Eliminating Laptop Theft "Easy As Pie" for Storage Networking Industry Association

When Rick Bauer calls Computrace Complete, a computer theft recovery and Secure Asset Tracking^® solution, as “easy as pie”, IT professionals take note. Bauer is Director of Technology at the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), a trade organization with a mandate to make storage networking technologies understandable, simple to implement and easy to manage. The SNIA’s value comes from taking complicated business needs and turning them into simple, easy to understand IT requirements. That’s why when Bauer talks about simple solutions, that is exactly what he means: taking a seemingly complicated business need and finding a practical IT solution.

On a daily basis, Bauer deals with the technical requirements of a trade organization with 400 member companies, a small team of fulltime employees and an army of hundreds of volunteers dispersed throughout the world. It’s a challenging job, but Bauer’s genius lies in his ability to understand how technology can be used to solve larger business challenges. Take for example the issue of computer theft. Some skeptics might argue that theft is an inevitable organizational reality, but this is a position that Bauer does not accept.

“If you implement solutions that address the root of a problem, then quite often subtle technological modifications can invoke sweeping organizational change,” Bauer reflected. “In this case, we knew that regardless of how prevalent laptop theft might be, we also knew we couldn’t afford to lose any machines.”

Bauer explained that losing even a single laptop could cause untold headaches. In addition to the $5,000 in replacement hardware and software, the greater cost would be the loss of sensitive information, intellectual property, unique presentation material, business data and all the intangible costs such as loss in productivity and missed deadlines. Given the high stakes, losing a laptop was not really an option.

By stepping back and looking at the whole picture, Bauer recognized that there had to be a way to draw together the seemingly disparate elements of how an organization functions and how technology can be used to solve the specific problems of loss prevention, data protection and regulatory compliance. From a previous position, Bauer knew of a product from Absolute Software called Computrace Complete that could track and recover stolen computers by placing a small, undetectable piece of software on the laptops. The software works by calling into a monitoring centre on a regular basis. In the event the machine goes missing, a trace can be placed on it to track and recover the lost computer. Bauer reasoned that just having the software installed would deter any internal theft and recover any machines that were the result of external theft.

Implementing Computrace Complete was a fine example of that rare talent of taking a complicated set of organizational issues regarding theft, data protection, and regulatory compliance and solving them all with a simple technical solution.

“The technical and IT managers who work for me are experienced professionals, and nothing much gets by them. But they had to admit that ‘the boss came up with a pretty good solution’ to the laptop theft/loss problem when he recommended Computrace.”

“For managing remote laptops in a global organization, Computrace is handsdown the favorite – even more so for storage network technology,” commented Bauer. “I would rate this product an A+.”

So when Rick Bauer gives Computrace Complete the stamp of approval, it truly means that the tool must be simple and effective.