That said, some users are clinging to floppies, making IT pay the price in terms of help desk resources. "End users' refusal to give up this familiar technology requires us all to continue to support them," says Tom Gonzales, senior network administrator at the Colorado State Employees Credit Union in Denver.

Gonzales says he agrees that users need some sort of local external, portable storage, but that storage should be secured and easy to manage. He encourages those on his network to use USB thumb drives and DVDs. Thumb drives feature security such as password protection and encryption for heightened security and the DVDs have larger capacity than CDs.

What should go: Desktop printers

Replace them with: Shared, centralized printers

Go to any organization and you're bound to see offices each equipped with desktop printers. Users retain individual printers for two reasons -- convenience and confidentiality. However, as IT groups become more centralized and help desk resources constrained, the upkeep required for personal printers is too great, according to Dawn Sawyer, IS operations manager at GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas. She recommends consolidating printers so that multiple users can share them and the help desk has less burden in terms of hardware and software upkeep.