Snippet: Keeping IT Shops Windows-Only ☇

I find it funny—in the early days, it used to be that people would buy PCs (mostly running MS-DOS) for home use so that they’d have the same thing as what they have at work. Now, there’s a bigger shift for people wanting Macs at work, so they have something more like what they have at home (or in their pocket). ZDNet’s David Morgenstern thinks Microsoft’s Surface may be more about IT departments giving people a tablet or thin notebook that isn’t an iPad or MacBook Air:

There is a correlation between innovative, productive company performance and personal freedom for personal computing choices. Savvy I&O pros should work to find ways to enable Macs for other high performers who wield influence. Those continuing to force prohibition risk being labeled as irrelevant at best and are holding back the competitive potential of the company’s employees.

Holding back innovations doesn’t sound like a good place to be. But no doubt, some IT managers will believe that Surface may provide the key to turning back the clock. Surface appears to have enough of a tablet in it for the IT organization to be able to tell users wanting a mobile client — make that an iPad — that they can make do with Surface. And it’s enough of a laptop that users can be put off buying a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.

So they believe. So Steve Ballmer hopes.