To Each His Own ... Laptop
It was only in the last couple of years that the number of laptops
shipped annually exceeded the number of desktops. I can still remember
the thrilling moment when my boss agreed that it would be a "good
thing" if we began moving most of our professional staff from desktops
to laptops.
Our office, like many, still has to deal with
occasional issues about when it is or is not appropriate to have a
laptop open during meetings, but mostly we do have them open. Maybe
this epitomizes my geek status, but I get a thrill out of seeing my
colleagues sitting around a table during a staff meeting, discussing
something projected up on a screen from one person's laptop, and each
with their own open laptop in front of them.
It's as though we
have all of those creative minds present, working with each other, and
in front of us "windows" to just about anything we need to know to
continue discussions without ever a hitch for missing data or
background information on something.
The question of laptops versus desktops has been making the rounds on the university IT lists as well.
On the
Educause CIO list
recently, there was a discussion thread about whether or not colleges
and universities offer laptops or desktops for faculty, whether they
include docking stations, and whether the connectivity used for those
laptops is more wired or wireless. As typical of such discussions on
that list, several knowledgeable people provided some good information.
Let's take a look at that discussion:
On one campus, faculty
members are offered a choice. If they choose a laptop, then it's their
departmental budget that purchases a docking station. That institution
is considering offering the docking stations from the central IT budget
in order to induce more members of the faculty to select laptops.
Another
campus IT staffer offered up that they were addressing some of the same
issues, and the security concerns regarding possible sensitive data on
portable machines was an additional issue they were struggling with.
Yet
another campus uses the same model with regard to the docking station
being out of the departmental budget and notes that they have a
three-year refresh cycle for new machines. At this institution, faculty
may choose Mac or PC.