I repeat my proposal for how corporate tech support should work. This proposal is not necessarily relevent to your tech support situation.

The IT group will install Linux and LTSP terminals. That's what IT will support. Everyone will have access to a wide variety of great open source tools, including a word processor that can read MS Word files, an emailer, and a place to put web pages. Everyone will get great tech support and a computer that virtually never crashes. Your data will be backed up every day if not more often. We promise to be friendly when you call for help.

If there's a program out there you need, you can propose to IT that it should be installed on the LTSP server. We promise to be open-minded about what you want. Open source alternatives will be heavily favored.

If you want to go your own way, you can do so on your own computer and without IT's tech support. IT might even allow you to tie the computer into the network as long as it behaves itself.