Business IT failing user expectations

Consumer technology outperforming enterprise systems

Advances in home computing and entertainment systems will prompt users to demand better technology from businesses this year, according to industry experts.

Speaking at a 2006 industry and technology predictions event hosted by Adobe in London last week, Azeem Azhar, head of innovation at Reuters, said corporate IT users are becoming more tech-savvy, and many consumer technologies are outperforming enterprise systems.

‘Fifteen to 20 years ago our expectations of IT as end users were pretty low,’ said Azhar. ‘But today, if you’re a financial trader and watching TiVo at home and then coming into work playing a PlayStation Portable, you are going to expect better standards than you are receiving.

‘Users are going to ask: “Why can I look at this wonderful interface on an entertainment console that costs no more than £200 but then have to use this terrible, clunky system at work that cost millions?”.’

Users are also likely to question why they can get free email with gigabytes of storage space from companies such as Google, while their corporate email capabilities are limited, says James Bennet, director of technology, communications and entertainment at Ernst & Young.

But boardroom fears about regulatory compliance are likely to restrict the amount of innovation in corporate IT this year, he says.

‘Regulation is very much driving IT spending, and that is stifling innovation. There is no more money being spent on IT, so the chief information officer (CIO) has to do more for less,’ said Bennet. ‘What we are seeing is vanilla IT, where the organisation is preventing people having anywhere near the computing powers they have at home.

‘Many CIOs are preventing instant messaging and stopping users from having the latest PDA because of security or cost considerations. But this is stopping the organisation from adopting the latest productivity tools.’

With regulatory compliance and a shift towards electronic records resulting in a massive increase in data, businesses will need to improve storage and search facilities, says Azhar.

‘As businesses, we are putting on a lot of information that we cannot really deal with,’ he said. ‘People are drowning in a proliferation of content.’