Two technologies long-promoted by suppliers are gaining
a stronger foothold in corporate IT, the latest Computer Weekly CIO
Index survey has revealed.
Tablet PCs, which allow handwritten user input, and voice over
IP, which enables data and voice traffic to be managed on the same
network, have become more widely used by UK businesses in the
months since our inaugural survey for the CIO Index was carried out
in April.
The latest research provides further evidence of how IT
directors have taken to VoIP this year, targeting savings from
reduced call charges and lower network costs. The results suggest
that misgivings about the maturity of the technology have largely
evaporated as service reliability has improved and doubts about
security have eased.
The CIO Index found that 23% of enterprises have fully deployed
VoIP, up from 15% in June and 10% in April, and departmental
roll-outs have increased from 29% in June to 32%.
One example of the take-up of VoIP is Lloyds TSB Corporate
Markets' newly created trading floor for derivatives, foreign
exchange, credit and debt capital trading, which has a VoIP-enabled
voice trading infrastructure from IPC. The system has been designed
to reduce possible points of failure and to allow the addition of
new trader voice circuits within a day - a process that took three
to four days in the past.
It is also notable because Lloyds TSB's decision to adopt it
flies in the face of earlier calls from banks to tread warily
around VoIP. In May, the chief security officers of investment
banks Dresdner Kleinwort and Standard Chartered told delegates at
the Infosecurity conference that VoIP was too insecure to replace
traditional business telephone networks and had a long way to go
before it would be secure enough for major business use.
Use of tablet PCs is also increasing, although adoption remains
lower than for VoIP.
Introduced in 2002, it was claimed at the time by Microsoft
founder Bill Gates that the tablet PC would revolutionise the way
people worked and bring digital pen technology into the mainstream.
"Within five years, most mobile PCs will have tablet PC
functionality," Gates said.
In reality, the transformation has been less dramatic. According
to analyst firm IDC, tablets represent about 1% of the total
notebook PC market, but the CIO Index suggests that a corner is
being turned.
The survey found that tablet PCs had been fully deployed in 3%
of organisations, up from 1% in June and, more tellingly,
departmental deployments have risen from 19% in June to 29% in the
latest survey.
The rise may point to the fact that IT departments are finally
finding uses for the technology that can bring demonstrable
benefits.
For example, Cambridgeshire County Council's Social Services
Department recently began using tablets to provide a mobile
information gathering and sharing system. Its elderly-patient care
team uses collaborative software with the tablets to harmonise the
service it offers. This has cut duplicate visits, saving the
department £3m a year.
Elsewhere, the CIO Index showed that adoption of open source
technologies is on the increase, with 7% having deployed it across
their organisations by September, compared with 2% in June.
But older operating systems are being abandoned: deployments of
Windows Server 2003 across the organisation fell from 40% in June
to 28% in September.
www.computerweekly.com/cioindex
About the computer weekly cio index
The CIO Index is Computer Weekly's quarterly online survey of IT
directors in the Computer Weekly 500 Club. The research is
conducted by our parent company Reed Business Information's market
research department, strictly adhering to the Market Research
Society's code of conduct.
In the technology adoption report, respondents graded their
replies to a statement according to five categories: full
deployment across the business, used in one or more departments,
pilot studies, reviewing potential and no action taken. Between 129
and 133 IT directors responded to each question.
In addition to tracking technology adoption in UK businesses,
the CIO Index highlights trends and provides analysis of key
metrics for IT expenditure and the business readiness of emerging
technologies.
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