Hot seat: Dave Allerton, IT director at RHWL

What does your job entail?

Providing IT and telecom services and support internationally for our staff.

How did you get into IT?

Purely by chance – I was working in a drawing office when computer-aided design (CAD) first came along. From there I moved into CAD management, then into IT management.

Which person do you most admire in IT?

Not one individual but a set of five brothers – Keith, Greg, Ray, Barry and Scott Bentley, who developed a PC-based CAD application back in 1985. They have kept the firm as a private company – Bentley Systems, with $500m (£295m) annual revenue and a product that knocks AutoCAD into a cocked hat, in my opinion.

Who has been the most influential IT vendor?

Microsoft, but I think it may become to Google what IBM was to Microsoft.

Which technology has had the biggest impact on your working life?

Email. It is a classic example of a simple idea becoming one of the most important technologies on the planet. Recently, though, implementing ARX from F5 Networks has made my life easier and saved RHWL more than £243,000 a year.

Which recent IT news item will have the biggest impact on your firm, or the industry in general?

Bentley and AutoDesk recently signed an interoperability agreement, which includes the sharing of software libraries, and promises to make collaborative working between architects and other design disciplines much smoother and more efficient.

What is the most over-hyped technology?

Software-as-a-service/cloud computing marketing promotes more than it delivers. Not much work is being done on standards, security and the rest of the boring stuff that makes technology usable.