UK failing to respect computing heritage

IT chiefs have hit out at the lack of respect the UK as a nation gives to its computing heritage following the mothballing of the Museum of Computing in Swindon.

silicon.com asked a number of CIOs whether the UK made the most of its computing history and the answer was a resounding no.

CIO50 2008: Top 10

The UK's leading CIOs revealed…

1.Robin Dargue Royal Mail

2.David Lister Royal Bank of Scotland

3.Neil Cameron Unilever

4.Catherine Doran Network Rail

5.John Suffolk UK government

6.Gordon Lovell-Read Siemens UK

7.Paul Coby British Airways

8.Tania Howarth Birds Eye Iglo Group

9.Simon Post Carphone Warehouse

10.Ben Wishart Whitbread

Some invoked the names of pioneers from the past and the present to illustrate how much the UK has contributed to modern computing.

European IT director at Key Equipment Finance, Nic Evans, said: "Heritage counts for naught in the information economy. Bletchley Park cracking Enigma or Brit Berners-Lee inventing the web gives us as much advantage as Stephenson's Rocket gives us a good national rail network."

Others reflected on the way the UK seems to have failed to make the most of its computing breakthroughs, allowing others to take advantage of our innovations.

Graham Yellowley, head of IT for investment bank Mitsubishi UFJ Securities said: "We have a history of brilliant people creating the most inventive computing related tools on limited budgets and then the intellectual property gets taken over by countries whose commercial sponsorship of such initiatives is much deeper than the UK's."

However, some questioned the point of venerating the past of an industry that reinvents itself so regularly.

David Supple, head of IT at Ecotec Research & Consulting noted that the industry as a whole might prefer not to remember the past.

Supple said: "Heritage and computing are seen as curious bedfellows - it seems an industry that strives to promote itself on bigger, better, faster is somewhat reluctant to mention its smaller, weaker, slower roots however worthy."

Nic Bellenberg, IT director at Hachette Filipacchi UK also questioned the usefulness of exhibiting computers in glass cases. What is more important is recognising the impact these machines had on the societies of their day.

He said: "I feel the most relevance for general interest is gained from seeing things working, and being able to understand what they were used to do. And then you really appreciate what home and work activities have changed immensely over the last 40 years. It shouldn't be about museums of computers, it should be about understanding systems and computing in a social and business historical context."

Mark Foulsham, head of IT at insurance company eSure agreed. Although not enough is done to remember the UK's computing heritage, less is being done to secure its computing future.

Foulsham said: "We can reflect on the past to assist in forward planning but computing history is littered with organisations who looked back rather than forward. So the more important issue is to ensure we're looking forward to invest in skills for future development in the UK. We need the next Google to be a UK start-up."