Honestly, I think of a company like a F1 racing team and the developers as the drivers. It's OK to have policies and processes in place but the devs/drivers are

Honestly, I think of a company like a F1 racing team and the developers as the drivers. It's OK to have policies and processes in place but the devs/drivers are the ones who have to use the equipment the most and will be most in-tune with their nuances. I have always believed in empowering the developers as much as possible because at the end of the day, their productivity is a direct result of their own actions and not the managements'. I would say have a configuration in place, but if a developer wants a different setup, let them be the ultimate decision maker in the tools they use, even if the management thinks that they have something better. The only company I've ever worked for (out of 4 web design jobs) that insisted certain hardware/software was an ad agency where the owner had no knowledge of web development but liked apples because they thought they were cool. I had to put up with the first-gen intel macs on OSX for about 9 months before I left.