Apple iTunes on Enterprise Computers: Problem or Non-Issue?

Apple's iTunes is by far one of the most popular and widely-used consumer IT applications available today. It's likely more of your users have an iPod and employ iTunes than staffers that don't, especially if they're at all tech-savvy. And many of those folks have probably installed the program on their corporate computers—unless, of course, there are measures in place to stop them from doing so.

I've got iTunes on my work PC, and I use it everyday—ahem, for work purposes, of course. As you may have guessed, I'm a writer. And when I'm buckling down to scribble out my next product review or blog entry, I plug in my earbuds and unplug from the cacophony of office clatter around me. I really do use iTunes to get work done. (Though I must admit there are a few episodes of Lost on my hard drive, as well.)

Last week, a staffer from my IT department sent out an e-mail to the company, reminding us that our corporate PCs are business tools owned by the enterprise and that they should be used as such. Personal files like photos or music—no, iTunes wasn't fingered specifically, but we all got the point—should be kept on our personal PCs, and not on our work machines.

I understand why our IT department doesn't want iTunes installed on all their computers. I know that iTunes itself is a memory hog, music files are large, and collections of iTunes songs or video clips can be enormous. The performance of enterprise computers is affected by iTunes, and it can then be assumed that performance of the iTunes-using employee is also affected. There are also a number of potential copyright issues smart CIOs need to consider.

Many organizations ban iTunes outright. Marriot for instance doesn't allow iTunes registration on its corporate machines by users, according to a Computerworld news story from last week. But is that the route to take?

My colleague Ben Worthen recently wrote a piece on why such an approach is the wrong

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Mon, Jun 25, 2007 16:38 EDT

Posted by: Chris Moore
Rating:

Al,

I agree, we need to stop being so crazy about regulating things that help people manage in this hectic, crazy world we all call home.

As a CIO, I am more focussed on ensuring that staff have the right tools to do the job, not funcitoning like some out of control power broker who is trying to sanitize life. So people in our organization can still IM, they can still get to YouTUBE, and they can still make photocopies without having to enter in a secret code that says "we don't trust you".

After all Adults, mature sensible adults work in our organizations, we need to treat them as if we trust and respect them. If we start to control and regulate everything, just because we can, WHERE DOES IT END.

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Thu, Jul 10, 2008 17:51 EDT

Posted by: Sridhar
Rating:

Chris,
I agree that these regulatory standards might force enterprises to say "we don't trust you" to employees. If not followed, they might hear "we don't trust you" from those authorities. Many reliable and trustworthy businesses/enterprises are truly scared off.

The other side of the story goes in opposite direction.Why are we still using the out-dated and expired Mail Technologies. SMTP standards are developed by the so called "We Trust Each Other" great minded people ~30 years ago. If that's really true - today we wouldn't be worrying about spam/viruses/trojans and stealing valuable information thru email connected devices.

But the great thing is... it is good to see Apple's efforts to enter enterprise world. And they have a long road ahead.

My two cents. Thx.

Sridhar

Mon, Jun 25, 2007 19:58 EDT

Posted by: Sonny
Rating:

Interesting blog; there are pros and cons to both sides, but again, it would be a shame for a few abusers to ruin iTunes' use for employees who actually use the iTunes for productive purposes.

Tue, Jun 26, 2007 10:13 EDT

Posted by: dave-torre
Rating:

I agree with Sonny in that there are pros and cons. (Pros: iPods can be used for work. Cons: They can be considered time-wasters if your employee is watching Lost while she should be working. etc)

Just as a techincal aside: I've encoutnered issues getting iTunes to work behing authenticating proxies-- a system often deployed in corporate network environments.

Tue, Jun 26, 2007 12:29 EDT

Posted by: Mike
Rating:

The biggest problem I've seen with iTunes in an enterprise setting is hard disk space. We use roaming profiles and many people don't realize that their entire MP3 collection that they keep in their profile is getting replicated across our servers eating up space and bandwidth. Unfortunately, the easiest way to curb this waste of precious resources is to disallow use of programs like iTunes altogether. Sure we could find a way to filter out certain file types from being copied or work with users to keep their personal files in a folder on the local drive that isn't copied with their profile but this would be a waste of resources and time that could be used elsewhere. Not to mention we would end up with some users that place valuable data in those folders only to have them lost on a system crash.

Apple iTunes on Enterprise Computers: Problem or Non-Issue?

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