At 5:35 PM +0200 19/8/11, Knut S. Vikør wrote:
>I am holding out installing Lion as long as 
>possible, because of non-upgraded applications. 
>Also, I am still master of my own Mac both at 
>home and at work. But the IT department at our 
>campus are threatening to install "administered 
>systems" on office Macs, like they have on 
>Windows side, where we employees will not have 
>admin privileges and will only have access to 
>our separate user accounts (and our local Macs 
>will be run from a central server, like Win. 
>Apparently this is possible). Any changes that 
>requires admin privileges can only be done by 
>the IT staff.
>
>I have warned all colleagues to resist this, and 
>will try to hold off (happily they do not yet 
>have enough staff to make this happen)

The key to how stupid this is and what is really 
going on is in your last remark in parenthesis 
here. It will NOT be cost-effective, the IT 
department needs more staff to do it, but it is 
about control -- they want to have control, no 
matter how unnecessary this is. And, of course, 
the boss of the IT department wants to make his 
department bigger and himself more powerful so he 
can pull himself a rung or two higher in the 
corporate tree and command more money for himself.

The great revolution was getting computing on to 
the desktop and out of centralized control -- 
now, under such soft and cuddly names as "cloud" 
and the lure of connectivity, we are being hauled 
back into centralized control again.

Keep resisting, Knut!

Cheers, geoff