By 2008, 10 per cent of enterprises worldwide will require employees to purchase their own notebooks for use in the workplace, predicts industry analyst Gartner.

The analyst firm predicts that notebooks will begin to move from company ownership to personal ownership as today’s business-owned notebooks are commonly used for personal purposes, such as email, music and video anyway.

“Transferring notebook ownership to employees does not eliminate the cost of PCs, but shifts it to employee benefits and indirect user operational costs,” said Leslie Fiering, research vice president at Gartner.

“The payback is removing PC assets from the company books and freeing IT to focus on critical business initiatives.”

Gartner believes that since notebook prices have declined dramatically during the past few years, this transition is mostly likely to be managed through the implementation of a notebook allowance, much like enterprises account for car mileage today.

The prediction is one of six IT industry trends unveiled this week that Gartner expects will cause significant disruption and drive opportunity for businesses and the IT industry in 2006 and beyond. The first of the series of special reports will be available later this month.