The following is a Hypthotechical situation which if it plays out will
have interesting implications for Telecommuting and Virtualization
Industry.
Since,its election time,I am looking at Socio-economic Problem,naming
rising Oil prices and how it impacts Virtualization and is the Industry ready for massive ramp-up in demand.Additionally,what will be the Security,Management Issues involved here.
Here's the sceanario:Say Obama wins the election and manages to get
Congress together on this; one of His Pledges is to increase Taxes on
gasoline(He will increase Taxes whether or not its not Gasoline is
unclear).Lets say The Federal Sales Tax on Gasoline (currently at
18cents/Gallon) goes up to 50 cents/Gallon.[I know a large number of
readers will get infuriated at this,but lets say it happens,And I will be very happy to discuss The Demand-Supply fundamentals of Oil & what good can come out of this increased Tax windfall(About $55 Billion/Annually) with Interested readers ].
Is the IT Infrastructure in Corporate America ready for this?What are
the Security Implications?How easy will it be for an Intruder to
piggy-back on a genuine users Authentication Credentials?
Are our Data-Pipes ready to handle the increased flow of data?What about Management?Is it ready for employees who show very little or non-existent facetime?Say if by 2012 35% of Total Man-hours logged in America work Remotely.
I was going through a similar study in Britain and Management there are just not ready for this sort of change,and they are to right to have reservations.
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/sep2008/gb2008095_815439.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_global+business
I can say from personal experience that whenever a laptop which belongs
to a Telecommuter comes back into our Main Office,it brings along some
malware/Trojans along with it.Sure,even if you use dedicated Lines/VPN you still have to realise that Protection is less outside the Company Firewall than inside and you cannnot control Users Behaviour 100% of the time,especially at home.
But on the other hand I can also say that I am a really big fan of telecommuting as it lets me multi-task and avoid Rush Hour Traffic very effectively.
What do readers on this awesome website think? Or am I just making a mountain of a mole-hill?
