The precise timing of forecasts is not my specialty. I often get the general direction right . . . but the timing is admittedly tricky.

I think my worst miss was back in the early 1980s when I was invited to speak to a national convention of pharmaceutical industry sales people. I told them that within five years there would be only half as many of them in the industry. It was already pretty obvious that promoting the use of drugs through one-on-one conversations between sales reps and doctors was a fairly inefficient model, given the growth of HMOs and generic drugs. I was sure that some company would re-think that operating model, take the plunge and score a big win.

Needless to say, they have never invited me back. And, for 20 years, the size of pharmaceutical sales forces industry-wide continued to increase. Although the industry is starting to consolidate and rethink significant parts of the cost structure, I continue to shake my head at how off I was on the timing.

With that warning, Im going to try again. I think that within five years, maybe sooner, most companies will no longer supply computers for their employees. Workers will be expected to show up, computer in hand. Technology will be personal.

Generation Y workers entering the workforce today already own their own technology. It is as much a part of their personal being as wallets are to their parents. Computers are their address books, calendars, photo albums, music machines, and note pads all rolled into one. They dont want to use the corporate computer, which in many cases is less sophisticated than the one they own. Ys in our focus groups frequently commented that they had to unlearn how to do something in order to use the companys old systems.

Soon the concept of corporations supplying computers (and cell phones) will be as outdated as the clothing allowances of the 1950s or company calculators of the 1970s. All tomorrows employees will ask is that business beams them in.

In many ways, this will be a blessing for corporations. The IT community devised the phrase end-user computing to describe what was a big trend in the 1980s: equipping business people with tools not only for accessing corporate applications, but also for enhancing their work and their communication with colleagues. Corporations then tried to control end-user computing with standards and administration systems, but its been a headache -- and a major expense -- ever since.

Sophisticated IT leaders today recognize that the assumptions underlying the management of this set of dispersed activities have become obsolete. My colleagues Nick Vitalari and Bob Morison, along with James Cash, retired Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, will be conducting a major piece of research this fall, working with a group of leading CIOs to explore this evident transition.

Its clearly time for corporations to extricate themselves from end-user computing. Instead of dictating the boundaries, companies should think in terms of participating in the network. Instead of determining which technologies to adopt or reject, they need to devise appropriate ways to connect and authenticate useful technologies of many kinds. Instead of focusing on maintaining tight control, they must focus on enabling productive collaboration, both within and across the corporate boundaries.

The biggest barrier to this transformation may well be attitudinal. The impulse to control employee computing runs deep. What about hackers? Employee error or malfeasance? Government regulations (like Sarbanes-Oxley) that demand we be ever-so-careful with the management of key information? Security and privacy are always key concerns, but now is not the time to take an arbitrary and restrictive stance. The shift from control to collaboration is well under way in technology architecture, business management, and individual and group behavior. Its time to encourage, not impede, employees ability to collaborate with colleagues, customers, business partners, and prospective customers and employees.

Now, let me make a confession: I first made this prediction five years ago. Nonetheless, I think (soon) you can tell your employees to buy their own computers.

What do you think?

HARVARD BUSINESS ONLINE RECOMMENDS:
Getting IT Right (HBR Article)
The New CIO Leader: Setting the Agenda and Delivering Results (Hardcover)
What It Means to Work Here (HBR Article)