went to put up his slides and realized the desktop under the podium was missing. Yes, that's right, someone lifted a desktop machine out of a lecture hall in the middle of the day on a crowded campus. And those things are normally locked down and alarmed. Quite surprising. Also, desktop HD's crash just as much as laptops.

I'd say that your argument enforces that laptops are better for most users because it causes some people to actually think about the relevant security and backup issues.

Re:My problems with laptops

[ceoyoyo]

You're just not using it right. The appropriate way to use a laptop is in a hammock, with it on your thigh just above the knee so you're typing with your arms stretched almost straight. If it's hot and you're wearing shorts you'll probably want to put a towel under it for thermal isolation.

NOTHING is more ergonomic than that. Yes, that's how I wrote the first half of my thesis. Unfortunately the couch has to substitute for writing the second part. The ergonomics are essentially the same but the ambience just isn't there.

Missing the point

[L.Bob.Rife]

IT is part of a business. Making IT's job harder in that business costs money. The article is making the point that there are some pretty serious cons about using laptops, and these need to be considered as part of their cost.

How about actual standards?

[ShadowFalls]

I know it is wishful thinking and all, but how about having laptop designs from all manufacturers follow a certain number of standard design. This case when a motherboard fails it isn't a ridiculously expensive replacement you must get.

Re:As an IT Manager, only one signifcant problem..

[pleappleappleap]

If someone has physical control of a machine, there really isn't anything you can do to stop them from doing whatever they want, anyway.

Using the laptop offline

[GeezTheGeeza]

One thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned here is proper use of offline modes, rather than being a hardware thing this is possibly more of an O/S or application thing, but is a crucial area which is often overlooked. If you have a user with Windows who works mostly away, then domain credentials must have an absurdly high cache number or else they will no longer be able to login after working a month offline. Using local user/password instead means they have to keep typing in passwords when they eventually do access the network resources unless set in a batch file. Yes easy to do but not for a lot of differing users/connections/laptops. Roaming profiles equally are great but troublesome - not immediately but think of the user who installs iTunes and then fills their 80gb ipod! Yes there are controls to stop certain folders syncing but there is no granularity. Synchronisation of data files can be done in a variety of ways, but short of using a cumbersome safe that everyone has to check files in and out of, then there is always going to be problems with synchronisation: someone takes a file offline, makes a change then comes back and syncs a week later. The day before they sync someone else modifies the file - who wins? Synchronisation of any database app also has similar problems, whether its keeping a CRM up to date or financial data, strict controls have to be enforced to make sure that when it does sync it syncs properly. The trouble is endusers always will request full access and it just 'to work'. One day the entire world (read: including the green fields, yellow deserts and blue oceans) will be networked, and then we can issue thumbdrives that boot *nix and establish RDP back to the head office...

Re:Missing the point

[m0nstr42]

IT is part of a business. Making IT's job harder in that business costs money. The article is making the point that there are some pretty serious cons about using laptops, and these need to be considered as part of their cost.

Having pissed-off employees who feel chained to their workstation (and consequently horribly unmotivated) can also be a pretty big cost.

Re:Missing the point

[Gulthek]

That seems an excessive reaction to a lack of laptops.

Wah no laptop => horribly unmotivated? Something tells me that these "laptop motivated" people aren't worth the money.

Re:Missing the point

[traabil]

IT is part of a business. Making IT's job harder in that business costs money. The article is making the point that there are some pretty serious cons about using laptops, and these need to be considered as part of their cost.

I think you're completely off the mark. Although IT is part of the business, like it or not, it's part of the business the same way the mailman, the guy in the cafeteria and the janitor are a part of the business. At the end of the day they're all cost elements (for most companies, anyway) and their only task is supporting the needs of the part of the business that actually brings in the money. Missing the users' business need for IT support is way more costly than having to take appropriate measures to provide a safe and functional laptop park.

The inseperable hinge

[The Conductor]

Is there something intrinsically magical about the screen hinge and graphics connection of a laptop that keeps them forever joined

Yes, and it will only get worse in the upcoming years. One of the many constraints in laptop design is routing the cables through the hinge. You have a back light and its control, and all the crazy data & clock lines (not analog video) for the LCD display. Now with WLAN you have co-axial cable, since since real-world experience has shown that locating the antenna up high is worth the cable losses. The trend is to put more stuff up there, like webcams, where the machine can see, and the microphone, further from those fans whose noise everyone is complaining about in posts here. And more antennas, for WWAN, TV, DVB, UWB, blah, blah, blah.

Re:Missing the point

[PMuse]

IT is overhead. IT exists only to support revenue. If a laptop will increase revenue by more than the differential cost between that and a desktop, then deploy the laptop.

Don't expect IT to see any share of that increased revenue. Things don't work that way.

Re:As an IT Manager, only one signifcant problem..

[Thumper_SVX]

Ergo, if you have to manage laptops, do not allow the user to install software and they can't install VMWare.

This isn't rocket science, really. You just have to prioritize what you want to do, and provide the tools your users need without giving them the keys to the kingdom.

I personally do not manage PC's any more... I moved on to the server side of the house but let me relate to you how things work where I work.

I have a laptop, and I use it since I'm on-call one week in 6. I do not have admin rights to my laptop... in fact I'm as locked down a user as everyone else is. However, despite my initial bad feeling about this, I have had few if any problems. Quite simply, our desktop support team uses SMS to distribute updates and software to the end user in a packaged form. That way, we can control who has what software simply because some of them require passwords to install which are requested on an ad-hoc basis. Every piece of software I need to do my job including software like Putty is out there under "Run Advertised Programs". I just click the software I need, click install and within a minute or two my software's installed even if I'm on a VPN.

What about tools like VMWare Server? Well, we have that in RAP as well... but that's strictly limited to people who sign an agreement with the desktop group about responsible behavior, and we don't build arbitrary XP boxes. VM's built on our systems are audited by a script pushed by group policy, so the desktop group can spot an arbitrary XP desktop a mile off. Yes, they have alerts... yes, those logs are put in a database... yes, in the event that I put arbitrary OSs on my system I could be disciplined by HR by the terms of the agreement I signed with my desktop folks.

So what about admin tools I need? OK... ever used Citrix? We have a section of our farm dedicated to our UNIX, SQL and Windows admins that provides all those tools for us to use in an admin job; Windows admin tools and so forth. This also has the advantage that our performance of admin tasks even on a slow VPN can be similar to working at the office.

Sure, I'm not totally locked down... and I have a different account in the Active Directory that I use to authenticate to servers; a so-called Admin account. If I want to connect to a share with admin privileges all I need is a command prompt and a "net use \\server /user:adminaccount" and I can connect to the shares with my admin privileges. My desktop group grants me that because of my job... all it took was for me to sign that "privileged operations" agreement that also allowed me VMware Server on my laptop.

Sound like a bit of a pain, but trust me... I don't want to be troubleshooting desktop problems all the time. I want to focus on my job; keeping the lights on in the datacenter. If my laptop shoots crap, I want to be able to pick up the phone and have someone else responsible for my not being able to do my job... or provide me an alternate way to get my job done. If I had admin rights to my laptop, I'd probably fix it myself... and the one time I've had problems with my laptop I actually had a good idea of the problem. But you know what? Because of that I was able to pick up the phone, call our desktop folks, explain precisely what the problem was and they were able to fix it within minutes because no troubleshooting was required... and they trust me since I'm also a professional Windows guy.

See, in my opinion the people who cry about not having admin rights to their machines are the same people who sit in the basement and refuse to talk to anyone else. Me, I'd rather have my rights taken away to my laptop so I can just focus on MY job... not someone else's. It makes me more productive, and allows me to defer responsibility when stuff goes wrong with my laptop. Hell, even when I ordered upgraded RAM I let the desktop folks do it... I put components in servers every other day, but I figured that I have better things to do with my time than figure out where all the screws are to get to

Re:Clunky but cramped.

[jcnnghm]

I have a 37" display connected to my Macbook pro, and two 20" 4:3 monitors, as well as a 23" 16:9 monitor connected to my windows desktop. As long as Ultramon is installed, the windows machine is much better for development work than the Macbook. Separate workspaces provides more utility than one huge workspace. With the 37" I find I am constantly moving and resizing windows because stuff ends up overlapping and getting in the way. With three monitors, I can have three separate apps maximized to a screen. I usually have the project specs on the left screen, the documentation to the right, and the project itself upfront. Additionally, I have a e-mail to the left and Firefox to the right, and can shuffle maximized apps between screens in two clicks.

Re:IT is part of the problem too

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I hear you. Cuz IT folks never spend much time fixing machines people break because they don't know how to use them properly. Nor then get to hear the very same users whine endlessly why they are having problems on their system, even though it was due something they either installed or changed. Oh, and they never lie right to your face about making changes or installing things when you are attempting to troubleshoot their problems, and ask them if they've done either.

I used to leave my companies machines pretty wide open. I figured it would cut down on people's usablity of the machine, as well as their ability to learn how to use the machine. Years of whining, bitching, endingless troubleshooting and rebuilds. Now things are locked down pretty hard. And a funny thing happened- my support calles dropped about about %90. Shocking.

AND!! Most of my users are much happier now that their machines aren't getting "messed up" all the time, and just work.

Locking things down might bite a user like you occassionally, but it actually helps the large majority of them by preventing them from breaking their tool, and allowing them to get on with their work.

Re:Video In

[BrianGKUAC]

*tries to ssh into machine stuck in kernel panic*

*gets no response*

*goes and finds a monitor to lug into the server room, cursing the whole way*

There's a difference between system administration and needing to see what's on the screen.

Re:Clunky but cramped.

[jcnnghm]

I couldn't agree more. Neither Windows or OS X seem to really handle very large or multiple monitors well. Windows issues can be remedied, for the most part, with Ultramon, but it would seem that this functionality should be built into the OS.

Re:Poor IT Manager Then

[The Angry Mick]

Their very jobs were created by users bringing in unauthorized equipment in an attempt to circumvent company and administrator policies on the mainframe that kept them from doing their job easier and better.

Funny. This is exactly what our law department says about their own jobs.

Seriously folks, this "us vs. them" attitude has got to stop. Like it or not, IT is an integrated part of any business. Sure, they can be controlling at times, but no one can deny that some controls are necessary. It's far easier to try to understand what each side is doing than to continually butt heads against each other's attitudes. Hurts less, too.