26 November 2007
by Simon Quicke
The increasing movement of security to provide productivity tools continues to get resellers a foot in the door at an SME level, but it could also be an enterprise pitch.
The reaction from some corporates to the Web 2.0 phenomenon appears to be an inflexible decision to ban access to sites that waste time according to research from Clearswift.
In its survey of HR professionals the vendor found that half of them had disciplined staff as a result of wasting time and two-thirds had implemented a blanket ban on sites that gave them concern, including Facebook.
The productivity issue has been gaining attention in the channel in recent weeks and there seems little prospect of it being diminished in the short term (MicroScope 19 November).
Alyn Hockey, director of product management at Clearswift, said the response from companies had to be balanced, and preventing staff from accessing Web 2.0 sites could backfire.
"Those companies that just turn it off could face employee backlash," he said.
Hockey added that the wave of graduate recruits expected to use these tools and technology should be used to monitor and allow access at given times of the day.
Resellers have also indicated that web-filtering tools are being used as a way of controlling and blocking access to sites that are deemed to be wasting working time.
One dealer said that for those companies where web access was rolled out across the entire workforce, the idea that some of them were looking for holidays as well as checking up on old school friends filled them with dread: "They want to know that we can help them ensure staff are working".
Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of Wick Hill, said that resellers could start by selling productivity tools and then start introducing more security sales around internal and external threats.
