A few years back, when Leslie Fiering began talking to IT executives about the potential benefits of employee-owned notebooks in the enterprise, the idea caused "fear, loathing and extreme distress in the hearts of CIOs," she recalls.

But over the past two years, Fiering, a research vice president for Gartner, has seen the idea pick up steam as an increased number of IT organizations test out employee-provisioned and owned hardware programs, "sometimes by choice, but often by necessity."

"Employee-owned notebook programs are gaining popularity and are already run by more than 10 percent of organizations," says Brian Gammage, Gartner vice president and fellow.

It's the next logical step in the consumerization of IT, say analysts. When people see the new notebook they really want become affordable-and the company has put off that system refresh yet another year-they're going to get it and find a way to bring it into work. "We get calls from CIOs all the time saying, 'Help, one of my executives got a MacBook Air. What am I going to do?'"

A program for employee provisioning is one way to gain some control over these issues. It can lead to greater user satisfaction and reduce total ownership costs anywhere from 9 percent to 44 percent, says Gartner. But figuring out the right parameters for a successful employee-owned laptop program can be tricky.

Testing the Waters

At Sunoco, IT leaders were eager "to evaluate the risks and benefits of consumerization in the laptop computer arena," says Mark Quarles, manager of infrastructure services for the $36 billion energy company: "Specifically, what are the total cost of ownership and manageability impacts of this potential paradigm shift?" Although the company didn't expect material savings on the hardware, the hope was that ongoing support costs could be reduced.

The infrastructure services group had always provisioned and supported all hardware for the company's 14,000 employees. So its IT leaders had real concerns about its impacts or risks on the reliability and security in moving to an employee-owned model. But in May, Sunoco took some baby steps toward examining the pros and cons of putting that purchasing power in the hands of its users.

Sunoco's proof of concept for an employee-provisioning program involved six workers over three months. The infrastructure group told them they could purchase any laptop they liked with a company stipend of $1,400.