What can you do about it? There's at least one obvious answer: Outlaw company laptops on vacation.

Obvious, sure -- and worse than useless. It won't work, and it'll irritate users. Some will ignore your demand and schlep their laptops along regardless, complaining all the while about how clueless IT is when it comes to business needs. Others will leave their laptops at home -- and then use unsecured PCs at hotel business centers, taking along their data on easy-to-lose thumb drives. Some big improvement, huh?

Don't fight the trend. Go with it. Require laptops for users who want to do work on vacation.

How? By making your network available only through a virtual private network. No VPN? No access to e-mail, corporate applications or business data.

Think about it: A VPN requirement cuts out hotel PCs, thumb drives and oddball mobile devices. It also lets you make sure every laptop with your VPN client software also has a firewall and virus protection. (Don't be stingy if a user wants to take along his own laptop. Giving away a little software is cheap insurance, and if it keeps users happy and safe, it's worth the price.)