By Andy McCue, 21 October 2003 17:45
NEWS General IT budget pressures and security issues are more important than wireless connectivity, which is seen as a "value-added" rather than "fundamental" infrastructure change by the silicon.com CIO Jury.
A recent analyst report suggested that wireless connectivity of the workforce is now the most pressing issue for IT departments in the UK but silicon.com's exclusive panel of IT chiefs voted almost unanimously against that claim, with just one supporting it.
Kevin Lloyd, CTO at Barclays, echoed the sentiments of many on the jury who recognise the potential of wireless technology but put it way down the list of current priorities.
"Our customer focus, relentless service improvement and cost measures would be well ahead. I think we will need to tackle and exploit this capability but it's not prime-time currently," he said.
While wireless networking offers greater flexibility and greater productivity for the office, mobile and home worker, Gavin Whatrup, IT director at advertising agency Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners, said issues with the 'wired world' are more important.
"Wireless connectivity will be value-added infrastructure change rather than a fundamental one. There will always be more pressing issues for IT departments to address. Viruses, spam, security, resilience and personnel all feature more brightly on the IT manager's radar," he said.
Graham Yellowley, director of technology at Tokyo-Mitsubishi bank in London, and Graham Benson, information services director and CIO at Screwfix both cited the bottom line and business issues as more important.
"No doubt it is important but there are many other issues that have higher priority like cost reduction and management, improving IT governance and providing business value," said Yellowley.
Others on the CIO Jury admitted to looking at various wireless networking technologies only for specific niche areas of the business.
Ian Auger, head of IT and communications at ITN, said: "It is something we are looking at but its adoption depends upon the business needs and the advantages wireless can bring. We have a couple of niche applications that will benefit from wireless but there is no advantage for us adopting it in any other areas."
The one wireless evangelist on the panel was Dr Stuart Brough, director of IT services at University of Strathclyde. "Wireless connectivity and mobility is one of the main cornerstones for our IT strategy along with a secure, robust and resilient infrastructure. We have turned this philosophy into our '4 As theme' - Any device can connect across Any network to Any content from Anywhere in the world," he said.
Today's CIO Jury was...
Martin Armitage, Head of Global Information Organisation, Unilever
Ian Auger, Head of IT and Communications, ITN
Graham Benson, Information Services Director and CIO, Screwfix
Dr Stuart Brough, Director of IT Services, University of Strathclyde
Ric Francis, CIO, Safeway
Derek Gannon, IT Director, The Guardian
Mark Lichtenhein, Director of IT and New Media, PGA European Tour
Kevin Lloyd, CTO, Barclays
Gavin Whatrup, IT Director, Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners
Paul Worthington, CTO, Kingfisher
Graham Yellowley, Director of Technology, Tokyo-Mitsubishi
David Yu, CTO, Betfair.com
If you are a CIO, IT director or equivalent at a large or small company in the private or public sector and want to be part of silicon.com's exclusive CIO Jury pool, or you know an IT chief who should be, then drop as a line at editorial@silicon.com.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Companies should be embracing this stuff. Staff want to move around - and wouldn't you rather they were moving around doing work for you, rather than moving around looking for a job someplace where they are 'living in the now'...
2. stephen curry
what a great new service from my favourite IT news site - keep up the great work
3. Ian Wilson
What rubbish! If you want to work from home and travel around and do all this sort of thing then go self-employed... why should companies foot the bill so some people who never had it so good anyway can go and lead an even better life!! Some of us work 10 hours a day practically chained to our desk... and do we grumble. NO!
4. Geoff Inns
Ian - maybe you should grumble. It's not the dark ages.
5. Richard Thomas
I don't understand these comments. Why is is it up to the IT function to decide how people should work? If it is appropriate for company staff such as sales people, engineers and senior executives to travel to meet customers, and they need access to information and other facilities without having to return to the office, then surely IT should be tasked (and resourced) to provide it.