????它潛伏在臥室，滲透進了董事會，在電腦、筆記本和平板電腦上瘋傳。它像病毒一樣防不勝防，勢不可擋。

????“草根IT”是指由員工帶到職場的臨時性軟件或設(shè)備。如果你曾經(jīng)把自己的iPad帶到工作位，或者使用過類似Evernote或Dropbox這樣的云端軟件，那么你很可能就是一個用過“草根IT”的人。這樣的人其實不在少數(shù)。一項對500名IT決策者進行的調(diào)查顯示，43%的企業(yè)表示，他們的員工正在自行使用云端服務(wù)，而這種行為并不受IT部門控制。

????過去，對于負(fù)責(zé)企業(yè)IT和電腦系統(tǒng)的首息信息官（CIO）們來說，這些企業(yè)軟硬件一直是他們難以攻克的禁地。科技投資公司基準(zhǔn)資本（Benchmark Capital）的彼得?芬頓形容CIO“穿著灰色西裝，坐在高高的椅子上發(fā)號施令，為大公司甚至更大的用戶群做產(chǎn)品決策。”但草根IT卻反其道而行之，有效地通過眾包的方式將IT選擇權(quán)下放給到員工手里。那么這種現(xiàn)象給CIO們帶來了哪些啟示？它對大企業(yè)的IT前景又意味著什么？

????好消息是，企業(yè)IT還有很多改進的空間。“首席信息官網(wǎng)站”（CIO.com）的伯納德?高頓寫道：“（傳統(tǒng)IT）總是意味著沒完沒了的發(fā)放新軟件，而且軟件的界面混亂，功能模糊，價格高昂。”這是因為CIO們最先考慮的一向是軟件的安全性、合法性和后端的兼容性，而不是實用性。因此，員工有時只能使用這些一點也不直觀的軟件。這種情況在時間、金錢和組織健康方面都給企業(yè)造成了沉重的代價。

????科技博客TechCrunch的撰稿人艾倫?柯恩指出，在過去，一線員工沒有什么選擇權(quán)，只能湊合著用這些效率低下的軟硬件。但是隨著在線軟件、云端軟件服務(wù)的迅速增長（又稱軟件即服務(wù)，SaaS），現(xiàn)在普通員工已經(jīng)可以繞過企業(yè)IT，“自己動手，解決問題”。

????如今老式的企業(yè)軟件已經(jīng)漸漸行不通了。《快速公司》（Fast Company）的撰稿人馬西婭?康納寫道，“80后”的年輕人受Facebook和以及其它類似的直觀平臺的影響，非常害怕面對冗長無比的電子表格，也不愿意解碼web 1.0界面，而是希望他們的工作軟件能像他們在私人生活中使用的應(yīng)用程序一樣簡單易用，這種趨勢就是所謂的IT消費化。而且這些年輕人也愿意從企業(yè)之外尋找最適合他們的軟件產(chǎn)品。

????以文件分享為例。微軟出品的SharePoint是一款傳統(tǒng)的企業(yè)軟件，許多企業(yè)都用它來管理文檔和分享內(nèi)容。不過也有一些人批評它死板、復(fù)雜，而且對網(wǎng)絡(luò)不夠友好。

????Box則是一款2005年推出的文檔分享服務(wù)，雖然現(xiàn)在現(xiàn)不是非常流行，但是它提供了一個簡單、易用的替代選擇。用戶幾乎不用下載、安裝，只需要點擊幾下，就可以分享內(nèi)容了。免費+增值的商業(yè)模式也促進了它的采用率。Box和網(wǎng)絡(luò)上的其它許多“軟件即服務(wù)”解決方案一樣（如Yammer、LastPass、Dropbox、Evernote等），對個人用戶基本上也是免費的，只是對升級服務(wù)和企業(yè)版收費。

????科技博客GeekWire的托德?比夏普在總結(jié)“軟件即服務(wù)”（SaaS）的病毒式傳播模式時寫道：“個人和集體……一開始自行使用這些產(chǎn)品，不過很多情況下導(dǎo)致了他們的企業(yè)IT部門也開始跟進，注冊了這些產(chǎn)品的高級管理工具。”比如一款應(yīng)用最初可能只有營銷部門的一小部分人使用，然后突然有一天就越過了部門的界限，在整個公司范圍內(nèi)流行開來。

????與此同時，《PC世界》的托尼?布拉德利指出，目前流行的“自帶設(shè)備上班”（BYOD）文化也促進了SaaS的發(fā)展。隨著私人智能手機和平板電腦逐漸進入工作場合，員工們不再被束縛在自己的PC前面，也不像過去那樣依賴傳統(tǒng)軟件。在個人iPad上下載云端應(yīng)用不需要IT部門的批準(zhǔn)，也無需復(fù)雜的審批流程。

????最后，最佳的SaaS解決方案會被民主地提交到高層。員工們在工作環(huán)境中已經(jīng)測試了不同的解決方案，而且在最理想的情況下，最有效的軟件會自然浮出水面。受民主壓力所迫，首席信息官在軟件選擇流程中只能順?biāo)浦郏庠谌痉秶鷥?nèi)推廣最受歡迎的應(yīng)用的高級版本。

????員工和終端用戶在選擇工作軟件上的這種新的權(quán)力也得到了Yammer首席執(zhí)行官大衛(wèi)?薩克斯的認(rèn)可。Yammer又被人稱為“Facebook版的辦公室套件”，這家公司最近剛被微軟以12億美元的價格收購。薩克斯稱：“他們會說：‘這就是我想用的工具，這個工具能讓我的工作更有效率。來吧，IT部門，我們就用這套軟件吧。”

????It's out there: lurking in cubicles, infiltrating boardrooms, pulsing through desktops and laptops and tablets. Viral. Relentless. Unstoppable.

????Rogue IT is the name given to the informal, ad hoc software and devices brought by employees into the workplace. If you've ever taken your own iPad to work or used cloud-based software like Evernote or Dropbox in the office, you may well be an offender. And you're not alone. Some 43% of businesses report that their employees are using cloud services independently of the IT department, according to a recent survey of 500 IT decision makers.

????In the past, these enterprise software and hardware decisions were often the exclusive domain of a company's chief information officer or CIO, the senior executive in charge of information technology and computer systems. "Sitting in his high chair in a grey suit barking orders, [the CIO would make] product decisions for big companies with even larger user bases," explains Peter Fenton of tech investors Benchmark Capital. Rogue IT turns that model on its head, effectively crowdsourcing IT choices to employees. So where does this leave the venerable CIO? And what does it mean for the future of IT at the world's largest enterprises?

????The good news is that enterprise IT has plenty of room for improvement. "[Traditional IT] carries connotations of interminable rollouts, bewildering interfaces, obscure functionality and high prices," writes CIO.com's Bernard Golden. Security, compliance and back-end compatibility have traditionally topped CIO wish lists, not usability. As a result, employees have sometimes been left with programs that are anything but intuitive. This exacted a heavy toll in terms of time, money and organizational well-being.

????In the past, however, front-line workers would have had little choice but to struggle with these clunky legacy programs dictated from above. But the rapid growth of online, cloud-based software options (known as SaaS, or software-as-a-service) has now enabled ordinary workers to bypass IT and "take matters into their own hands," explains TechCrunch contributor Alan Cohen.

????Bloated, enterprise software no longer cuts it. Seduced by Facebook (FB) and similarly intuitive platforms at home, millennials balk at staring down monster spreadsheets or decoding web 1.0 UIs at work, writes Fast Company contributor Marcia Conner. Increasingly, they expect their work suites and software to be just as user-friendly as the apps they know and love in their personal lives, a trend known as the consumerization of IT. And they're willing to go outside company walls to find products that work best for them.

????File sharing offers a ready example. Microsoft (MSFT) SharePoint is traditional enterprise software used by organizations to manage documents and share content. Critics complain, not infrequently, that the platform can be rigid, convoluted and web unfriendly.

????While not quite as robust, Box -- a file sharing service launched in 2005 -- offers an easy-to-use, online alternative. With little to download or install, users can share content after a few clicks. Freemium pricing encourages adoption. Like many popular SaaS solutions on the web (Yammer, LastPass, Dropbox, Evernote), Box is generally free for individual users. Charges are only assessed for upgraded and enterprise-wide editions.

????"Individuals and groups . . . start using the product initially on their own, in many cases leading their corporate IT departments to sign up for premium management and administration tools," writes GeekWire's Todd Bishop, summing up the typical viral adoption model. An app might start out with a dedicated clique of users in marketing, for instance, then one day jump departmental walls and go company-wide.

????Meanwhile, the process is fueled by contemporary BYOD (that's Bring-Your-Own-Device) culture. With personal smartphones and tablets entering the workplace, employees are no longer tied to their work PC, with its legacy software determined from on high. Firing up cloud-based apps on your own iPad requires no blessing from IT, no complex approval procedure, writes PCWorld's Tony Bradley.

????In the end, the best SaaS solutions rise to the top democratically. Employees do the hard work of beta-testing different options in the workplace and - in the best-case scenarios - the most effective software emerges naturally. The CIO's role in the selection process is reduced to signing off on premium, enterprise-wide editions of the most popular apps.

????Yammer CEO David Sacks, whose company (a "Facebook for the office") was recently acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion, points out the newfound authority of employees and end users: "They're saying, 'This is the tool I want to use. This is the tool that's going to make me productive. And come on, IT, let's get with the program.'"