I really shouldn't have started reading this thread, it makes my blood boil, IT departments taking useful tools and turning them into bricks.
Speaking of bricks, here is an example, a local brick making company wanted to log the temperature of bricks during testing. Getting the logger was no problem but they weren't allowed to install the software that retrieves the data and IT only visited site once a year. They ended up paying me to go to site to get the data. Of course once I got the data I couldn't email it to them because it violated their email policy, so I had to go back to site with my laptop so they could view the data. This was a tool to help them make better bricks, but IT stopped them from using it effectively.
A multinational chemical company I deal with, occasionally ask for software updates which I am happy to do, except that I can't email the files to them, and even if I could email them to them they can't have the software to install them on a machine. The engineers have ended up with their own laptops that they actually do the work on and the company laptop that the use to access the company intranet. They have personal email addresses to talk to most people and their work email addresses that they use to talk to their bosses. For one urgent upgrade I telephoned the IT department to see If I could get it to an engineer, you could hear his head spinning around when I said I wanted to email a 'Program', "emailing of programs is prohibited", he couldn't understand that the 'program' in question had nothing to do with 'computer programs'. And finally we have no way for them to store PLC and HMI programs that I write for their machines on their local PCs or central server, so I am their only record of work done, if I 'pop my clogs' prematurely they are totally screwed.
There really does have to be a better way for IT to work, to allow the rest of us to work effectively. At the moment they are killing the thing that gives them a job.
Rant over.
Bryan