I am coming from the business side rather than from the IT side, but I have been asked to solve a business problem that I think is totally common nowadays, and I hope you can help me with some system admin solutions. I need to know if my idea will work and it would be very helpful if you could point out some problems areas that I need to consider. We are a large international organization with a Microsoft infrastructure and about 200 staff who travel frequently. They typically use laptops we provide, but also they want to use their own devices (Bring Your Own Device = BYOD) such as iPads, Macintosh laptops, smartphones, Android tablets, you name it. What I would like to say to our staff is this: "Your work computer will be a laptop that you can take home with you or take abroad on your travels. When you receive this computer it will come with a set of standard software installed, including anti-virus software. Thereafter you have admin rights over this laptop, you are completely responsible for everything on this computer, including backups, just as if it were your personal property. When you leave our organization, you turn your computer in. "You store your work on your own computer, so you are responsible for backups. If you finish something that should be shared with your colleagues, you upload it to our corporate intranet online, and you let people know it’s there. "When you come to the office, you will be able to plug your laptop into a docking station with a large-screen monitor and a keyboard. You can log into our network on your office computer, but not on any personal device. "If you want to access the Internet or printers with any device other than your office laptop you can do so wirelessly." What do you experienced System Administrators think of this approach. I know our staff would love me for it because they have some big problems with the security of our network, because they can't BYOD, they can install personal software on their laptops, getting software updates is a big hassle with the IT department, etc. Thanks in advance for your help! - Thom

Hey thanks everyone for this great help!

I am managing purchasing for an organization of 200 people. We want to buy 70 new computers. Our old computers are on Windows XP with Office 2003, but staff wants Windows 7 with Office 2010. My IT guy tells me it can't be done because he does not have an image for Windows 7 and he is not sure it will be compatible with the network. So he wants to order 70 computers with Windows XP and Office 2003. This would cause huge political problems with staff. I need someone who knows what they are talking about to help me make this decision. What kind of technical problem would I face with Windows 7? What could I do to make everyone happy? Thanks for your help!